The Freshman (Kingmakers)

by Sophie Lark

“What?” I say. “You don’t like Miles?”

  “Not particularly,” Zoe says.

  “Why not?”

  “No offense, but I find him arrogant and reckless. I can’t understand anyone who gets into trouble deliberately. He thinks everything’s a game, like there’s no real consequences.”

  “I’m not offended,” I shrug. “That’s accurate.”

  “He’s funny, though,” Chay counters. “And pretty fucking sexy.”

  Zoe shakes her head silently, not impressed by those particular qualities.

  “Well, I wouldn’t mind giving him a try,” Chay says. “Before he gets himself expelled.”

  “I’ll put in a good word for you,” I tell Chay. “No promises, though. Miles listens to me about as much as he listens to anyone else. Which is zero.”

  “No worries,” Chay says. “I’ve got a few options at home waiting for me.” She grins, picturing these friends with benefits that she hasn’t fucked in almost a year. “It’s like a cute dress you forgot about way in the back of your closet… good as new again.”

  I laugh. “I’m excited for you.”

  I finish packing my own suitcase—not as neatly as Zoe, but with more room to spare than Chay.

  That done, I haul it downstairs so I can leave it with the wagons that have pulled into the bailey, ready to carry both us and our luggage back down to the harbor.

  As I throw my suitcase onto the pile of waiting bags, I hear a heavy thud right next to me. I turn to find Dean dropping off his own bag.

  We haven’t spoken since the night he fought with Leo. And I haven’t seen him since the day of the final challenge.

  We straighten up slowly, staring at each other. I can feel my blood rushing with pure, unadulterated fury.

  It’s hard to tell what Dean is thinking. His shoulders are hunched and his eyes narrowed almost to slits. His face looks pale and tight.

  “I know what you did,” I say, quietly. “I have proof. I’ve got the regulator you cut.”

  “You have a broken regulator?” Dean says, coolly. “What does that prove, exactly?”

  “Stay away from us,” I hiss at him. “If I decide to kill someone . . . I’ll actually succeed.”

  Dean just laughs.

  “It’s you who will come find me again, Anna. Once you realize what a mistake you made.”

  “I’d rather swim back to Dubrovnik,” I retort.

  “Maybe you’ll get your chance,” Dean says, softly. “Watch your step on that ship . . .”

  I turn and stalk away from him, feeling irritated and unsatisfied. He’s right—the regulator is flimsy evidence. It’s mine and Leo’s word against his. And I’m sure he’s got some asshole friend who would provide him with a fake alibi.

  I head into the dining hall so I can grab a quick lunch before it’s time to board the ship. The meal is simpler than usual—bacon sandwiches, fresh fruit, and unpasteurized milk. No other options. That suits me fine—the bacon cured on the island is the most delicious I’ve ever tasted.

  I take two sandwiches and sit down with Matteo and Paulie to eat. Hedeon plops down next to us a moment later, his plate piled high with food. He’s not a big fan of Matteo or Paulie, but apparently he likes us better than eating alone.

  “Excited to get back?” he says to me, mouth full of an enormous bite of sandwich. He ignores Matteo and Paulie.

  “Yes,” I say.

  I’m not really thinking about heading home—I’m remembering the night I visited Leo in the infirmary. When I saw Hedeon sneaking down to the Undercroft.

  “Did you ever meet up with that girl after the second challenge?” I ask, casually. “The Accountant?”

  “Yeah, I did,” Hedeon replies, smoothly. “She was quite the wildcat, too. Don’t be fooled by those shy little Accountants—they like the kinkiest shit.”

  It’s so odd watching him lie. If I didn’t know what I’d seen, I’d be completely fooled. His expression is as calm and confident as ever, he answers without hesitation.

  I press just a little further. “I thought I saw you later that night, going down in the Undercroft.”

  Now I spot it—an infinitesimal twitch at the corner of his right eye. But his smile only widens.

  “Must be some other tall, dark, and handsome guy,” he says. “I’ve never been down there.”

  “Ah,” I say, as if I believe him. “It was pretty dark.”

  Hedeon changes the subject to our final grades, a topic on which Matteo and Paulie can’t resist chiming in.

  The whole exchange is over in a matter of seconds.

  I haven’t clarified what Hedeon was up to. But I have discovered something interesting . . .

  He’s a practiced liar. And he’s hiding something.

  As we climb up into the wagons, there’s an air of nervous excitement and also a strange kind of regret. Kingmakers was our home for almost a year. Isolated as we were on the island, it feels strange to leave.

  Plenty of students are doing a last-minute exchange of numbers, which we have to scribble down on paper since we don’t have our cell phones back yet.

  We drive down to the harbor where the ship waits, much larger than any of the fishing boats moored next to it.

  “I forgot how big it was,” Leo says. He’s sitting next to me on the bench seat, his arm loosely draped behind me to protect my back from the jolting of the wagon.

  Ares sits across from us, looking up at the ship with a strange expression. I thought he’d be excited to see his family again. Instead he looks almost as if he’s dreading it.

  Noticing the same thing, Leo says, “You gonna come see us in Chicago?”

  “I’d like to,” Ares says. “But I’ll be working over the summer.”

  “I’ve got a fuck-ton of air miles . . .” Leo says, trying to indicate that he’d pay for the flight without embarrassing Ares.

  “Thanks,” Ares says, noncommittally. “I’ll miss you guys.”

  “Well, don’t miss us yet,” Leo says. “You still have to tolerate a long voyage back to civilization with us.”

  By the time we board the ship, the main deck is already packed with students. Unlike the voyage over, we’re all going home on the same day. The net strung between the masts is already full of raucous Juniors, and there’s barely a place to lean, let alone sit down. We end up jammed in the bow with a bunch of Freshman Spies.

  Everyone is talking over their plans for the upcoming summer. I hear Shannon Kelly tell her friend Jean Hamilton that she plans to stopover in Spain before going home to Dublin. I had a Contracts class with Shannon first semester, but we don’t cross paths much being in separate divisions. Plus she’s best friends with Gemma Rossi, who I don’t hold a grudge against, but prefer to avoid.

  Throwing her mane of curls back over her shoulder, Shannon spots me standing behind her and gives me a strangely guilty look.

  “Hope there won’t be so many people seasick on the way back,” I say to her. “We can’t all fit along the rail.”

  “If anybody pukes on me, I’m throwing ‘em over,” Shannon says. She hesitates, then leaves her friend, drawing closer to me instead. She glances over at Leo, engrossed in his conversation with Ares.

  “So you’re with Leo now, are ya?” she says.

  “Yes,” I say. “I am.”

  She nods, chewing on her lower lip.

  I can tell she has something on her mind. My father always told me that the best interrogation method is silence. If you want to hear what someone has to say, then shut your fucking mouth.

  So I just look at her, calmly and quietly.

  “I didn’t want to say anything . . . when you were with Dean . . .” she says, her voice low so it won’t carry beyond the two of us.

  I stay silent, waiting.

  “I don’t even know if I even saw anything . . .”

  She takes a deep breath, tucking her hair back behind her ears. This is a useless maneuver, since the curls spring free again immediately.

 
“You remember the night we had that party down on Moon Beach,” she says. “The first party we had down there . . .”

  “Yes,” I reply, in a neutral tone.

  “Well . . . I was standing there talking to Gemma. She had a bit of a thing for Leo and he had just won the first challenge, so she was wondering if she should go congratulate him. Then Dean came up to us, which was sort of weird, ‘cause he never talks to us. He had two drinks with him. And he passed one to Gemma, just one. And he told her she should give it to Leo.”

  I swallow, my throat making a clicking sound.

  “Did she?” I say. “Did she give it to him?”

  “Yeah,” Shannon nods. “Leo drank it. Then a little while after, Gemma said he seemed really fucked up . . .” she trails off. “I didn’t want to get in the middle of it. Gemma’s my best friend. She didn’t mean any harm. I thought it wasn’t my business, especially once you started dating Dean. But now that you’re with Leo . . .”

  “Thanks for telling me,” I say, faintly.

  “No problem,” Shannon says, her cheeks flushed pink. She turns away quickly and rejoins her friend.

  The ship is pulling away from shore, heading out into open water. The deck rocks gently with the waves. I feel like I’m reeling far more than the motion of the boat would cause. I feel like I might fall right over.

  I forgave Leo for that night. But now a much more sinister possibility is striking me: the idea that Leo might not have required forgiveness at all. The idea that he might have been drugged.

  Drugged by Dean.

  Shannon’s story has the ring of truth to it. It’s more sensical than what I thought happened. After all, it was unlike Leo to get out of control drunk, especially so quickly. If I hadn’t been emotional and upset, if I’d actually analyzed the situation, I might have realized the truth. Instead, I lost my temper. And Dean was right there to capitalize on that moment.

  I want to find him and rip his fucking face off.

  I’m already scanning the deck, searching for a glimpse of his white-blond head.

  I must look crazed, because right as I spot Dean on the opposite end of the ship and I start rushing forward to confront him, Leo steps in front of me, grabbing me by the shoulders.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “To stab that motherfucker,” I snarl.

  “Who?” Leo says, bemused.

  “Dean, of course!”

  “What now?” Leo says, trying to pull me aside to calm me down.

  I give him a brief and painful recitation of what Shannon told me, my throat constricted with guilt. I’m realizing more and more by the minute that Leo was a victim, that it wasn’t his fault. Which means that everything that happened between us is my fault instead.

  I’m so ashamed that I can barely get the last few words out. My face is flaming and I can’t look Leo in the eye.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

  Leo wraps his arms around me and pulls me hard against his chest. He’s squeezing me with all his strength. I can feel his body shaking slightly.

  “I’m so relieved,” he says.

  “What?” I pull back from him just a little so I can look up at his face.

  “I’m relieved,” Leo repeats. “I can’t tell you what a weight that is off my mind.”

  “Aren’t you angry?” I ask.

  “Yeah of course I’m fuckin’ mad—that devious little shit. But Anna, I thought I made the biggest mistake of my life that night. And I still did! ‘Cause I should have kissed you the moment I had you alone on that walk down to the beach. I should have never let you out of my sight at the party. I should have told you what you meant to me way before any of that even happened. But at least I didn’t fuck around with Gemma on purpose. I couldn’t stand that I did that. I couldn’t stand the pain I caused you.”

  I’m looking up at him in total disbelief.

  “You’re not mad at me, Leo?”

  “God, no,” he says, kissing me quickly. We’re still on Kingmakers property, and we’re not supposed to show open affection.

  “I don’t understand how you can let things go so easy,” I say.

  I’m a grudge holder. When someone’s wronged me, I never forget. It eats at me if I don’t do anything about it.

  “Everything that ever happened to me before today brought me to this point,” Leo says. “Right here, right now, with you in my arms. I wouldn’t change anything. Because I’d never risk not being here with you.”

  I can’t help laughing.

  “I think you might be becoming a Buddhist,” I say to Leo. “You’re shockingly zen.”

  “Yeah,” Leo growls, raising an eyebrow at me. “Unless someone fucks with my baby . . .”

  The flight home with Leo is the most blissful experience of my life. I’m thirty thousand feet up in the air, floating over the clouds, cuddled up in the arms of the man I love.

  We’re so exhausted from the school year that we sleep almost the entire time, only waking when the flight attendants bring us snacks and drinks.

  Miles is on the same plane as us from Dubrovnik to Vienna, but then he takes a different exchange, planning to stop in Los Angeles before coming back to Chicago.

  “What’s in Los Angeles?” Leo asks, curiously.

  “So many things,” Miles says. He loves being mysterious.

  “Are you meeting someone?” I ask him.

  Miles holds up his phone. “I have to play a song for a guy. Just one song.”

  “Why don’t you just send it to him?” Leo asks.

  “It’s called striking while the iron’s hot,” Miles says. “Deals get done face-to-face, while emotions are high.”

  “Well, make sure you tell your parents,” I remind him. “I don’t want to see you mom waiting at the airport for you all sad.”

  “I already told them,” Miles assures us. “And I’m gonna bring my mom home some pumpkin bread from the Monastery of Angels, so don’t you worry your pretty little head about her. She’d rather see that than me.”

  Leo and I finally touch down in Chicago in late afternoon, knowing that both our fathers will be there to meet us.

  We haven’t discussed how we’ll make our announcement. We were too sleepy and happy to stress about it on the way back.

  In the end, we do the thing that feels most natural—we walk out of baggage claim hand in hand, as if we’ve always been lovers.

  My father and Leo’s father are standing right next to each other, forming an amusing study in contrast—Uncle Seb in a summer sport coat, deeply tanned, with threads of gray at his temples and a stylish pair of dark-framed glasses perched on his nose. He’s relaxed and happy as he leans on his walking stick. Next to him my father appears more fair and pale than ever, stiff in his dark suit, scanning the crowd keenly for any sight of us. He holds his hands clasped loosely in front of him, his tattooed skin like patterned gloves.

  When they spot Leo and me—and the way we lean against each other as we walk, our fingers intertwined—their reactions are equally opposite.

  Uncle Seb’s mouth falls open. He appears confused for a moment, then he breaks into a slow grin that brightens to pure delight.

  By contrast, my father comprehends in an instant, and his expression becomes rigid and furious, eyes burning in his blanched face.

  “Anna,” he says, through thin lips. “What is the meaning of this?”

  I take a deep breath, holding my chin high. This is the crucial moment. I can’t show the slightest hint of weakness, or my father will tear me to shreds.

  “Leo and I are in love,” I say, calmly. “And we’re going to be together.”

  Uncle Seb wisely stays silent, understanding my father well enough to know that this needs to sink in.

  “Leo is your cousin,” my father says, in his most chilling tone.

  “Papa,” I say softly, looking into those eyes that are as cold and blue as my own. “You know as well as I do that while we can choose our family, we cannot choose who
we love.”

  There is a long silence, in which Leo’s fingers grip mine with an intensity that tells me he’s not ever letting go, no matter what happens next.

  Leo tells my father, quietly but firmly, “No one will love her better than I can. No one will cherish and protect her as I will.”

  Uncle Seb adds, “Come now, Miko. Where did you ever expect to find someone good enough for Anna?”

  We’re ganging up on him, not that it matters—my father will fight a thousand people when he feels he’s in the right.

  But in this particular instance . . . he isn’t sure.

  “We will discuss this more at home,” my father says sternly, taking my suitcase. But as he turns away to walk to the car, he pauses and says to Uncle Seb, “Will your family join us for dinner?”

  Uncle Seb hides his grin. “Of course. I’ll bring the wine.”

  “Not that shit Cabernet,” Papa says.

  “Never the Cab, always the Merlot,” Seb agrees, sending a wink in my direction.

  Epilogue

  Leo

  2 Months Later

  I wake early in the morning because I can feel that Anna isn’t in bed next to me. She snuck into my room after midnight and lay curled up in my arms for hours, her breathing heavy, deep, and peaceful.

  While our parents have finally accepted that we’re in love and intend to be together, they’re not quite ready for shared rooms on our joint family vacation.

  This cabin belongs to Uncle Miko. That of course means that it’s located in the darkest and loneliest bit of forest imaginable, tucked up against the mountains. We’re on a little spit of land, surrounded on three sides by a lake as black and glossy as a mirror, and on the other by towering pines.

  The cabin could be a witch’s house with its steeply pitched roof, rough-hewn logs, and continually smoking chimney. It’s large enough to fit both the Wilks and my branch of the Gallos quite comfortably.

  Still, Anna and I can never be completely comfortable when we’re apart. That’s why she’s crept into my room every night so she can get the rest she needs asleep on my chest.