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A few minutes before the period was over, I picked up my tray and dumped the remainder of my food in the trash. As I swung my backpack over one shoulder, I swore I could feel the comforting weight of the little black book inside it. I’d bought a small flash drive when I got my new laptop and had wedged it between the pages of the book.
I would keep every dirty secret I found in that book—every recording, every picture. Every bit of evidence I could gather to use against the Princes would sit between those pages, and I’d make sure what I got was good enough to justify the risk I was taking.
I had American Literature after lunch, and Finn was in my class. I could feel his gaze on me, but every time I turned to look at him, he was staring straight forward. Gym was next, and I started working on Mr. Bowen right away, already desperate to return to my little haven on the second floor. Just like when I had asked the first time, he grunted under his breath and gave a half shrug, half nod.
“Yeah, sure. Just don’t make me regret it.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t. I promise.”
I couldn’t suppress my smile of relief, and even though I didn’t have my ballet shoes or any of my other gear, I went up to the room anyway and did a light workout, letting my body remember the movements it hadn’t done in too many weeks.
Seventh period was Calculus II, and although none of the Princes were in that class, Adena and Sable both were. A sneer tilted Adena’s lips as soon as she saw me. She hadn’t been in the hallway when I confronted the Princes, but I didn’t think it mattered. Adena hated me for her own personal reasons, and she didn’t listen to the Princes. They might not have decided what to do about my sudden reappearance yet, but she definitely had.
“Back for more, Idaho trash?” she hissed as she and Sable passed by my desk. “What, did you get sick of banging hillbillies? Thought you’d spread your chlamydia to everyone here too? Why didn’t you just stay the fuck out? Nobody wants you here!”
I lifted my gaze, letting a slow smile overtake my face. Mason was a fucking asshole, but he’d at least given me one thing I knew I could use against Adena. “You’re just mad because all the guys here think I’m hotter than you.”
Her perfectly tanned features paled a little, then she shook her head, her blonde hair catching the light. “No. They just think you’re sluttier than me.” She arched a brow. “And judging by that video, they’re obviously right.”
She and Sable swept past me, and I gripped my pencil hard, resisting the urge to stab her with it.
As soon as class was over, I grabbed my bag and joined the throng of students in the corridor, heading toward Johnson Hall, the building on the east side of the U.
When rough hands grabbed me and pulled me into a stairwell, my pulse jumped. The adrenaline that’d been pumping through my body all day spiked, and I lashed out blindly, prepared to fight my way out if need be. My backpack, which had been slung over one shoulder, fell to the ground with a dull thunk.
“Talia!” Elijah hissed.
Instead of stopping when I registered who it was, I just swung harder. He drew his head back, narrowly avoiding getting hit by my fist, then grabbed both my wrists and pressed me up against the wall.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he demanded, his voice still a low whisper.
He looked agitated, upset, and there was a different tenor to his question than there had been when Mason had asked the same thing earlier. Mason’s question had seemed almost rhetorical, but Elijah seemed to be genuinely asking. Like he couldn’t believe I would do something so fucking stupid.
“You could’ve gone anywhere, Tal.”
His hazel eyes churned with emotion, and he shook his head, finally releasing his hold and stepping back. The skin of my wrists burned everywhere he had touched me, and I rubbed at them, trying to banish the sensation.
“Yeah, I could have,” I spat back. “But why would I give you guys the fucking satisfaction?”
I didn’t mention that a judge had basically ordered me to come back as a condition of the release of my trust. If I’d tried harder, maybe I could’ve gotten Erin to talk him out of that, or to change the terms of the arrangement. But I hadn’t tried. Because in the moment the judge had spoken, I’d already known what I was going to do.
“I’m not letting you win, Elijah.” He’d stepped back, but we were still too close, the space still way too confined. The one rule I’d set for myself was to keep my distance from the Princes, to not let myself be alone with any of them, and I was already breaking that rule. “My mom went to this school. She graduated from Oak Park. This is the last connection I have to her, and I’m gonna graduate from this place just like she did. I’m not letting four spoiled assholes stop me.”
“Yeah.” He ran a hand through his hair, mussing up the perfectly styled brown strands. He looked away for a moment, and I could see the agitation buzzing through his body, making his entire frame practically vibrate. “That’s the fucking problem. Maybe you shouldn’t want to follow in your mom’s footsteps, Tal.” When he looked back at me, his hazel eyes were shuttered, his expression stark. “I’m serious. You should go. Nothing good will happen if you stay.”
My breath hitched.
Mason’s veiled threats this morning, as terrifying as they had been, hadn’t scared me as much as Elijah’s words did now.
Maybe it was because I couldn’t tell if Elijah was trying to threaten me at all. It almost seemed like he was trying to protect me.
I brushed that thought aside. That was the kind of thinking that’d gotten me fucked over in the first place—assuming any of the Princes actually cared about me, fabricating justifications for their actions, imagining a connection between us that didn’t exist. The plain facts spoke for themselves, and the fact was that all four of these guys had set out to systematically destroy me.
So if Elijah was telling me to run now, it was for his own benefit, not mine.
I pressed away from the wall, stepping toward him. His oak and sage scent was too familiar, too intoxicating, triggering some animal part of my brain that didn’t understand he was no longer a source of comfort. But I sucked in one quick breath before I spoke, our bodies so close I had to tilt my head to meet his gaze.
