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prologue
1 YEAR AGO
Rumor Has It… WHPA’s alleged new mistress was seen attempting to tear apart our esteemed King and beloved Queen at Bye Week festivities. Is the Queen oblivious to the threat to her throne, or do we owe it to our beneficent ruler to put her competition in her place?
Colt Darling
“Ready or not, here I come!”
Duke’s slurred voice rang out in the damp chill that clung to the parking lot, now bathed in the orangey haze of security lights and the first scant glow of dawn.
“Shit,” I muttered. I hadn’t found a good hiding spot because I didn’t fucking care about this stupid game. I didn’t play football anymore and I hated Bye Week. It hadn’t been a big deal when the Darlings ran the town. It was just another weekend to party, only we’d had two parties instead of one. But my cousins and I were no longer gods in this town. They were in hiding or dead. I was the only Darling left at Willow Heights, and my official title was School’s Biggest Loser.
It fit.
I heard footsteps running, and the drunken shrieking and giggling of some girl they’d already caught. They were probably fucking her on the ground like the feral dogs they were.
I jogged toward the old, boarded-up Fred’s store where I was once caught shoplifting when Preston dared me to pocket apackage of Rolo’s. I was pissed at him because he knew we were being watched and wanted to see his little cousin get busted. Now it made me smile. The manager had let us go when he realized we were Darlings. The guy even gave us the Rolo’s, told us to take some Cokes on the house too. He was probably afraid our dads would sue him for taking us back to the office for a lecture.
They probably would have.
Preston’s dad was in jail now, though, and my dad had lost his fighting spirit when the Dolces fucking castrated him. I was lucky all they took from me was a finger.
I leaned against the front of the building, where someone had put some sick graffiti on the wall. I didn’t used to see things like that, the beauty that survived the desperation on this side of town, the proverbial flower growing from concrete. I didn’t live on this side of town, of course, but I’d become a go-between for the rich kids who shunned me and the poor ones who didn’t want me. I didn’t fit anywhere, but they’d all accepted that they could trust me enough to run the fights at the Slaughterpen, the races, a pound of pot here and there.
It was a balancing act to stay in the good graces of gangs and kings alike.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are…” Duke sang. I could tell it was him by the drunken slurring.
I pulled out my cigarettes and tapped one from the pack. The Dolces weren’t looking for me. I’d gone too far, probably further than they’d look, and they were in the mood to fuck, not fight. They were looking for their little Walton whores and whatever other girls they could find.
I wasn’t worried about my girlfriend, though.
Dixie had wanted to stay after the street racing, to sit by the fire until the last stragglers dragged their drunk asses home. She loved this shit, and they wouldn’t fuck with her, anyway.She’d squeal with delight when she was found, just like the other girls. But they’d let her go, and she’d join the search while they hunted for easier prey. It was fucked up, but she didn’t see it that way.
Whatever.
I was just there for moral support.
I lit my cigarette and leaned back against the plywood covering a shattered window. Because the Dolces ran things now, and they played football and had decreed that Bye Week was special to everyone, everyone played along. Even people who didn’t give a fuck about them or the team or their golden boy status on the field had to toe the line. We were all supposed to act like we agreed that it was a huge fucking deal because they said so. They told us Bye Week was the weekend when ‘anything goes,’ that even a nine-fingered loser like me could hang out with the kings.
So I’d stayed and drank one more beer than was probably safe in their company, played their warped games, sat at a bonfire with them and acted like everything was hunky fucking dory and they hadn’t literally chopped off my fucking finger like the psychopaths they were.
I was tired and a little drunk now, though, so it was better if I stayed away from them.
They said anything could happen during Bye Week, but if people fucked up, they still paid later. The Dolces didn’t forget indiscretions.
I tossed my cigarette when I heard footsteps heading my way, accompanied by shrieking and Duke’s maniacal laughter. Ducking around the corner of the building, I headed for the old dumpster. I stepped behind it but pulled up short when I saw Gloria Fucking Walton already there, crouched with her back against the cinderblock wall and her knees pulled up to her chest. If there was anyone I liked less than the Dolces, it was thebrainwashed bitches they enlisted to help instill their reign of terror.
“Oh, it’s just you,” she said, giving me a scathing once-over. “I smelled something nasty, but I thought it was coming from the dumpster. I should have known it was a festering swamp troll.”
I tipped my chin at her. “I should have known you were back here when the temperature suddenly dropped so low my balls crawled up inside my body and tried to die there.”
“Go away,” she huffed. “I’ve already claimed this hiding spot.”
A girl came streaking around the side of the building, and I slid down the wall, so I was out of sight. Then I shrugged at Gloria. “Guess you’re stuck with me for a minute.”
She gave me another dirty look. “Shouldn’t you hideinthe dumpster? Seeing as how that’s where you belong anyway.”
