“Feel like it.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be partying?—”
“Did you know I got kicked out of my classes? I was only taking a couple this semester anyway, but the professors in my advanced history and drama courses dropped me within the first week.”
Is that why he hasn’t been leaving the apartment?“Were you absent at all?”
He shakes his head. “Nope. I guess they just didn’t want this particular Dupont stain on their rosters.”
“Well, we knew getting the rest of campus on board with your redemption was a long shot,” I tell him, lifting a shoulder. “You did have a direct hand in several murders.”
Exhaling, he kicks his foot, jamming his heel against the rail. “I didn’tactuallykill anyone though. I even saved one of the captives.”
“You were the reason she was in the caves in the first place.”
“Which no oneeverlets me forget,” he huffs. “Jesus. Haven’t you ever done something stupid that you regret, Sutty? I know you’re the golden child in the family, but I have to believe you’ve made mistakes at some point. Father even says so.”
My jaw tightens. “You shouldn’t be speaking to him at all, Beckett. The things he says…”
“Can we talk about my school situation?” he cuts in. “I’m having a crisis here.”
“Have you thought about applying anywhere else? Mother and Father would?—”
“Avernia credits are nontransferable, remember?” He flexes his hands, curling his fingers against his jeans. “What would the fucking point be?”
“Starting over might not be so bad.” I scratch the back of my neck. “Getting out of Fury Hill could be good for you.”
“It wouldn’t matter, you know. The ghosts here… They haunt the people too. They go where we go.”
Walking over, I take a seat next to him. Storm clouds are rolling in, casting a thicker gloom around campus than usual, filling the air with a film of anguish and resentment. The sky grows darker the longer we sit as nighttime settles in.
If I feel this shitty from the simple act of denying myself what I want most, I can’t begin to imagine what’s going on in Beckett’s head.
Maybe I shouldn’t have supported his return in the first place.
But a part of me had hoped it would do him some good, not make things worse. That being around his peers might make him feel normal again. Get Jean-Louis out of his head.
Clearly, I’ve not been paying enough attention, too occupied by a certain brunette to realize just how deeply brainwashed my brother is.
“The stuff that Father made you do…” I start, leaning my forearms on my knees. “That keep you up at night?”
He sends me a sideways glance. “I’m not actually a homicidal sociopath, so…”
“Why’d you do it?”
For several moments, he remains silent. Crickets sing their nightly tune, the sound carrying across the cobblestone and catching on the woods behind the apartment complex.
“I don’t know,” he admits finally. “Father made the Andersons sound so dangerous to Fury Hill as a whole and cited that stupid fucking curse over and over. Said it was my duty to the family to eradicate them. I guess I didn’t ask enough questions. I just wanted what he said to be true.”
A kid who trusts his father implicitlywouldn’task any questions, and I’m certain that’s what Jean-Louis was banking on when he roped Beckett in.
If you only see the world through one lens growing up, you might not know there are other ways to view it.
All the founding families raise their new generations to fear three things: outsiders, the Anderson bloodline, and change. They push the importance and superiority of Fury Hill lineage in order to keep people in line—an agenda supported and enforced by Death’s Teeth in the background through whatever means necessary.
Without those power dynamics, the founding families would cease to matter. Avernia would be just like every other prestigious school in the country, and maybe fewer students would wind up dead each semester.
Maybe my sister would be alive.
