Paige shook her head. “I don’t want you to be. You can’t. I need to do this, Royal.”
With every word, she was ripping me apart, and I turned away.
Paige grabbed me this time, pulling me in. A quick hug and she was pulling my head over into the line of her voice. “Now help me.”
Help consisted of me getting her settled. She lay on the tracks, but when she pulled out the ropes, I hesitated again. This was a part of it. The haze had to be tied down to make it more of a challenge, but the whole thing made me sick.
Paige frowned. “Royal, please.”
I’d do anything for this girl and she knew that, taking advantage of that. We were each other’s everything, had been for so long. She was there through all the bruises, all of the pain of my father. In times I thought I’d give up, I didn’t want to because she was there. She was there with her own problems, and I was there for her too. We were an unbreakable unit, bonded through so many hurdles. She knew I’d do anything for her because she would for me.
In the end, I tied those ropes around her wrists, binding her to the tracks, but I kept them so loose it was laughable.
“You tug these if you need to,” I told her, the knots tied in a way so all she’d have to do to get up was move her wrists. “The knots are loose. You can get free easy.”
And she wouldn’t fight me on that no matter what she said. She was tied to the tracks. She was bound, and she could tell people that for the sake of the challenge.
Understanding, Paige let me have my way for once, smiling at me. Her chuckle was light. “Got it, and I’ll be fine.”
She better be, and after making sure she had her phone to call me, I did something rash. I took my own Court ring, pulled it right off my finger and put it on hers.
“This is yours now,” I told her. “I’ll get a new one. You’re Court after you finish this. No one can contest that.”
Her smile widened, and when the tears glassed her eyes, I almost broke down too. I had no idea why she was getting emotional, but because she never did, seeing it fucking did me in too.
Fighting it, I put a hand on her head, leaning down and kissing the top of her hair. She owed me one more thing before I left her, a promise and the only way I’d leave her.
“You’ll tell me who it is after this,” I stated, refusing to leave until she gave me her word. She’d kept certain information under lock and key from me, fearing I’d so something, and I probably would. I’d destroy the person who hurt her. I shook my head. “I want to know who hurt you.”
Her chin lifted after I said that, her smile fading. My best friend wasn’t without her own mistakes. She’d chosen to do certain things. She chose to sleep with a married woman but what she hadn’t chosen was to be promised things, to be told she could have a life with this person, only to be toyed with for nearly a goddamn year. She led my friend on and told her there was hope for them. In the end, there never was hope, there was only pain, and I’d been there for the brunt of it.
“I promise,” she said to me, a grit to her voice that had never been there before. This woman had broken her, destroyed her with her promises and bullshit. She had never planned to leave her husband. She had just wanted a young fuck, a trophy for her wall. It was nothing if not familiar in this town, my own father showing me that with all the pussy coming in and out of my house my whole life.
Touching my forehead to Paige’s, I stayed there, hard-pressed to let her go. I could have gotten the revenge for her, gotten my brothers to destroy this woman’s life, but Paige wouldn’t let me act on her behalf. She wouldn’t tell me who this bitch was on purpose because she knew things would get real ugly if she did. I’d do anything for this girl, truly, and though she definitely wouldn’t admit it…
This haze was her saving me from that.
One
December
Two girls… Two teenage deaths in a matter of months.
What the hell is going on here?
I hadn’t liked Mira. God, had I not liked her, but I never wanted her dead. I never wanted that, for anyone or anyone’s family to feel what I’d felt over the passing months. I honestly hadn’t believed it when we found out, that assembly the weirdest thing. They placed us all in the gym, Principal Hastings at the front with a microphone. He’d told us something, a student dead and…
The sheriff had been there too, Sheriff Ashford basically a mess standing next to our headmaster. At one point, he hadn’t been able to hold it together and excused himself. After that, the headmaster continued, and though he didn’t give too many details, he didn’t have to in the end. Mira’s story spread like wildfire in the halls of Windsor Preparatory Academy, word of her suicide lining the pages of the local paper. She’d hung herself. Right in her bedroom in the middle of the night.
What the fuck?
I hadn’t slept at all that night, thoughts of Mira and whatever she was feeling replaying in my head. She’d threatened me not hours before that, threatened Royal, but she hadn’t seemed sad. None of this made sense.
If confusion was my reaction, a chill was Royal and crew’s. They wouldn’t talk about any of it all, letting the conversations happen around them. At times, I caught the boys whispering to each other, leaving me out of things, and the day of Mira’s funeral, Royal’s vault of a demeanor was basically the same. He picked me up in his Audi, a stonewall aside from the affection he gave. Since we got back together, he hadn’t allowed me out of his sight except to go home and sleep at night.
Even then sometimes he’d make it through my bedroom window.
Hershey always announced his presence, a soft yip, and after he petted her, he’d join me in bed. He’d hold me, not letting go. He didn’t let go, not anymore. Even now on the way to the funeral, he had his fingers looped in mine while he drove, a lot going on in this car that wasn’t being said. Though I didn’t like that, I allowed it for the time being.
We were going to a funeral today.
The whole school was going, something I think was expected of the town. There wasn’t even any debate that we’d all be going, this town. It was just what was going to happen, everyone coming. Birdie had texted me earlier that morning that she and a bunch of the basketball girls were going together. She’d invited me, but I told her I had a ride. Royal and I pulled up to a large white church with just the two of us, and when he left my hand, it was only for a few moments for him to let me out. Soon, we were united again on the other side of the car, entering a church together filled with so many people. I honestly think the whole town was there, pews upon pews of people, like this was a wedding.
Not yet another dark day.
This town seemed to keep having those, a cloud over this place’s head. Blending in with the masses, I let Royal lead me to an open pew. It had a few people sitting on the end, but the majority of it was free. After taking off my coat, I sat down, and he joined, throwing an arm across my shoulders and smelling so good. I loved that heat about him, his warmth, as his green gaze circulated the crowd. He wore his blond hair pushed back and moussed, a stress lining his face I didn’t like. Again, he was a vault. Albeit a beautiful one. He’d arrived at my house in a suit not much unlike the tux he’d worn when he took me to homecoming. It hugged his muscular arms and chiseled thighs in all the right places, the pewter tone a wonderful offset to his eyes. When I was with him, I felt protected and usually settled.