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“We’re fourteen, Fal. What do you expect?”
“Boys,” I huffed. Gripping his arm more tightly, I leaned in. “Don’t go over there. Don’t make it any worse than it is, Tim.”
“Yeah, Joe would never accept that. He’s always on at me to do more, to keep the rivalry alive.” He glanced over at me. “Okay, how about this? You come with me, and that way, nothing bad will happen. I just want to warn him not to try anything stupid.”
“I cannot believe you’re making me do this.” Gritting my teeth, I let him lead me across the room. As we drew closer, Caiden’s stare grew darker, and even Cassius had abandoned his attempts at flirting to puff out his chest and give my brother an intimidating stare.
“Cavendish. Drummond,” Tim said when we reached them.
“Hyde.” Caiden’s lip curled. His gaze flicked to mine briefly, and he gave me a small nod before returning his attention to my brother. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to tell you that if you try to retaliate when we get back to school, you’ll regret it.”
Caiden and Cassius both laughed. Caiden pushed off the wall, taking a step forwards. “You’ll be the one regretting it, if anything.”
“Tim, please.” I tugged at his arm, turning my own glare on Caiden. “Leave my brother alone.”
Cassius cleared his throat as Caiden opened his mouth to reply. “Cade. Wanna get some air?”
Without a reply, Caiden spun away to the side, heading for the door. When he was gone, I breathed out a sigh of relief, and from the corner of my eye, I saw Tim’s shoulders slump. “I don’t like the rivalry, you know.”
“I know. I’m not sure if they do, either.”
“Can someone tell me what the fuck is happening here?”
I was dragged back to the present to see Caiden still looking hostile, although his glare had softened somewhat with Winter jumping up to place a hand on his arm.
“Do you remember Fallon?” she said way too innocently, batting her lashes at him. I almost smiled.
“Yes. Now I’m gonna ask nicely. Can someone tell me what the fuck is happening here, please?”
Before the other girls could reply, I addressed Caiden directly. He’d always been an unofficial leader of the Four, and it was best if I could explain things to him here and now and deal with whatever fallout came from it. “Can we speak without being overheard?”
His gaze swept the room, and he seemed to notice that his little outburst had drawn the attention of the other occupants in the room. With a growl, he spun away from me. “C’mon.”
Winter, Jessa, and I followed him through the house. He stopped in front of a door with a keypad on the wall next to it. Shielding it with his hand, he punched in a code, and when the door unlocked, he poked his head inside, speaking in a low voice.
Turning back to me, he jerked his head at the door. “In here. Don’t touch anything.”
I followed the others into the room, which looked like a hacker’s dream den, if I could describe it that way. Computer monitors and computery things everywhere. The monitors were all blank, and there was a guy with his back to me, his finger on the power button of one of the monitors, suggesting that they’d been quickly turned off.
Paranoid, I guessed, although I couldn’t blame them. I was a Hyde, after all, and here I was in the Four’s inner sanctum.
“We need Cass and Z.” The person with his back to me turned around, and I realised I was looking at Weston Cavendish. His eyes widened when they met mine, and a soft gasp came from his left.
Lena Drummond. She stared at me with unconcealed interest, and I stared right back. The last time I’d seen her, I think she’d been around fifteen or sixteen. She’d always had a kind of “don’t give a fuck” attitude that I envied, and she still had it, based on her posture and challenging expression. She’d changed, though. Her formerly blonde hair was now a soft pastel pink, and the way she carried herself now…it was hard to describe, but she’d grown up.
Weston’s arm slid around her waist as he gave me his own perusal, and I returned my attention to him.
We’d been in the same school year as children, until I’d been sent away to boarding school, but we were never in the same classes. Even so, he was the person that I’d seen the most often out of the Four. In school assemblies, at various school functions, and passing each other in the hallways. We’d always stayed out of each other’s way by unspoken agreement. I knew that Caiden had always tried to shield him from the family rivalry, anyway.
“Fallon?” Weston’s voice was soft, careful. “Uh. Hi.”
I tried for a smile and failed.
The tension in the room stretched to breaking point.
And then the door opened, and suddenly, everything was a hundred times worse.
