“I just don’t get why you had to take everyone else down with you. Bastion’s still cleaning up your mess from before. You could have just… left.”
Charlotte smiles, sharp and white. “You never did understand me, Wyatt. If I’d just left, they would’ve replaced me by the end of the week. Probably with someone like Emery. You think I’m going to let my whole life’s work be erased by a press release?”
“No,” I admit. “But you didn’t have to nuke the world on your way out.”
She shrugs. “That’s where you and I differ. You always think there’s a way to walk away without casualties. I know better.”
Emery was the casualty today. And Bastion. And Ranier. Charlotte has no idea what she’s talking about.
Quiet settles between us like dust while I decide if it’s worth arguing her point.
Charlotte tilts her head. “Is this the part where you threaten me? Or beg me to retract all the posts?”
I shake my head. “No. They’re already gone, as is Royals Anonymous. I just wanted to see if you’re done.” It occurs to me that I never really actually accused her. I came here to see if she had done this, but she admitted it fully without recourse.
Charlotte laughs, a quick, brittle sound. “Done? I’ve been done since the day you and Bastion picked me up from that Council house. But you keep coming back, like a dog that never learns.”
She’s right about that, too.
I ask the one question that remains. “So why did you leak the draft? The one about Emery. What did you get out of that?”
Charlotte tilts her head, like she’s genuinely puzzled. “You mean, besides the chaos? I was just… accelerating the inevitable.”
Charlotte will never let go. This is affirmed with every word she speaks. Which is a shame, because there will always be a part of me that loved the girl she was when we were younger.
“Congratulations. You won.”
She gives a little bow, hair falling in a perfect curtain over her cheek. “Thank you.”
I look at her, really look, and realize I don’t feel anything. Not anger, not hurt, not even nostalgia. Just a weird, hollow pity, like seeing a mean kid at the playground who’s finally run out of people to bully.
I stand. “We’re done, then.”
Charlotte blocks the door with one hand, eyes narrowed. “That easy, huh? No threats, no promises?”
I meet her gaze. “Just… don’t come after us again. If you do, I’ll stop pretending we’re not the same and I’ll torch everything you’ve ever cared about. And believe me, I know what you care about.”
Charlotte considers, then moves her hand. Maybethiswas what she wanted. The drama. “Fair enough.”
I’m almost out the door when she calls after me.
“You’re a coward, Whitlock,” she says, but there’s no heat in it. “Always were.”
I shrug. “Better than being a ghost.”
As I walk away, I realize I’m smiling. Not because I won, but because—for the first time in a long while—I don’t owe Charlotte a damn thing.
The sky is clearing as I hit the street. There’s a sense of weightlessness, of gravity gone optional. I almost want to call Bastion and tell him it’s done, but my phone is at the bottom of a river.
Instead, I head home. To whatever comes next. To my pack, if they’ll have me. To Emery, if I can ever figure out how to apologize.
The future is no longer a punchline. It’s simply a beginning… if we can put Everhart Pack back together.
CHAPTER 32
Bastion
It takesme an unfortunate amount of time to realize that I’m driving around aimlessly in search of Emery. At first, I think I’ll be able to spot her cotton-candy hair anywhere, but I don’t. Then I just drive because I realize with a sinking feeling in my heart that I’m not sure where Emerywouldgo.
