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“What she didn’t hear was you going on an unhinged rant about taking every single one of us down by any means necessary. Lies, tricks, fakes, pranks—doesn’t matter. You’d make our lives hell, then kill us like you did Owen and Giovanni.
“She’s a fucking psycho, Saylor,” he said, turning on her. “Making up lies about Ashton being a rapist and me protecting him? Why the hell would I? I never even spoke to the guy. And yet, your friend, Katie here, gave her exactly what she wanted by kicking my family out and further dividing the Royals.”
I laughed out loud. “Oh, so that’s your play, Levi? You went running to Mommy Saylor, bawling your innocence, so she’ll override Katie and reinstate the Thompkins family into the Royal cesspool. Pathetic.”
Levi bared his teeth. “Watch your mouth, b—”
Saylor held up a single finger, quieting him. “I do override Katie, Sinclair. Her intentions were good, but nothing is done around here without my permission. This is my town,” she said without a trace of irony. “The fact is that someone has been on a crusade against the Royals since Owen woke up on the ceiling.
“I know all about the website he made of your sister, so if it had stopped with him, I wouldn’t have given a shit.” Her face changed. “But it didn’t stop with him. You came after me and my friends, and don’t deny it.”
I said nothing. My face held blank while she searched me for a hint of the truth.
“You were the one who showed me the creepshots of Gabriella and Giovanni that you were hoarding on your phone,” she continued. “I wasn’t surprised when I saw you lurking in our class, masturbating to her getting arrested. You were the one who sent those pics and videos to Annika.”
“Hmm,” I hummed, looking to Gabriella. “Getting arrested doesn’t seem to have slowed you down.”
“I’m out on bail,” she snapped. “And eager for revenge.”
“Don’t let your parole officer hear that.”
Gabriella leaped over the table and had to be shoved back into her seat by Saylor.
“Not yet, Gabby,” she said. “She has a lot more crimes to confess to.”
“Such as?”
“Piper. I knew you were behind Gabriella, but I couldn’t figure out how you found out Piper had feelings for Everleigh. Then I remembered Rhys. Piper and I never spoke about Rhys or Everleigh out loud, but we did in an old text chain from a million years ago. You hacked our phones.” Her lips twisted. “Or you fucked the guy who did.
“The rest of the stuff you put on Piper’s list were lies,” Saylor announced. “I give you credit for knowing enough to put one true thing so that everything else looked real. But that fake website of Everleigh and the Book Lady?” She laughed. “You didn’t even try with that one. Those videos were so obviously edited and photoshopped, no one bought it. Right, guys?”
“Right.”
“Obviously it was fake.”
“What did Everleigh ever do to you?”
The lemmings chimed in right on cue, but I couldn’t blame them. Saylor said it like a question, but it was a demand.
“And for me, you drove a wedge between me and my friends,” Saylor said. “You made us doubt each other, fight each other, and nearly ruin nineteen years of friendship, and for what? Some stupid revenge crusade that was always doomed to fail. We know it was you, Sinclair. Don’t bother denying it!”
“I wasn’t going to,” I said, shrugging. “Yeah, it was me who released Piper’s list, sent those pictures to Annika, revealed the Book Lady to the world. Oh, and got you punched in the face. Again. I never said it wasn’t.”
Saylor’s lips parted, surprise flashing across her face. She clearly wasn’t ready for the part where I admitted to everything without a trace of shame or remorse.
“See?” Levi said. “Told you she was a lying piece of trash.”
“You really did this?” Katie cried. “Luna, I know why you’d hate the bastards who protected your sister’s attacker, but why would you go after my friends? You humiliated Piper, and now she and Everleigh can barely look at each other. Gabriella’s getting fitted for an ankle monitor, and Everleigh is refusing to come to school. Why?”
“Why?” I repeated the word, rolling it around on my tongue. “Why did I do it? I could tell you it’s because your precious friends dressed like drowning victims to retraumatize me. I could say that after that day, I’ve had nightmares so bad that I have to keep a bucket beside the bed for vomit. I could tell you about the messages on their phones, and how in the many, many group chats without you in it, they mocked and belittled Winter while she was going through the worst time of her life.”
My eyes narrowed on Saylor. “I could say it was about all or any of that, but the truth is I did it because they hurt me. They hurt me and my sister, and I wanted them to feel half the pain that I do every day.”
