I didn’t have all the answers, but stopping the Red Court was about more than just my sister or anyone else they’d ever broken in one way or another. It was about stopping the cycle of hurt. It was about crushing the wheel to keep it from turning another person into Matthew—a mess of anguish.
I was so stupid for thinking I could be the Queen of Hearts and make the Red Court into something better. The ends didn’t justify the means when it meant hurting people. It was time for it all to stop.
CHAPTER 37
THE TRACK BENEATH my shoes was cold and damp, giving it about as much spring as a concrete block. On any other day, this might have bothered me. But right now, I could have been running on lava rocks and it wouldn’t have mattered.
Chase was supposed to join me after he met with his lab partner to go over their last assignment. There was so much to mentally unpack; I needed space to sort through my thoughts in private. As my legs found their rhythm, I let my mind wander through the day’s hellscape.
Flashes of Gideon dominated my vision, and I pushed my pace. Thoughts of Chase’s smile came next, and guilt followed knowing I wasn’t who he thought I was. I pushed harder. The hunch of Gigi’s shoulders came at me next, and shame chased me like my own personal demon.
Though I was all-out sprinting at an unsustainable pace, my breath coming in ragged gasps, I didn’t stop. I kept pushing for more, digging down deeper for the drive to go harder. I was determined to push through it all until there was nothing left to purge.
My stomach gave out before my legs and I dropped to my knees, vomiting what was left of my lunch into the grass next to the track. Shaking, I stood and stumbled to my water bottle on the bleachers. The freezing aluminum greeted me with a clang when I collapsed onto the metal bench.
A few tentative sips of water left me cringing as the cold liquid hit my stomach. Out of habit, I reached for my journal in my bag, wanting to get my feelings off my chest and onto a page, but threw it back down. There wasn’t anything to say. My breathing was nearly back to normal when I saw Chase’s familiar silhouette making its way down the hill from the parking lot to the track.
“Hi,” he said when he got close enough to speak instead of shout.
“Hey.”
His easy smile made my own flimsy one feel false. Chase set his water and keys next to me and shook out his arms, then lifted them overhead, revealing a sliver of his sculpted stomach.
“Looks like you’ve been at it pretty hard.” His eyes skimmed my flushed cheeks and the sweat clinging to my hairline.
“I have a lot on my mind and running helps me think.”
“Now I know your secret to being the best. Better watch out.”
Chase’s laid-back manner coupled with the word secret cut through my haze to the parts of myself I was trying to hide.
“Good luck. No one else seems to be able to keep up.”
Confusion crossed Chase’s face. “Did I say something wrong? I didn’t mean anything by it. I admire your work ethic.” He’d elevated me onto some pedestal I was bound to topple from. “I’ve never met anyone as focused as you are. I know I could learn a thing or two.”
I scrubbed my hands over my eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m terrible company right now.”
He continued loosening his muscles. “Well, let’s get to work and fix that. I’m here to learn from the master. Show me what you got.”
It was impossible for me not to smile. Chase was like a walking ray of sunshine to my permanently cloudy day.
“Actually, would it be ok if you led the way today?”
Chase’s surprised expression highlighted a thin scar running through his right eyebrow. It was a small imperfection of his otherwise flawless features. My hand itched to reach out and smooth my fingertips across the raised skin.
“We can do that. Why don’t you take a lap with me to warm up and then we might do some sprints I’ve been working on.”
I pushed myself up from the bench, my wobbly muscles feeling like Jell-O left to warm in the sun too long. Chase set an easy pace as we made our way around the track in companionable silence. If only everything were as easy as jogging next to the boy who made my heart stutter.
“Hey, aren’t you friends with Gigi Martin? Have you talked to her?”
“I saw her after school. She’s not coming back until things cool down.”
“God, I can’t imagine what that’s like. If you talk to her again, and there’s anything I could do to help, let me know. I feel so bad for her.”
“Yeah, I will.”
Chase didn’t know Gigi at all. But he was the sort of person who could feel empathy for someone he didn’t know. He was the kind of person to help a girl he previously hated when she was having a fake crisis in front of him. How could he have more room to care for anyone else? Caring for another person seemed to take up physical space inside me; there was only so much I could take on, only so many people I could truly care about.
“I overheard some people saying that it was the Red Court that did it.”
This conversation could not be headed in a more dangerous direction. The truth of who I was pressed down on me, fracturing my foundation.
“Could you imagine what kind of messed-up monster you’d have to be to destroy people like that? To enjoy it?”
My arms and legs felt leaden with the weight of my secret. Living so much of my life in secret was exhausting. I wanted nothing more than to be transparent with Chase. He deserved that, and I didn’t want to lie anymore. Not after what happened with Gideon and Gigi.
I looked at him, committing his face, and the way he looked at me, to memory. “I’m part of the Red Court.”
“You’re what?” Chase’s expression hadn’t changed at all, like he was positive he’d misheard me.
The only thing worse than admitting something terrible about yourself was having to repeat it. I stopped, pooling my courage for a second shot at the truth. “I am part of the Red Court. I have been since the moment we ran into each other in the hall and I told you about my sister.”
“That’s not possible. How could you be one of them?” Incredulity was working its way into his words.
“Because I chose to join.” The simplicity of the explanation belied the twisted reason behind it, but it was the easiest truth. No one forced me to do any of this. I chose it and continued to choose it.
I could almost see his faith in me slowly unraveling; I expected to find the remains of it—the tattered scraps of what Chase felt for me—spooled around my running shoes.
“But you’re not like them.”
There was something there. Something in the way he said it knocked an idea loose in my head, an idea that had been lingering in the back of my mind since we saw the hallway takedown. Chase seemed so certain in his assessment of the Red Court and the girls who ran it. Almost like he knew us, was involved with us.
“What favor did you ask for?” I was taking a shot in the dark. When Chase winced, I knew my words hit their mark.
“Wouldn’t you know?” He refused to meet my gaze, fidgeting with the cuff of his hoodie.
His quiet words and the accusation they held tore a hole in the life raft I was desperately clinging to; without it, without him, I wasn’t sure if I could stay afloat. I was no longer me, the girl he kissed in the hallway and texted with at night. I was the monster.
“Actually, I wouldn’t. I’m a nobody underling.”
“Does that make you any less guilty?”
Shame washed over me, leaving me vulnerable. I pushed back at it the only way I knew how. “You made a choice, too. No one forced you to ask for anything.”
I took a step away from Chase and was overcome with the horrible feeling that I would never be that close to him again.
“And I’ve never stopped paying for it. You don’t know what it’s like to live every day wondering if
today is the day when they ask too much, want something I can’t give.”
I did know that feeling; I’d already faced that fear and come out the other side without my best friend. “What did you ask for?” I repeated my question without avarice or assumptions.
“At the end of last year, I was struggling in Honors Biology. I took on too much, too many advanced-level classes. There just wasn’t enough time to maintain my GPA and my sanity with how much I have to help out at home. My grades are everything to me. A scholarship is the only way I’m going to college.” His shoulders, normally strong and steady, were hunched and his head hung low in defeat. I wasn’t alone in my shame, but if I was misery, I wasn’t in the mood for company.
“So, you asked for help and got it.”
“No, not really.”
That couldn’t be true. The Red Court always finished its jobs. “What do you mean?”
“Turns out I didn’t need the help. I studied my ass off and did all the extra credit I could. Just before summer, I got some anonymous note that said they looked into it for me and confirmed my A, but because they had to check at all, I still owed them. Owed you.”
“Not me. I wasn’t even involved until last month.”
A small amount of softness returned to his gaze. Maybe knowing I wasn’t a part of one of his darkest moments bettered me in his estimation. It shouldn’t.
“I don’t get it, Ember. You already have the grades, and a place on the track and debate teams. Why would you even need to be a part of something like this? Do you get your kicks from controlling other people’s lives?”
I wanted to tell him about April. And how I thought I could make the Red Court better. But I realized that there was nothing that could justify the pain it inflicted. But he owed the Red Court and would do what he had to. If it ever came down to it, would he use me as a bargaining chip the day they asked too much of him? I couldn’t be sure.
“I can’t—” My voice came out in a choked whisper. I was about to tell him that I couldn’t trust him, but the words wouldn’t come out. I wanted to trust him, craved his trust in return even if I didn’t deserve it.
It didn’t matter that I couldn’t say it. His hurt expression told me he understood. “What? You don’t trust me? I guess I don’t blame you. You’re part of some screwed-up group that likes to mess with people. You probably can’t trust anyone. Not even yourself.”
My story, the real story of my life, was burning in my throat. I ached to let it out. It wouldn’t budge, wouldn’t let me say the words that might win Chase back to my side.
The time had come to do the thing I should have done weeks ago. I had to push him away for good. “That day in the hall, when you helped me, I was only there because the Red Court told me to be.” My words hit Chase like bullets, each killing a part of him that cared for me. “My job was to be helpless so you’d get close to me and I could get a picture of us together. They sent it to your girlfriend. She was jealous, but she had every reason to be.”
“Why would you do that?” He stared at me in disbelief, but I had to drive my point home.
“Because someone else was willing to pay us for it. It’s how this whole thing works. We give you whatever it is you want most and then use that against you when we come to collect again and again.”
“Who asked you to break up me and Madison?”
I threw my hands up in the air, unwilling to tell him I didn’t know. It was ridiculous that I could be on the inside of the Red Court and barely know more than one of my marks.
“That’s the worst part in all of this. I don’t get to know why I’m doing something or who is handing out orders.”
“Then why do you do it?”
The impulse to spill my guts to Chase hit me again, harder than expected, but I held off. Behind his warmth and goodness was a person who wanted something bad enough to pay an unknown price for it. Behind his soft brown eyes was a liability I couldn’t afford. Not now that I’d given up so much.
He read the lack of a response in my reaction. “Fine, don’t tell me.” For an aching moment, it seemed like those would be the last words he would ever say to me. Then he said, “I’ll tell you why I did it. I was scared of what would happen if I didn’t have my GPA. When it looked like I might lose that, I panicked.”
My sensitive stomach gave an angry twist at the tears pooling in the corners of his eyes. How the Red Court affected Chase wouldn’t be erased the moment he received his diploma. He’d carry the weight of his mistake long after high school ended.
I reached for words, and found the truth waiting for me. “I wish things could be different. For both of us. But it would be better for everyone if we weren’t friends anymore.” At least my admirer would get their way. I would be staying away from Chase just like they wanted.
“Friends?” Chase scoffed. “How could we be friends when you were lying to me the whole time? This—” he pointed between us “—was never anything, because it all came out of your part in your club. I really can’t believe you, Ember. I thought you were better than that.”
I cleared my throat against the emotional asphyxiation strangling my vocal cords. “You’re right. I guess there’s nothing left to say.”
Chase leveled a blank glare at me, not a trace of his usual warmth or even the anger of the last few minutes. It seemed he was already past grieving the loss of whatever we were to each other.
“I guess so. See you around, Ember.”
CHAPTER 38
IT WAS SEVERAL MINUTES after Chase disappeared over the top of the hill leading back to the school’s main building that I noticed the snow falling lightly around me. The first snow of the season was always my favorite. The cold without snow seemed pointless, but the gathering flakes coating everything in an even white blanket was beautiful.
My legs were heavy, weighed down by the rubble that once was my life, as I bounced from foot to foot trying to loosen my frozen muscles. I didn’t have anywhere to be. No use going home to my too-quiet house. Only a week ago, with a rare free moment to burn, I would have already texted Gideon and had a plan to spend some quality time doing absolutely nothing with my best friend. I felt his absence like a phantom limb, remembering what it was like to be whole when he was in my life.
After two miles at an easy pace, I couldn’t ignore the stitch in my side any longer. It wasn’t the workout leaving me short of breath. No matter how much I tried to focus on my breathing and the sound of my shoes slapping the track, my thoughts strayed back to Chase. I longed to talk to someone and release the pressure of my thoughts like a steam valve, but who was left? The flurries ebbed, leaving only the overcast gray sky as my companion.
The walk up the hill back to the school left my fatigued legs shaking and I stumbled to a secluded bench next to the theater wing’s entrance. Large bushes shrouded the cluster of cement blocks from view. During school hours it was usually occupied in a do-not-disturb kind of way. My stomach was still unsteady, and in case it turned inside out again, I’d rather not let anyone see me vomit.
Over the sound of my deep breaths, I heard the door to the theater wing open. Harsh, hushed voices were arguing, but the words were unintelligible from my spot. Curious, I crept to the edge of the bushes and peered out. Haley stormed past my hiding spot and halted, turning back to the girl she was with in a tornado of blond curls.
“I said don’t worry about it,” she snapped.
The girl behind her pulled up short, looking hurt at the sharp tone in Haley’s words. It was only then that I looked closely at her face, shaded by a baseball cap. It was Shauna, the Fire Alarm. She recovered her composure quickly. “Your pick doesn’t seem to be working out.”
“She’ll get there. It’s hard for a lot of newbies at the beginning, but she could be great. Let’s give her more time.”
The Fire Alarm did not look impressed by Haley’s reasoning. “It wasn’t
hard for us.”
Haley rolled her eyes. “That’s hardly a ringing endorsement for us as decent human beings.”
“Since when do you care about being decent? This is supposed to be about stacking the deck in our favor. I’ve earned my place, and next year this is all supposed to be mine. You need to start thinking about your legacy as our leader.”
Leader? That would mean...
I mentally revised my tally of Red Court members to thirteen. It seemed Haley was pulling double duty.
“I told you not to worry. I’m handling it.”
The Fire Alarm huffed, seemingly resigned. “It’s my job to worry.”
“And it’s my job to make it work.”
So much for the girl from the carnival. Haley marched away from the school without a look back at her partner. Her real partner in all of this. The Fire Alarm stood silently for a few moments, her poker face firmly in place. Whatever she was feeling, I couldn’t read it. She left silently, but I could hear the echo of Haley’s words reverberating around us. It was her job to make the Red Court work. And what the Queen of Hearts says, goes.
* * *
“I thought I would know what to do once I found out who the Queen of Hearts was,” I said to April.
I’d ambushed my sister the moment she got home from her retreat, still glowing from the success of her event. Now, after I’d unloaded everything that had happened over the past few days, she was sitting on her bed with a notebook in hand to record the so far terrible ideas I’d brainstormed on how to destroy the Red Court.
It had been hard to talk about what happened to Mrs. Martin and Gigi, my fallout with Gideon, and everything with Chase. But the hardest thing was admitting how far I’d fallen into the Red Court, and how I’d foolishly thought by taking control I could change the nature of it. Layer by layer, I stripped all of it away, leaving me raw and ashamed.
April set the notebook aside. “You know I love you.”
“Oh no.” I put my hands up. My sister was notorious for delivering hard truths after those five words.
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