Wait …
“River,” I murmur under my breath.
“Hmm …” He’s distracted, lost in thought.
“Look over there.” I discreetly nod my head toward where I saw the flash. “Something’s flashing.”
“What?” He looks over to where I nodded at the exact moment a light sharply flashes from the trees. “Crap.” His fingers encompass my arm, and he hurriedly steers me toward the bleachers.
“What’re you doing?” My sneakers kick up dirt as we duck underneath the benches.
“It’s probably the paparazzi,” he mumbles, edginess radiating off him like the lightning dancing across the sky.
The air smells like rain and is buzzing with electricity, a warning of how badly the storm could be.
I gape at him. “On school grounds?”
“It’s been known to happen.” He releases my arm and lowers his head against a metal beam. “Dammit.”
“Is it really that bad that they saw you with me?” I question, my tone biting with irritation.
He bobs his head up and down then lifts his head to look at me. “It’s not because I don’t want to be seen with you. But if they can figure out who you are, they’ll dig into your past.”
“So?” I exasperatedly throw my hands into the air. “What’re they going to do? Plaster all over their headlines that I’m the northside trash that got arrested? I don’t care, but clearly, you do.”
He swiftly shakes his head as he inches toward me. “They’ll do more than that. And if there’s something more to this necklace, they’ll figure it out.”
I fight a sigh. “River, I’m not from royal blood. And even if there was a tiny chance I was, who cares?”
Fear consumes his expression. “Maddy, this bloodline is allegedly deceased. The probability of it completely dying out on its own is low.”
I’m not following him. “How else would it die out?” A thought hits. “Wait—you think someone killed off this Everfords’ bloodline?”
He doesn’t immediately respond, but his silence says enough.
“No, there’s no way.” I shake my head in denial. “That’s like murder.”
“People get away with murder,” he stresses. “Especially in the royal world. Think about Grey and what you said about him once you started looking into his cliental.”
For a lightning bolt of a second, fear pours through me. But I quickly douse the feelings.
“I’m not worried. I’m not a royal,” I insist, knowing I have to be right.
How could I? All I’ve ever known is poverty. If I was, I was adopted, which I look too much like my mother for that. The other alternative is one of my parents had an affair with a royal, and if they did, we wouldn’t be poor because my parents are the kind of people who’d use that info as blackmail.
Rain begins to shower down from the sky and splatter against the ground.
“Are we going to run in this?” I change the subject. “Or use the treadmills?”
River stares at me, clearly wanting to say more but decides against it.
“Since it’s lightning, let’s use the treadmills,” he answers.
I’m uncertain if he’s being truthful or if this is his way of keeping me away from the paparazzi. Whether for his sake or mine, I’m not entirely certain.
CHAPTER 16
MADDISON
