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The Jackie Kennedy bobblehead nods and nods, agreeing with every sanction. There’s no use protesting. No use bargaining. What I say doesn’t matter, never mattered. Even if I’d never told Royal’s secret—one I’m not even sure they know, so I’m not sure he told them I spilled it—they won’t risk letting me go. After all, if they take everything from me, even tiny scraps that meant so little to me before, what do I have left to lose?
If they give me nothing, what’s to stop me from revealing every dark secret Duke’s whispered on a back seat when he was too drunk to know better; the ones Royal revealed by walking into this hotel not as a businessman, but as the escort; the ones Baron couldn’t cover quickly enough because I’m always watching as closely as he is? What’s to stop me from taking them down with me?
“What about Harper?” Duke asks.
Baron uncrosses his arms and rests his palms casually on the side of my car.
My eyes follow the movement, and my heart stops. That’s what I still have to lose.
“Yeah,” I say. “I can try to push her away, but you know she’ll still talk to me. She’s not going to listen when you tell the whole school that I’m the new leper. She never listened when y’all told her not to talk to Colt.”
Baron narrows his eyes, watching me from behind his glasses while he thinks. “You can have Harper,” he says at last. “None of her friends, though. Just her.”
I nod, my pulse fluttering so hard I think I’ll faint. It’s better than I could have hoped for, and I won’t open my mouth and say anything that could ruin it.
“You don’t think that’ll make Lo look cool?” Duke asks his brother. “A lot of people like Harper for that stunt she pulled, calling herself queen and shit.”
“Because you fucking knelt and kissed her feet,” Baron snaps.
“Hey,” Duke protests. “I didn’t see another option. Besides, after what we did…”
“No one will think Lo’s cool,” Baron cuts in, watching me with cold disgust. “She’s a dirty, used up cum rag.”
I don’t flinch, even though the words strike the chords he wants them to. I don’t move. My stillness is my camouflage. I’m just here for my sentencing, not to argue my case before the executioner.
“Right,” Duke says, dropping his hands to rest beside his hips, just like his brother. “We’ll tell everyone Lo’s a festering hole, and that they’re not to get within ten feet of her or they’ll be infected with her diseases.” He grins at me, but his eyes are faraway. He’s caught up in the tale he’s weaving with his brother, like they’re one mind. He once told me this is when he feels closest to Baron, when they’re riffing off each other, taking turns in the game, their two imaginations forming one creation.
I’d roll my eyes at the ridiculousness of their story, but I know the power of words. I know, because Dixie’s destroyed me. I know, because the Dolces’ declaration of my status held me aloft for two years.
If they say I’m diseased, everyone will avoid me, not because they believe it’s true, but because they don’t want the social contamination that will come from associating with me.
“Hanging out with Harper won’t help Lo, it will hurt Harper,” Baron says. “That’s what we need.”
“Yes,” Duke agrees, his smile broadening with enthusiasm. “Harper cares more about being a brat and defying us than what people think, so she’ll do it just to piss us off.”
“Which is exactly what we want,” Baron says, looking equally satisfied.
“Perfect,” Duke says. “It will remind the rest of the school she’s still a loser, even if she tried to say she was queen. By hanging out with the whore, they’ll see she’s only one step up from the very lowest member of the school—like Colt. The only one lower is Lo, the lowest of the low.”
He laughs at his joke, and Baron smiles. “For a rebellion to succeed, you have to be willing to sacrifice your troops if that’s what it takes. Harper’s too soft. She couldn’t do it.”
“Yep,” Duke says. “Her rebellion failed, and she’s back to hanging out with losers under the bleachers.”
“Not under the bleachers,” Baron says, watching me closely. “You’ll sit on the floor at our feet at lunch.”
I swallow hard, humiliation and rage burning inside me, up through my throat, my nose, my eyes. But I keep smiling.
Never let them see you cry. Never let them see you stumble. Never let them see your hand.
“You’ll follow us around like the pathetic, brainwashed slut you are, too addicted to Dolce dick to leave us alone even when we cut you off,” Duke says. “You’ll keep your pussy wetand ready for us in case we ever decide to throw you a bone, and when we do, you’ll spread your legs so fast and so wide the entire football team can get in there at once if that’s what we want to happen that night.”
“And when they’re done, you’ll thank us,” Baron says, pushing off my car and standing over me, his eyes cold as icicles as they pierce whatever particles of pride he hasn’t swept away yet. “For letting you get some relief. Because no one else will ever touch you again. Not unless we order it.”
Duke throws his head back and howls with joyous laughter. “This is going to beepic,” he crows. “The disgraced queen running after us, begging for our dicks like they’re the air she needs to breathe. Like our cum is the only water in the desert wasteland of her new life.”
I want to say,
I’d rather die of thirst.
