by Callie Rose
I wouldn’t have thought I’d have much in common with a guy in his early seventies, but we had the most important thing in common. Blood. And Philip actually had a pretty hilarious, dry sense of humor when he came out of his shell a bit. He still looked a bit haggard, with heavy bags under his eyes, but his entire face changed when he talked excitedly or laughed at something I said.
Our coffee date ended up lasting a couple hours, and I wasn’t sure what he told Jacqueline about where he’d been, but I didn’t care. I had no interest in talking to her, but I was glad to have a tiny sliver of a real family back in my life.
Over the weekend, I juggled studying with continuing my research on the Princes. I’d told Finn that he could try to prove he’d changed, but I hadn’t promised him a truce. And besides, part of me was still sure all those feelings I had thought I’d seen in his eyes were fake, lies to lure me in again.
Digging up dirt on him and the rest of the Princes felt like fortifying my defenses. And I needed them to be strong.
On Saturday night, I spent a few hours pouring over The Great Gatsby and then pushed the book aside and dragged my laptop onto the couch with me, flopping across the cushions on my stomach before prying it open.
I’d been Googling each of the Princes’ names along with different combinations of words, trying to find something beyond the top ten results that popped up at the first search.
Tonight, I typed in Finn Whittaker Oak Park, then clicked through the first few webpages. Eventually, my search led me down a rabbit hole of prep school admissions forums, where parents got together and bitched about what schools their kids should’ve gotten into or were unfairly waitlisted for. I wasn’t even quite sure at first why I landed there, but as I scrolled down the page, Finn’s name popped up.
Anderson4810: It’s not exactly fair that someone like Finn Whittaker is taking up a slot at Oak Park Prep. My daughter was waitlisted, and she actually has the grades to earn a place there.
CA.Dad.28: What do you mean?
Anderson4810: Just that money can buy a lot of things.
CA.Dad.28: Yeah, I guess they’re hoping that NFL money will come back to them later.
Anderson4810: Or they already got their kickback.
CA.Dad.28: You think?
Anderson4810: I know.
The conversation moved on to other topics after that, but I went over that short exchange several times, trying to read between the lines. Had Finn’s admission to Oak Park been bought? I knew he’d struggled in some classes and that he’d had a hard time keeping his grades up, but maybe it’d been worse than I’d thought.
That couldn’t really be that big of a scandal though, could it? Wasn’t that how these things went? I knew Oak Park had the transcripts from my old high school, and my grades had been fine—but that school hadn’t exactly been challenging. I was sure Jacqueline had greased the wheels as much as she had to to assure me a spot here.
Still, I pulled the little black notebook out of my bag and flipped the pages open, then wrote admissions to Oak Park rigged under Finn’s section.
It didn’t seem as damaging as the information I had on the other two, but maybe that was just because I didn’t know this world. The commenters in that forum had seemed pretty pissed about it.
I looked for more info but couldn’t find it, so after I flipped over onto my back and rested the laptop on my stomach, I tried a new search.
Element Investments Founders.
Then I typed in the names of all the people I knew and scrolled through the search results. Several of the websites and articles were ones I’d already visited, but at the bottom of the second page, I found something new.
It was a short piece on both the beginning and end of the company, the only one I’d found that even referenced the firm going under. According to the article, Element Investments was disbanded just over a year after its creation, and it sounded like everyone involved had lost money on it.
Was that why the Princes hated me so much? Because of this business their parents had started with my mom, and the fact that it went under?
That didn’t make any sense though. Jacqueline had told me the Prescotts were one of the richest families in Roseland, so it wasn’t like they’d suffered from the loss.
Although… hadn’t she also said that the Van Burens had dealt with some money issues a while ago? Could that be related to Element Investments? Had they had more on the line than the others somehow?
Tugging my bottom lip between my teeth, I lifted my head off the pillow a little, leaning toward the screen as I continued to read. The sun had gone down while I was studying, and I hadn’t bothered to turn on a light yet, so the glow of my laptop was the only thing illuminating the room.
The piece was short, and obviously no one involved had been interviewed, because details were sparse—but the article seemed to be a general precaution against mixing business with friendship. At the very bottom of the page, there was a picture of a group of smiling people gathered around a sign that read Element Investments. There were no babies present in this picture, unlike in the photo in my grandparents’ hallway, but I was sure they’d both been taken around the same time.
The extra man was in this picture, the one whose name I hadn’t been able to find out. But the caption below the image listed each person individually, and I scanned the screen with my finger until I found his. Adam Pierce.
Huh. Why don’t your kids go to this school with all the others, Adam?
Maybe they’d graduated already, or were too young to attend. Or maybe they were here, and had been cut out by the Princes like I had been for some reason. I should be able to find a current student roster and search for any Pierces.
Still chewing on that thought, I grabbed my notebook and pen. Under Mason’s name, I scribbled family has money problems. And on a separate page, since I wasn’t quite sure where to put it, I added who is Adam Pierce? does he have kids? where’s that legacy?
I Googled the name, but there were thousands of Adam Pierces in the country, and I couldn’t narrow it down far enough to find the one I wanted.
Exhausted, my eyes stinging from staring at a screen too long, I closed the lid of the laptop and blinked into the sudden darkness. I’d gotten sucked into the rabbit hole of the internet, and it had to be close to midnight by now. Yawning, I set my computer on the coffee table and sat up to stretch—but as I did, movement on the lawn outside caught my eye.
I froze, peering out at the dimly lit grounds.
Yup. I hadn’t imagined it.
Figures were crossing furtively across the open space and disappearing into the woods to the west side of campus. And unlike the first time I’d noticed that strange occurrence last year, this time I knew exactly what they were doing.
A grin spread across my face.
Guess it’s a good night for collecting shit on the Princes.
Keeping one eye on the window, I stood quickly and slipped my shoes on. My jeans were dark, but I needed something to cover up my pale skin and light blue tank, so I slipped a black hoodie on. By the time I was dressed, there were no more figures heading toward the woods.
Good.
It’d be easier to sneak after them if they had a good head start. And I knew where I was going this time anyway. I didn’t need to follow close behind.
A little thrill of victory and adrenaline flowed through me as I slipped out my door and headed downstairs. If I could get footage of the Princes’ underground fight ring, it could potentially be used against all of them. Cole most definitely, since he was the one who fought the hardest and the most violently. But they were all responsible for it, and the very fact that they snuck off campus to do it when they flagrantly broke so many other rules on school grounds told me they were certain they’d get busted hard if they were found out.
The moon was half-full, so it cast enough light for me to find the hole in the high stone wall that surrounded the Oak Park campus. I made my way through the woods slowly and car
efully, making sure to listen for any sounds in the darkness up ahead of me.
Luckily, I’d waited long enough that I heard them long before they could possibly hear me. A fight had obviously already started, judging by the groans, cheers, and catcalls that rose up from the forest ahead.
I slowed, moving from tree to tree until I got close enough to make out the circle of bodies and the lanterns hung on tree branches. Once I was a few yards away, I scanned the crowd for the Princes’ faces, careful to locate every single one. The first time I’d come here, I’d gotten busted by Elijah, who by some miracle hadn’t decided to rat me out to the others. I didn’t want to get caught again.
The guys in the circle around the two fighters kept moving and jostling around, so there was no way to get a clear, sustained shot of the fight. But there was also no mistaking what it was, even without a completely clear view.
I tugged my cell out of my back pocket and double-checked three times that the flash wasn’t on before I switched the camera app to the video setting and raised it, pressing record.
The two guys in the center of the ring were both seniors, and they were pretty evenly matched. They were both smart fighters too, playing things safe, which made the match a little boring to watch—or at least, the crowd seemed to think so. The yells and catcalls grew louder until finally, the taller boy sidestepped a punch and delivered a neat right hook to the other boy’s jaw. The shorter one, whose name I was pretty sure was Alan, stumbled to the side, almost going down to the ground entirely. The taller boy moved after him, but Alan waved his hands in defeat, and the crowd groaned.
“All right.” Mason stepped into the circle as the two boys stepped out. “That match goes to Walker. Who’s up next?”
There was a jostling in the crowd before a figure stepped into the ring. I had expected it to be Cole, since I was pretty sure he fought at every one of these things, but it wasn’t.
It was Elijah.
My mouth dropped open in shock.
Elijah was cut but lean, almost as tall as the other Princes, but not as broad as Cole or Finn. Mason wasn’t as built as those two either, but he was bigger than Elijah.
But more to the point, Elijah had never really struck me as a fighter. He could be an asshole just like all the other Princes, but he didn’t have the same raw violence or rage in him that Cole or Mason did.
“Elijah.” Mason sounded just as surprised as I was. He cocked his head, giving the other boy a strange look, then shrugged and gestured to the crowd. “Who do you challenge?”
“You.”
Mason’s head whipped back toward his friend, something almost like shock on his features now. His eyes narrowed, and there was a beat of silence before he said, “Really.”
It could’ve been a question, but it didn’t sound like one at all.
Elijah nodded, grabbing the hem of his shirt with one hand before tugging it over his head. “Yeah. You.”
My gaze flew to Cole and Finn, half expecting one of them to step forward and put an end to this, to call out the joke.
Because it must be a joke, right?
The Princes didn’t fight each other.
But the blond quarterback and the boy with raven-black hair stood on the sidelines, shoulder to shoulder, watching seriously.
Mason flicked a glance at them quickly too, then turned back to Elijah. “Okay. Whatever you say.”
He slipped his shirt off too, tossing it to the ground near the edge of the ring, and I gripped the phone tighter before it could fall from my limp fingers.
What the fuck is going on here?
No one called a start. No one spoke. No one cheered or taunted the two boys in the ring.
For a moment, they just stared at each other. Mason’s back was mostly to me, but I could see Elijah clearly on the other side of the ring, and from one second to the next, his face changed. His beautiful, elegant, controlled features morphed into something animalistic, and he charged at Mason with a yell.
Mason swung a fist and ducked out of the way, but Elijah pivoted, and this time he got an arm around the taller boy. The tattoo of the fallen angel on Elijah’s back seemed to ripple and come alive as his muscles flexed, and he drove a shoulder into Mason’s stomach, driving him back and down.
They both went to the ground, rolling on the rough, uneven clearing, grappling for the advantage. The two boys were grunting and cursing, but the crowd around them remained silent, giving the entire thing a terrifying, surreal quality.
Mason swung again and caught Elijah on the side of the face, but it was like Elijah was channeling Cole or something. His head whipped to the side and right back, and he didn’t stop trying to pin Mason. Then his fist flew through the air, hitting Mason’s cheek with a crack.
He hit him again.
And again.
“It was too far! I told you! It was too fucking far!” With every blow Elijah rained down, he shouted at Mason, his voice ragged and rough from exertion and anger. “We shouldn’t have done it!”
On the next punch, Mason managed to move his head out of the way, and Elijah’s fist hit the dirt, throwing him off balance. Mason shoved and rolled, using the momentum to push Elijah off him. And the second Elijah hit the ground, the green-eyed boy was on him.
The emotions I’d sometimes seen bubbling up inside Mason, the ones that seemed to strain the very seams of his being, pulsed beneath the surface of his skin as he straddled Elijah’s waist, grabbing his shoulder in a tight grip.
“We had to, and you fucking know it.” Mason’s lip was bloody, and a cut near his eye streamed blood. He was breathing hard, and his jaw clenched as he stared down at his friend. “You know what she did. We had to do something.”
“No!” Elijah hooked Mason’s arm and bucked him off, swinging at him again. “We didn’t! We should never have let you talk us into your fucked up reve—”
Mason’s fist swung out, cutting off Elijah’s words. Before Elijah could recover, the taller boy gave an inarticulate yell and struck again, and again.
The phone was out of my hand before I even realized I’d dropped it. It hit the ground as I barreled out from behind the tree, shoving my way through bodies before launching myself at Mason.
He was bigger than I was and more physically powerful. But he hadn’t been expecting me and wasn’t prepared. I caught his shoulders in a graceless tackle, forcing him off of Elijah.
“What the fuck?” a voice called from the crowd, and several other voices joined in, resonating with shock and confusion.
I ignored them. I didn’t give a shit about anyone who was watching. Mason was still beneath me, my body sprawled awkwardly across his, our faces just inches apart. For a moment, all the anger in his expression drained away, replaced by guilt and shame. His bruised and bloodied face crumpled, and his arms, which had come around me when I tackled him, tightened in something like an embrace.
Then I shoved at his chest, breaking his hold and standing. He lay on his back on the dirt, his bare chest covered with a sheen of sweat and streaks of blood. Our gazes locked, and I didn’t know what I wanted to do—kick him, punch him, or comfort him. So I turned away, stepping toward Elijah.
He was in worse shape than Mason—it’d never really been a fair fight—and he lay on his side, the tattoo on his back marked with small scratches from the rough ground. Finn and Cole stood motionless, and it was the first time I’d ever seen the two of them wear matching expressions.
Shock.
“Help him if you want to,” I said shortly, gesturing to Mason before crouching down beside Elijah and wrapping his arm around my shoulder. He stood unsteadily, leaning a lot of his weight on me, and I didn’t look back at the other three as we staggered away.
My phone was lying by the tree where I’d hidden—it’d fallen screen-down, thank God—and I leaned Elijah against the trunk and surreptitiously stopped the recording before slipping it back into my pocket.
He hadn’t said a word since the fight, and we didn’t speak
at all as I helped him out of the woods. By the time we passed through the hole in the wall, he was walking a little more steadily, but he still seemed to weave from side to side.
I took him past Prentice Hall—it was closer, but I didn’t want to bring a Prince into my dorm room—and brought him up to Clarendon. When we reached it, I fished his key out of his back pocket and opened the door.
His dorm was messy like always. He winced when I flicked the overhead light on, so I turned it back off and switched on a lamp in the living room instead before drawing the curtains on the windows shut. I helped him sit on the couch, and when he leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees, little droplets of blood dripped from his nose onto the hardwood.
“First aid kit?” I asked.
“Bathroom. Under the sink.” His voice was thick and low, and he didn’t look up.
Right. Each of the dorms came stocked with a little kit, although I was sure these weren’t at all the kinds of injuries the Oak Park staff had assumed the students would be patching up.
I walked quickly to the bathroom and retrieved the kit and a washcloth, trying not to notice the way Elijah’s oak and sage smell permeated the space or the small comb resting on the edge of the sink—all the little things that made this his space, that made him seem too human for comfort.
It was easier to hate the Princes when they were just the untouchable children of gods.
Elijah hadn’t moved by the time I got back, and there were several more droplets of blood decorating the floor. I snagged a box of tissues and used one to wipe up the little red blotches. Then I pushed the coffee table a little farther from the couch and sat on the end of it, facing the boy with light brown hair.
“Tilt your head up.”
He slowly did as I asked, and when I got a good look at his face in the light, I sucked in a breath. His nose was dripping blood, and it had smeared across his face during the fight. A large red bruise was already visible along the line of his cheekbone on the left side, punctuated by a cut near his temple, and the skin under his eye was dark purple.