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“Ever wonder why the Royals go into the café, grab their food, and walk out with their trays?”
“I don’t question why Royals aren’t around—except to hope they don’t come back.”
He chuckled. “There’s a spot behind the music hall where they hang out, eat, and congratulate themselves on being young and rich.”
“Let me guess, we’re going there so I can get another coffee bath?”
“I’m sorry, Luna.” Rafael’s pinky hooked through mine. “We should’ve been there to stop it.”
“No,” I said, releasing him quickly. “Don’t apologize when it wasn’t your fault. If Cato wasn’t there, it would’ve been much worse.”
As it was, they got me with a latte in the face four times. That’s right. Four.
I don’t know what impressed me more. How quickly Saylor mobilized her minions, or how creatively they got around my silent, aggressive bodyguard.
When Cato was next to me, no one looked in my direction, but he couldn’t be with me all the time. I stepped inside biology and Eva nailed me with a mocha vanilla. I had to rush to the Gallery to change. On the way back, I rounded the corner and was hit with pumpkin spice. That was three before lunch.
It looked like I was going to make it through the rest of the day, until I left calculus class to go to the bathroom and someone gifted me a face full of hazelnut.
I avoided telling the guys because it wasn’t their job to follow me everywhere, fighting my battles. Unfortunately, news in Regalia travels as fast as a thrown cold drink.
“This way.”
Rafael helped himself to my pinky again, leading me off the path onto the grass. The music hall, a grand building of blue spires, red brick, and an ornate clock tower. Inside, plush red seats gazed down on a grand stage, used to host world-class orchestras in the summer. During the school year, the reception room doubled as a venue for alumni dinners and charity events. Seeing as it was built to show off the wealth of Regalia University, it was locked, bolted, and off-limits to students unless they were practicing for a concert.
I never had a reason to come this far on the other side of campus. No one did.
Which makes a great spot for the Royals to enjoy life away from the Dregs.
Enjoying life was exactly what Saylor, Piper, Katie, Gabriella, Everleigh, and fucking Victor looked to be doing.
Rafael and I hung out under the shade of a weeping willow, gazing up at the pretty, young, rich people on the balcony.
Benches and tables were set out for some. The others hung their legs over the ledge, laughing back and forth. Victor opted for the table—alongside Saylor, her crew, and Katie. Everleigh sat on his right, giggling over something he said and touching his arm five times in the single minute I’d been standing there.
Sliding away from them, I fell on the guys sitting a few tables over. I automatically reached for the note, and stopped myself. My sister’s letter was safe in the Gallery, sporting a coffee stain. I wouldn’t risk these jerks ruining it further.
“Rafael, can I ask you something?”
“Anything.” His finger was still curled around mine.
“When I told you the names of the guys I’m after, why didn’t you ask what they did?”
“They drove Winter to kill herself. What else do I need to know?”
“Is that it or... does everyone know what they did to her?” I held my hand over my heart anyway, sensing Winter even though her letter wasn’t with me. “I thought no one knew the worst of it. That if they did, people like Saylor wouldn’t think of throwing her death in my face. None of them could make jokes or say she was weak, if they knew the truth of how they destroyed her.
“But yesterday, she didn’t outright say it, but I got the feeling she knew what Owen, Levi, Darren, and the rest did to me in my dorm that night. After Cato hit her with the latte, the news spread and someone carried out her revenge less than two hours later. Is it not even a secret what th-those shits did to Winter?” My hand trembled in his hold. “They’re sitting up there—happy and carefree, and no one cares that they’re eating with monsters.”
“Luna.” He lifted both our hands, stroking my cheeks. “No one on this campus knows more than me. I heard about that piece of garbage Giovanni, and that Owen and his friends harassed her. I saw the video they made the night they attacked. What else happened, Winter didn’t talk about it and neither did anyone else. I’m pretty sure no one up there knows who they’re sitting next to.
“But that doesn’t mean they’d act any differently if they did. Dregs are nothing to them, Luna. It’s in the name.”
