I was Ember Williams, ace student, track star, debate team captain, and...idiot. My sister had been lying to me for years. The Red Court didn’t hurt her; she was injured hurting someone else. How didn’t I see it? Her reluctance to help me once she realized what my plan was looked different in this new light. April never wanted me to uncover the truth.
“Ember!” my dad called.
“Coming!”
I swiped at my face, angry at the tears that proved how naive I’d been. With a few deep breaths, I went to join my family.
By the time I reached the kitchen, I was composed. By the time I sat down at the table, I was smiling. By the time I took my first bite of chicken, I was asking my parents how their day had been. April sat in silence, cutting her chicken into tiny, precise bites.
“School was ok,” I answered when my mom asked. “I’m just tired, I think. Winter break can’t come fast enough for me. I’m exhausted. I think I might sleep the whole time.”
Babbling was a dead giveaway that I was definitely not ok. I was a mess, and if I didn’t shut up soon, I would end up talking about how broken and angry I was. My view of the Red Court was so different than when I began. I’d seen the damage it could inflict in a dozen different ways and witnessed how the hurt could ripple through a life, leaving destruction in its wake. There were more reasons besides my sister for why the Red Court had to be stopped, but it all started with the need for revenge. Revenge was the catalyst that put me on this path for the last two years. And it was a lie.
“I think I need a run,” I said and pushed away from the table with only a few bites gone from my plate.
“Now?” My dad’s confused face was edging toward concerned, and I had to get out of the house before he came to his senses and stopped me.
“Yeah, maybe not a run. Just a walk. I need some air.”
Throwing on the first pair of shoes I saw, my rattiest sneakers, I dashed out the door into the cold night air before my coat was on. I had zero intentions of walking around my neighborhood. That would only give me time to think, and my thoughts were what I had to escape. There had to be a place where I couldn’t think.
A car’s horn blaring caught my attention, and several shouts from inside a packed SUV followed as it raced down the street past me. Curious, I watched as it continued a couple of blocks and stopped in front of a house. Judging by the other cars and groups of kids streaming toward the house, there must be a party going on.
Maura lived two streets down from me. Maybe it was her party. My feet moved of their own accord, heedless of the battered sneakers and hoodie I was wearing. Hardly party attire. Not that I really knew. My frame of reference was what April used to wear when she went out to parties. April. My feet moved faster. I was desperate for a distraction loud enough to drown out my thoughts.
The party was as advertised. Kids dotted the lawn and front porch, sipping from red plastic cups and speaking in hushed whispers. Once inside, I was pushed into a crush of people, and they seemed to all be part of one huge conversation. Everyone was laughing and shouting at each other.
I tried to melt into the shadows and give myself some time, unsure what to do now that I was inside. Even unsettled by the music and the crowd, I was happy to have a new set of problems to think about. Like what to say if I ran into Maura, who I hadn’t spoken to in ages and whose house I had invited myself into.
With more people coming through the door, the inertia of the crowd moved me toward the back of the house and into the kitchen. A silver keg was parked in a kiddie pool full of ice. A senior I recognized from my math class was manning the tap and regarded me appraisingly.
“Wouldn’t have picked you for the partying type, Williams,” he drawled around a toothpick perched between his lips like he was James Dean with a cigarette.
“Me, neither. Can I get one?”
No use in lying. I did not belong here, but I’d probably look less out of place with a cup in my hand. He smirked and poured me a cup of whatever kind of beer it was. I kept a careful eye on him, remembering the sole piece of advice I’d heard about parties: watch your drink being poured.
“Thanks.” I took the cup he offered with little appreciation.
He held his cup up for me to knock with mine. “Have to cheers the Kegmaster.”
We clinked cups and I took a tentative sip that was more like letting the liquid below the foam touch my lips, before I pulled the cup away and gave him a nod. I turned to hide my horrified expression. The beer was bitter and tasted like I’d taken a bite out of my shoe.
With my cup in hand, I felt slightly more at ease. I was having a drink at the party. Just like everyone else. I had no idea why anyone else was here, but the noise and warmth of the room took up all my attention.
I took a drink, a real one this time, and was less shocked by the alcohol’s bite. It wasn’t as terrible as the first, but not improved enough that I’d be using my beer cup as anything more than a prop.
A small corner of my brain, probably one where the thumping base hadn’t yet reached, scolded me for stuffing my problems under a rug and dousing the rug in alcohol. It wasn’t a permanent fix, but I just needed a break.
“Ember?”
I turned and came face-to-face with Gideon.
“What on earth are you doing here?” he asked.
“Same as everyone else.” I stepped away from him to find a new corner to skulk in.
Gideon snagged me by the arm and tugged me out the back door.
“Hey,” I said indignantly.
He led me to a table and pulled a chair back. “Sit.”
Without much choice, I took the seat, wincing at the jolt of the cold metal chair against the thin fabric of my leggings.
“Talking to me twice in one day. Must be a special occasion.”
Gideon glared his disapproval at my sarcasm. “Well, we’d have only had to do this once if you bothered sticking around earlier.”
My throat tightened against the dam of emotion threatening to break just because I was in my best friend’s presence. My problems would not disappear with Gideon back in the picture. In my head, I understood this fact. In my heart, I wanted to dump out the fifty pounds of emotional baggage I’d gained in the last day for us to pick through. Together.
“What are you doing here, anyway?”
“I didn’t have anything else to do tonight.” Gideon looked away from me, like the statement cost him something he didn’t want to pay. It occurred to me that Gideon would have been as lonely as me.
He turned back to me, his normal smile playing about his lips. “Besides, something interesting always happens at parties.”
“Like me showing up.” I peered into my cup and set it aside. The beer lost its appeal with Gideon nearby.
“Ember,” Gideon started, “you’re not ok.”
“No, I’m not ok!”
Gideon only half raised a brow at my snappy attitude.
“What I’m saying is that I’ve been watching you and every day you seem worse. More run-down.”
How creepy. And endearing. And infuriating.
“You’ve been ‘watching’ me?” My voice was teetering on the edge of hysteria. “You’ve just been hanging around watching me drown—”
“Yes, in a shallow pool of your own drama,” he added.
I laughed, giving in to the agitation that overflowed like a pot of boiling water, and tears followed. It was the most Gideon thing to say, which was to say that it was ill-timed and a little mean but totally truthful. Was I laughing so hard that I was crying or crying because I couldn’t remember the last time I laughed?
“What are you doing?” Gideon reached out and smoothed my hair, tucking a piece that had fallen from my ponytail behind my ear.
I drew in a shuddering breath, wiping at my runny nose inelegantly with my sleeve. “I’m losing everyone I eve
r cared about.”
Gideon chewed the corner of his lip before he came to sit in the chair next to me and gathered my hands in his.
“You have me.”
I shook my head. “You abandoned me.”
“I couldn’t stand by and watch while you lost yourself to the Red Court. I’m guessing something’s happened?”
All I could manage was a nod in return. He studied me closely, his gaze flicking from the bags under my eyes to the frizzy state of my hair.
“Can you tell me?”
So I did. I told him about Gigi and Chase. I told him about the art museum, my corkboard with the likely members of the Red Court, and April. I spent the most time talking about the few moments I’d had with my sister, dissecting every word and the tiniest details. Part of me, probably the soft, mushy part, wanted there to be an explanation. But the most damning evidence were my own memories; small things that, when seen in a different light, took on entirely new meaning. April had known more than she should have about how to get into the Red Court. The sorts of things they’d find appealing in a potential member. At the end of my story, I was left with two questions. Who was my sister? Who was I?
Gideon made a small, annoyed sound. “You know who you are.”
“A 4.0 student. Runner. Debate captain. First-class fool.”
A few kids stumbled out back toward the hot tub across the yard. We watched them pass us, and I wondered what their problems were. If any of them were running from something, too. Maybe we were more alike than I knew.
“Those are things that describe you. I could add friend, daughter, and sister to that list.”
The word sister sizzled like a brand against my skin.
“But,” Gideon continued softly, as though he was sharing his biggest secret, “those things aren’t who you are. I believe, beneath all the bullshit labels we put on ourselves, there’s a place only you know about. A place where you can feel what you’re made of.”
I thought about the person who lived inside my skin, past the hurt and anger and the Red Court girl I’d let take over. Allowing my eyes to lose focus, I delved deeper inside myself, looking for the girl who wanted to be good. Who wanted to be like Chase. Who, no matter what, knew what the Red Court did was wrong, even when it felt right. That person wasn’t angry at any betrayal. That person was tired of hurting people.
My fingers slipped over the fibers of that girl, grasping at them like they were wisps of smoke. The more I thought of her, the more real she felt, I felt. This was the me I was when I wasn’t pretending to be anything else. The insubstantial girl materialized, and I felt the weight of her press into my chest while I wrapped my arms across my stomach to hold on to the feeling.
“I know what I have to do.”
CHAPTER 44
THAT NIGHT, I grabbed my burner and started a group text.
Me: Attention, ladies of the Red Court
Mandatory meeting
Monday
7am
Theater room
I quickly shut it back down before any potential replies could come in. Then I went to my sister’s room.
Without bothering to knock, I invited myself in. April was propped up in her bed, eyes rimmed in red and tissues scattered around her.
“Ember, I’m so sorry.”
I let her apology fall at my feet without bothering to acknowledge it. “Were you ever going to tell me?”
April looked away and hiccupped a sob. “Every day. I wanted to tell you every day. Since you joined the Red Court, I’ve been sick over it. It’s been killing me.”
Ice like fire licked through my veins, searing everything in a cold that left me numb. “It’s been killing you? Do you know what this has cost me? I’ve given everything I have to destroying the Red Court.”
“I never wanted this. I never asked you to destroy them for me!” Her frustration was palpable.
It was true. Nothing I did was because April asked it of me, but this was a path I was set on over a lie.
My breath gusted out, taking the bite from my words. “You didn’t have to. What kind of person would I have been if I just stood by and let the Red Court continue to hurt people?”
“There were a lot of ways to stop them that didn’t revolve around revenge.”
I flinched. The words only hurt because they were true. “You should have started that sentence with ‘You know I love you.’”
We stood on opposite sides for what felt like the first time. “Why? Why did you lie to me?”
April gathered her composure, putting her tears away. “I didn’t mean to lie to you. That first summer, I was such a mess. I’m still a mess, but everything was so fresh then. When you came into my room that day, so young and asking questions, I couldn’t tell you the truth.”
“You made someone else the villain in your fairy tale so you could save face with your fourteen-year-old sister?”
“Ember, you don’t understand.”
“No, I don’t, but I want to. I have only ever wanted to understand.”
April reached out to me, and because she was my sister, I went to her and wrapped my arms around her slight shoulders.
“I’d compromised who I was for the Red Court. I played games with people who didn’t deserve it, took choices away from others without a second thought. The control, the power it gave me was addictive. What happened was my own fault, I know, but I couldn’t lose you. If you knew the things I’d done, I would have lost my sister.”
Despite everything, I did understand. After her surgeries, starting on a road to recovery with a destination she didn’t yet know, I was one thing April refused to lose. Me and my adoration for my big sister. But I couldn’t let it go, even knowing why.
“I take responsibility for everything I’ve done, but at no point in nearly two years did you tell me the truth, either.”
“Would it have stopped you?”
My words escaped without a second thought. “I don’t know.”
The desperation in April’s face was nearly my undoing. “When you tell a lie, every day it grows. It gains life and turns into something else. I never thought it would go this far. I tried so many times to come clean. After a while, I thought maybe you wouldn’t end up in the Red Court. I hoped you wouldn’t, and then I could tell you everything.”
“The lie did gain life. In me. It became part of who I am.” A sob escaped me. To my surprise, I was relieved. Letting the anger drain from my body left me lighter.
“I’m so, so sorry. I will never stop being sorry.”
“You were going to tell me everything. Tell me now.”
April spoke until her voice was hoarse. She explained how she slipped her name through the slot of locker 1067 on a dare during her junior year, not even knowing about the favor and never expecting the playing card that appeared in her own locker. How she enjoyed the thrill of it and was partnered with Haley the year after. April acted as her mentor, similar to how Haley had with me. The fact that the two had known each other all this time brought my worlds colliding together all over again.
“I was too scared to quit, though, even when it was hard. I didn’t know who I’d be if I didn’t have the Red Court.” Just like me, April thrived on the thrill of the work and struggled with the guilt of what we did. “I think about it now, how stupid I was, and I’m ashamed.”
“What happened the night of the accident?”
April fiddled with the loose threads of her comforter. “I was setting up another senior to be busted for our stupid prank. We knew the punishment wouldn’t be too serious. The mark was a good girl, never in trouble. She would have gotten community service at the most. Still, I think about how cavalier I was about getting someone innocent in trouble for nothing. For a stupid favor.”
A stupid favor. Everything we’ve done in the name of the Red Court was for something of n
o actual worth.
April continued, “The plan fell apart when the alarm was tripped early. But I stupidly tried to salvage it and ended up falling from the catwalks like I said. I think it scared everyone, because they left me there. And I haven’t seen any of them since. I was so angry when none of them came to see me in the hospital. Not even Haley. I had dedicated two years to the Red Court, yet she cared more about anonymity than seeing if I was ok. So I painted them as the bad guys and somehow recruited you on my side against them. I’m not the person I was when I joined the Red Court. I’m not the person I was when I lied to you. If I could change things, I would.”
“You wouldn’t have joined the Red Court?”
If April had never joined, her accident would have never happened.
“No, not that. I love my job and studying psychology. I am where I am because of the choices I made, but I’m happy. I would have never lied to you. If I could change that, I would. I wish I’d had the courage to tell you the truth.”
When she finished, I rose from her side. “Thank you for telling me.”
“What are you going to do?” April looked truly afraid now.
“What I’ve planned to do all along. It stops now, April.”
“Now that you know everything, can’t you just leave it all behind? You don’t have to do this for me anymore.”
“I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it for everyone the Red Court has ever hurt. I’ve gone this far, and I have to see this through. For myself as much as anyone else.”
“Please be careful. I know what some of them are like, and they won’t go down without a fight.”
Maybe I should have been scared, but I wasn’t. Maybe the smart thing would be to walk away, but I couldn’t. I bent down and kissed the top of April’s head. “It will be ok,” I whispered.
Then I walked out of her room and into my own. Firing up my laptop, I began to write. And I didn’t stop until Sunday night.
These Vengeful Hearts Page 25