So we’re back to this then.
After classes, we had another rehearsal for the school production. I met Greg at his locker and we walked over together. Safety in numbers. He’d been tripped up in one of his classes, too, and someone had squeezed some kind of cooking oil through the vents in his locker, ruining his books. He didn’t tell me what people had been saying, but the barrage of insults hurled at us as we walked through the halls gave me a fair idea of what he was enduring right now.
“Well, popularity was fun while it lasted.” Greg plastered a fake smile across his face as we made our way into the auditorium and up to our usual seats.
“I’m not sure we were ever really popular.” Ayaz’s eyes burned into my back as I sat down and flipped through a script. Courtney had been making lots of changes lately, mainly involving shrinking down my scenes and giving herself more stage time with Trey. I sighed as I noticed another of my numbers had been cut.
“Ayaz is giving you serious puppy eyes, honey,” Greg grabbed the script out of my hands. “Go talk to him.”
“They’re not puppy eyes. More like a rabid dog.” I lunged for the script, but Greg held it out of my reach. “I’m not speaking with him right now.”
“Sure you aren’t. Go. It’ll be here when you come back.”
Sighing, I made my way down to the front row, where Ayaz and Trey sat together, their heads bent in whispered conversation. Courtney glared at me from on stage, but she couldn’t stop me talking to them without making a fuss that Dr. Halsey could see. I slumped down beside Ayaz, catching a whiff of his opium and incense scent. My head spun as the two of them looked over at me – a pair of icicle eyes swimming with pain, and two dark orbs that churned with a rising storm.
Over the course of half a year, they’d gone from my bitter enemies to my allies to… something more. They’d both kissed me until I was breathless, turned my insides out, and danced on the edge of insanity with me. They’d both sacrificed so much and I… I didn’t know what to do with all the emotions that swirled around inside me.
But I did know that we needed answers.
“I’ll meet you both in the pleasure garden after lights out,” I said. “Don’t make me regret this.”
* * *
“You owe me big time,” I muttered, pulling my collar up around my neck as I jogged toward the three figures emerging from the rotunda. “I’d rather be tucked up in bed with my rats for company.”
“If I can destroy the demon before you’re due to give him your eternal soul, will that fulfill my debt?” The corner of Ayaz’s mouth tugged up ever so slightly, and my heart pattered against my chest. One day I’d get a full smile from that guy, and it would probably heal the world.
“Add a giant stack of tacos to that, and I think we could call it even.” I bit into a salmon tart I’d nicked from the dining hall. We’d been kicked off the monarchs’ table, and I didn’t feel safe eating there anymore, so Greg and I just ran in, stuffed food in our bags, and ran back out again. “All this rich-people food is giving me indigestion. I’m desperate for some orange cheese and processed meat.”
“I’m with Hazy on that,” Quinn bent over my shoulder and gobbled my last bite. “This food isawful.”
I swatted his hand. “That was mine!”
Quinn grinned, which wasn’t a rare occurrence, but it made my heart skip every time. He leaned over and pressed his lips to mine, giving me a taste of my lost salmon tart along with the distinctive sugary sweetness of his kiss.
Why wasn’t this guy my boyfriend again?
Oh, that’s right. He’s dead.
“Can we stay focused on the task at hand?” Trey snapped. “We need to get back to school as soon as possible. We’re being watched.”
“Right now?” Quinn swept his eyes along the treeline. “Because we could give them a show—”
“Notright now,obviously. But if they notice all of us out of our rooms, they’ll swarm this area looking for us. My dad will probably call in a SWAT team. Hazel, you sure you weren’t followed?”
I shook my head. “Not even Greg and Andre know. Andre was carrying his sheets up to the laundry chute when I left, and I could hear Greg snoring from behind their door.”
“Why would they follow us?” Ayaz said. “They’ve never cared about students roaming the grounds after dark before. They know we can’t leave the school, and Hazel made it clear she wouldn’t run and leave Greg and Andre behind.”
I’d noticed the guys were finally called my friends by their first names. They’d acknowledged that Greg and Andre were people, worthy of fighting for. That was one of the things I’d sworn to do this year, and it had happened. They’d shown that they could change.
But what about the other things I’d sworn to do? Tonight, we might be one step closer to lifting the god’s hold on the school, but if all that meant was people like Courtney would be free to exercise their cruelty in the wider world, then that wasn’t a win at all. I knew that I still had to make her understand, make them all understand what they could and couldn’t do. But the guys… what I was planning would hurt them, maybe even break them, and I didn’t think I could do that anymore.
But then, just because they called Greg by his first name and their touch make my heart flare with fire, didn’t mean they’d actually learned anything about being kind. Could twenty years of unchecked cruelty be undone in a few short weeks? If they were finally free, would they be the boys I’d come to know, to care about? Or would they be monsters?
“If you’re so worried about our little field trip,” I said to Trey, “you don’t have to come.”
“I know that.” Trey kicked a loose rock over the edge of the cliff. It was a long time before he spoke again. “Yet, here I am.”
