“What’s this?” I ask, scanning the text.
It lists all our movements over the course of the day, complete with fuzzy pictures.
“Someone’s been posting the band's movements ever since you all arrived in Hawthorne. Since all of them have their devices secured and their tracking off, it had to be you that was the weak link.” Sheturns just as another stranger approaches. “Fuck off. We’re not interested.”
I stare at her, struggling to take her words in. “Is this what today was all about? You wanted to see if I was the one leaking our locations?”
“I wasn’t sure if you knew you were doing it, or I would have just asked,” Jules replies with a shrug. “I figured maybe you were making a little extra cash on the side for tipping them off.”
“Fuck off, Julia. Is that really all today was?”
She squints her eyes and grimaces. “Eh. Not entirely.”
It hits me then. Julia works for the band. They’re all she seems to care about.
It shouldn’t surprise me she didn’t actually want to spend the day with me. Sure, I feel a twinge of hurt, but mostly I’m pissed off. It’s kind of like I’m the nerdy, friendless girl who has been duped into going to prom with the popular kids, only for them to throw flour in my face.
“Did anyone else know?” I ask.
“No, that would have defeated the entire purpose,” Jules replies with a dismissive hand wave. “No leaks, remember?”
That soothes something inside me. At least none of the guys knew about her little scheme.
Frankly, I don’t give a shit if Julia doesn’t trust me, but it would hurt ten times as much if the guys felt the same.
“Well, I think I’m going to head off,” I tell her. Since apparently people have shared this location online, fans and trolls alike are going to keep turning up here.
Plus, I don’t want to stick around.
Maybe I’m not cut out for having friends if this is what it’s like. Or maybe Julia just sucks. I have plenty of shit to do to fill my time, and it feels kind of like today has been wasted. It’s been neither relaxing nor all that fun.
And I’d rather have spent the time with my guys.
Jules nods before glancing up as she hands my phone back to me. She falters slightly, frowning when she sees my expression.
I’d imagine I look somewhere between ‘I would like to murder you’ and ‘I’m going to sleep off this day under a mountain of blankets’.
“I, er, so this was a good thing, right?” she says. “I’ve fixed the settings, so you’re no longer announcing your location to the world. You should be able to go places without being hounded.”
“Sure.”
I don’t know why I’m feeling so deflated. I guess I don’t do too good a job at masking my mood either, since as soon as I stumble into a cab, I have a call from Iri.
“Hey.” Just that word is lined with concern and I can tell Julia has told him what happened. “Jules messaged to say you were heading back early. She wasn’t making all that much sense, so I wanted to check everything was okay.”
I sigh, raking my fingers through my hair. “Ish. Our grand day out didn’t exactly go as planned. Did you know she planned the entire thing so she could try to weed me out as the leak to the paparazzi and fans?”
Iri doesn’t respond instantly and my stomach twists.
Then their hushed conversation on the plane comes back to me. His hissed words. The obvious tension between them.
Shit.
“You knew.”
Well, if that isn’t just the shitty cherry on top of an equally shit cake. I really thought I was getting somewhere with Iri while we were on the plane together, and now this?
“You know, I don’t have a lot of friends,” I tell him. “I don’t know if it’s my sunny disposition, or the fact I’ve avoided talking about myself for the past decade—” Even before I escaped from The Path, Istill wasn’t one for making connections. Everyone I met was either one of the Herald’s Devoted, or they were on the line to becoming one and that meant I could never really be myself. Plus, people came in and out of The Path so often, it was hard to raise the effort to bond with anyone or to work out whether they were genuine or just wanted a ticket to getting closer to the Herald.
