Henry stopped walking, his face white. “What? No. He wouldn’t go that far, surely!”
Rusty placed a hand on Henry’s arm, “There were three incidents in the past year, though.” He glanced over at me. “Until the end of last semester, they used to hire humans from the local area to work in the restaurants. Then a girl and her scholarship boyfriend were found after our Sponsor found them in his shed, house, whatever you want to call it. The local police got involved and poked around until they managed to hush it up and pass it off as drowning by misadventure. Then there was Bill’s sister, remember?” he said, now addressing Henry.
Henry nodded miserably as he explained. “Bill was in my and Rusty’s prep school class. He had a sister two years older than him, Laura. She used to come to see him and bring us all homemade cookies. Bill’s dad complained to my dad, saying that as head of our House, he needed to get Roy in line. He’d been bugging Laura to go out with him, but she kept telling him no, her going so far as to get into a yelling match with him over it during spring break when he came over to their house.”
“And the third one?”
Henry’s shoulders slumped. “Mrs. McElroy. She was Roy’s English Comp teacher. Everyone thought that she’d misjudged the tide during her evening beach walk, got caught out, and drowned. She hadn’t been Made, and by the time they found her, the fish had been at her.”
“Any idea how he knew Shannon had met me and we’d already made friends?”
“He probably saw him showing you around,” Rusty said. “He probably recognized your friend as one of the scholarship students and asked about to find out who you were. He’s an asshole, so probably used you as an excuse to have some of what he thinks of as fun.”
“I’ll tell Dad. I’ll call him right now,” Henry said, fishing his phone out of his jacket pocket and stepping aside. My heart warmed. Henry was a good egg. He and Rusty had been innocent after all and now were joining in helping keep Shannon safe while hopefully stopping his cousin from hurting anyone else.
“So, everything okay now between you and this Shannon?” Rusty asked.
“Yeah. I told him I’d make sure the bullying stopped. He looked skeptical, but I think he realized that Roy wouldn’t get away with anything once other people knew what he was doing.”
“He your boyfriend?”
I shook my head no. “He’s not Family and I don’t think I could lie to him while running a second life. Nor would I want to burden him with the truth.”
Rusty nodded. “We were raised knowing it, being let in on the secret. It’s a heavy burden. I often envy them their shorter, less complicated lives.”
Henry returned. “Dad was livid, said if Roy has been doing this, he risks others taking a closer look at the Family. And if he’s killed Family members, such as Mrs. McElroy and Bill’s sister, well, that’s a whole other mess of trouble for our branch that he doesn’t even want to contemplate. He promised to call my uncle once he was off the phone with me and have him deal with Roy today. Not tomorrow or next week, but today.”
His father was right. Even if the school’s Old One had fed from those people, Roy couldn’t go around just getting rid of people on a whim and feeding them to the Old One. A chill ran down my spine. Had he offered them up as part of a bargain?
Entering the lunchroom, I spotted Shannon just exiting the dinner line with his tray. I waved to him. “There he is.”
“Hey,” Shannon said, sauntering over. “Eating with us plebs tonight, huh?”
“It’s meatloaf night!” Henry replied, glancing at Shannon’s tray. “Yes! There’s strudel!” He took off to join the line as if terrified they’d run out of the dessert.
“Okay, someone likes the strudel a hell of a lot!” Shannon laughed.
“He’s been like that ever since seventh grade,” Rusty said, shaking his head side to side in mild amusement at henry’s antics.
“Oh, you guys went to the prep school here, too?” Shannon asked.
“Yeah, tell you what, there’s something Henry, River, and I need to say to you, so why don’t you go find a seat for us all?” Rusty replied. He didn’t wait for a reply before joining Henry in the line.
“It’s nothing bad, I promise,” I said, seeing Shannon’s worried expression.
“Okay,” he said, turning away to scan the rapidly filling cafeteria. I left him to join my other friends to get our dinner.
“He okay?” Henry asked.
“He seemed a bit worried about what we were going to say.”
“It’s just to let him know Roy won’t be bothering him anymore,” Rusty said.
“I know.” I did know. Because, if Roy didn’t listen to his father, I’d kill him myself.
9
“Thanks for saving us a seat,” I said to Shannon as we joined him at the table. He shrugged as if it was nothing, but I knew better. It was a lot, considering how afraid he had been these past few weeks.
