by Ruby Vincent
Match. Match, I thought. In the game room Eric said...
“She’s a true match for me.”
Slowly, painstakingly, I reached into my pocket and took out my phone. My fingers were stiff as I tapped the screen. It took me a few tries to open my inbox, but as the boys hauled Kai out of the room, Ace’s messages laid out before my eyes. I scrolled up until I found it. Seven black words stark on a white background revealing everything that I did not want to be true.
Ace: You are a true match for me.
“Turn that fucking video off,” Eric cried. “Do you want Markham to flip shit on all of us?”
“It’s you,” I whispered.
“What, Val?” He turned around. His handsome features were the picture of innocence—so reminiscent of the boy I met four years ago. The Eric who became one of my first friends. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s you,” I repeated through numb lips. “You’re Ace.”
Eric gazed at me, trimmed eyebrows together, until his face smoothed out...
...and he smirked.
“You!” I screamed. White-hot anger exploded in me and I lunged at him.
Eric’s eyes popped as the smirk disappeared. He ducked my swipe and ran under my arms. I raced after him.
Our feet thundered on the squeaky floorboards. Eric was quick, pulling ahead of me as he ran past the dining room.
“Eric?” Jaxson stuck his head out and immediately jumped back with a shout when I shot past him. “Val?! What’s going on?”
There was no time to answer him. Eric rounded a corner and disappeared.
“Heavens!” someone cried. “No running in—”
Bang!
I burst into the front room and saw the entrance was wide open. I didn’t hesitate. I followed Eric out into the night.
The chilling air smacked me in the face as I searched for a figure in the darkness.
There.
“Eric, stop!” I took off after him. “Face me!”
Eric didn’t slow. The figure kept running for the trees and I was hot on his heels. Putting on a burst of speed, I closed the distance between us until he was inches from my grasping hand.
“Tell me why!” I cried. I swiped and my fingers brushed his collar just as he broke through the trees.
Branches ripped and tore at me as I gave chase. This wasn’t the clear, smooth path we took every day to our patch of swamp. I did not recognize the gnarled roots that reached for me in the darkness. The creatures that chittered and screamed at me, I couldn’t identify.
Still, I ran. Spurred on by betrayal that burned my throat with the heat of a red-hot poker. How could he do this to me? We weren’t always friends, but I never saw him as this. Ace hated me. Ace was obsessed with the Knights and seeing me broken. Ace tormented me, made me cut my hair, forced me to kiss Kai, announced that my son was the result of statutory rape, and turned the school against me more times than I could count. What could I have done to ignite that kind of loathing in my old friend?
“What did I do?!” I jumped and tackled him.
Eric cried out as we went down hard, landing in the wet, sticky grass. “Val, stop!” He struggled, trying to scramble away from me, but I grabbed his flailing wrist and yanked it up his back.
“You’re Ace,” I shouted as he cried out. “You blackmailed me! You forced me to do those horrible things. Why?!” I viciously tugged his arm higher and he bellowed.
“S-stop! You’ll break my arm!”
“Tell me why!”
“It— It w-wasn’t me,” he cried, voice laced with pain. “It wasn’t me. I didn’t do it. I swear.”
“Liar!” I released his arm and took hold of his shoulder. Eric didn’t have time to recover. I flipped him onto his back and clutched his collar. I twisted until he let out a choked gasp. “You said I was your perfect match! You—”
“A-Ace t-told me to,” he rasped. “Ace made me say it. I can... prove it. Look at my phone!” Eric beat desperately at my hands. “Please, V-Val. The texts are on my phone.”
Breathing hard, I gazed at the huge, staring whiteness of his eyes.
This is another trick. He’s fooled me for years. I can’t believe anything he says.
His nails dug half-moons into my wrist. “Look at the phone and you’ll see. I’ll tell you everything, Val. I promise.”
My hand shook on his neck as his pleas tore at my resolve. It couldn’t hurt to look. Now that I knew who he was, he wasn’t getting away from me.
“Shit! Fine.” I smacked at his pockets until I found his cell.
“Under AOS,” he said as I stabbed at the screen. “It’s all there.”
I found the name at the top of his inbox. My grip was tight on his neck as I opened the messages, but it loosened as I read.
AOS: Tell her she’s a true match for you.
Eric: Why?
AOS: Just fucking do it. Tonight. Before the video.
Eric: What’s the point of all of this? It’s too much.
AOS: None of this would be necessary if she left in freshman year like she was supposed to. I didn’t start this shit, but you better believe I will end it. Tell her she is your perfect match, and then smile at her after she watches the video.
Eric: And if I don’t?
AOS: There have been rumors your dad isn’t fit enough to run the company after his little heart attack. I’d hate to see the rumors confirmed and him forced out. But that will be nothing compared to what I’ll put you through if you don’t do as I say.
The phone slipped from my hand as I fell off Eric. What did this mean? Was this for real?
I gaped at him as he staggered to his feet. “What the fuck is going on?” I croaked.
“...Val...”
I whipped around as a cry pierced the gloom. It sounded like Maverick. The guys were looking for me, but I wasn’t sure where I was. We had run so deep into the bayou; I heard the squelching of the wet marsh beneath my feet louder than his calls.
“You know what’s going on, Val.” I spun back to Eric as he righted himself. It was so dark, even with my vision adjusted to the night, his face was cloaked in shadows. “You don’t know how close to this you really are.”
“What do you mean?”
He went on like I hadn’t spoken. “You’ve got most of it figured out. That’s why Ace stalled me.”
“Stalled you?” I stepped closer. “What the hell are you talking about? What do I have figured out? I’m trying to find Ace. If that’s not you, then who is it?”
There was no reply and his silence enraged me.
“I’m not doing this anymore, Eric!” I surged forward and grasped his forearms. “Tell me what you know about the Spades! Why did Ace choose you?”
Eric did not try to pull away. He was still in my hold. “Because, Val... I am a Spade.”
“W-what?” Shock stole my breath.
That can’t be true. It can’t!
“Valentina...” A voice broke through, closer but still faint.
“You can thank my grandmother for telling you more than you were supposed to know,” he continued. The pain and fear were gone from his voice. He just sounded blank. “To be fair, she didn’t know who she was talking to.”
“Your grandmother?” I whispered. “But she didn’t tell me anything.”
“She told you that it was all about legacy—one that went way back to the first class at Evergreen Academy. You thought that if family had to do with who was chosen as a Knight, then maybe that had something to do with the Spades too. You were right, which is why Ace wouldn’t let me give you those yearbooks.”
I tossed my head. “Eric, I’m not understanding any of this. What does the first class have to do with anything?”
Now he grabbed me. His hands flashed out and yanked me in. “Thirteen students. Thirteen families. Some of us become Knights. Some of us become Spades, but all of us have to protect Evergreen Academy.”
“Why?” I tugged at his hold, but he held me fast. “Why do you have
to do that?”
He scoffed. “Why does anyone do anything? Money.”
“Money?” I ripped myself away, breaking free. “Someone is paying you to do this?”
“We’re all getting paid. Think about it, Valentina. After all you’ve been put through, why did you stay at this school instead of transferring?”
“I wasn’t going to be run out,” I spat. “Evergreen is the best school in the country. I had to think of my future.”
He snapped his fingers. “There it is. You’d do anything to be there because it’s not just the best school in the country; it’s the best school in the world. People will do anything—pay anything to get their little geniuses into Evergreen Academy, and that’s what it’s all about.
“Have you ever wondered why there are no limits on scholarships? Evergreen doesn’t only want spoiled, rich brats. They need the best and brightest.”
“The Spades need them? Need them for what?”
“They need us to be geniuses. They need us to fight and compete among each other to be the best so that when the time comes, they’ll be the first one to pounce.”
My head was spinning. All of this was barely making sense.
“I heard you guys in the sitting room,” he continued. “Maverick told you his dad came from a poor family of people who never graduated high school, but then Marcus gets into Evergreen Academy and wows his professors with lines of code the government can’t crack. When he inevitably starts talking of opening his own company, the right people are waiting to invest.”
“So... Evergreen is some kind of brain farm,” I replied, “and you Spades are lurking in the shadows, waiting for the next big thing so you can ride them to success. All of this for that?!”
“You make it sound like that isn’t enough. People kill over fifty dollars. Do you think they wouldn’t do worse for fifty billion? August Eden became one of the first African-American millionaires in history when he took a chance on Judah Shea and gave him the money to help start Shea Industries.”
“Shea Industries? But—”
“Sofia Richards.” Eric was on a roll and didn’t seem to be slowing down. “At thirteen years old, she invented a shampoo that penetrates the hair shaft better than anything else on the market. I wonder if her mother told her that single product has made them millions. Whether she takes over Honey Hair or starts her own company, there are people standing by more than willing to invest in whatever her brilliant mind comes up with next.”
“Valentina! Where are you?”
“Eric, can you hear me?”
We heard the faint shouts of the searchers, but we didn’t call back. We were locked in our own world as the truth finally came out.
“In this world, there are the people with ideas and the people with the money to make them reality. The thirteen families have the money, and the Knights and the Spades make sure the kids with ideas keep coming through the gates.”
I threw out my hands. “By doing what? Marking people? Bullying and intimidating them? That’s insane!”
“That’s a last resort,” he shot back. “What don’t you get? The marked are supposed to leave. Nothing happens to them if they walk away—which all of them did, until you and...”
“Walter and Nora,” I finished.
“Exactly.” He stepped closer to me, lowering his voice. “It’s not supposed to get that far.” I could hear something creeping into his voice. Anxiety was breaking through the coldness. “None of this was supposed to happen. They told me I was chosen to be a Spade. They said what was expected of me, but they didn’t prepare me for turning on my friends, following a pedophile’s orders, or dealing with that psychotic tyrant!”
I stiffened. “What tyrant? Who are you talking about?”
“Who else but Ace?!”
“Do know who they are? Who is Ace, Eric?”
Eric roughly shook his head. It was like he hadn’t heard me. “You have to understand. It made sense when Grandma told me. She said that people don’t send their kids to schools with bad reputations. If news came out tomorrow that a human-tracking ring was running out of an Ivy League school, admissions would drop to nothing no matter how prestigious it was. It’s all about perception, and we made sure Evergreen’s was perfect.”
I could practically hear Wilhelmina Eden speaking through Eric’s mouth.
“The problem of every boarding school are the students who go there,” he continued. “No rules will stop them all from sleeping around, getting their hands on drugs, finding a way to cheat, the list goes on. We make sure no one outside the gates hears of that stuff and we mark the ones who are scandals waiting to fucking happen.”
I latched on to something he said. “You make sure? Knights and Spades? Teenagers. You’re the ones who are supposed to police the damn school? That’s what the professors and the headmaster are for.”
“No, no, no, Val!” he exploded. “Stop pretending you don’t understand.”
I edged back. He reminded me of Roundtree—disappointed in me for letting him down. Why didn’t I understand what was so perfectly reason in the kingdom of Evergreen?
“If a professor gets involved, then they have to report it. People have to be notified. Parents called and the harder it is to contain, but not if the students handle it themselves. It’s all legal that way.”
“Legal?” I repeated.
“Yes. You and I didn’t sign any contracts saying we have to report bad students. If we take care of it, no one is in a position of having to cover things up, and they like it that way. That’s why Evergreen hasn’t changed and never will. We make everything so simple.”
“We police ourselves. We punish ourselves. We expel ourselves,” I stated. Eric was right. It makes a twisted sort of sense. “All so Evergreen remains a shining beacon of perfection, drawing in the brightest kids of our time so the thirteen families can keep investing in them and getting richer.”
“That’s...” Eric trailed off. Through the gloom, I saw him frown.
“Eric?”
Suddenly, he spun around. “What is that?” he hissed. “Did you hear that?”
I pricked my ear to the sound of desperate shouts, calling our names. “Of course, I hear them. They’re looking for us. We can get out of here sooner if you talk to me.” I grasped his shoulder and spun him to face me. “Who are the thirteen families?”
“Well, there’s the... Edens,” he began. He sounded distracted as his head turned this way and that. “And there’s... uh...” He tried to turn around again.
I gripped him harder. “Eric, look at me. You said Shea, but the Sheas weren’t one of you, right? They were just one of the people your family used.”
“No. How do you think August and Judah met? They were both in the first class. The Sheas are one of the thirteen.”
“But that’s not...” Shock gripped my throat. Ryder is one of them? He’s been playing me this whole time? How could he do this? How—
“But Ryder doesn’t know.” Those four words halted my downward spiral.
“How do you know that?”
Eric wasn’t looking at me as he answered. “My dad told me. Benjamin told him Ryder wasn’t to have anything to do with this. He said this wasn’t his legacy and he had no right to claim the honor—whatever that means. None of us were allowed to tell him after his father disappeared, but of course, he became a Knight anyway.”
“Baby, please!” Jaxson’s voice found me through the swamp. “Tell me you’re okay!”
It killed me hearing his panic, but I was finally learning the truth.
“But if you’re right,” Eric continued. “The reason why Scarlett chose him... wasn’t because of his father.”
“No,” I replied, voice hard. “That was entirely because of her.”
“I still can’t believe it,” he breathed.
“She was one of you, wasn’t she?”
“She was more than that.” Eric stopped looking around and looked me in the eyes. “She was Ace. She was Ace w
hen she went to school at Evergreen, and then she took over again when she became a professor. Of course, no one questioned her when she marked you, and I’m sorry for that. None of this should have— Val, look out!”
There was no time for me to react as hands seized me from behind. A hard blow to the back of my knees made me buckle, and I collapsed to the ground. I screamed as my head was shoved down into the marsh. Water rushed into my airway as I frantically kicked and twisted.
Yanking my head to the side, I sucked in air before a hand clamped down over my eyes.
“Guys, stop! I didn’t— Ugh.”
“Eric!”
A thud shook the ground. Through the space between the fingers, I saw one thing clearly—Eric’s wide, unblinking eyes. In the next moment, they were replaced by feet.
“Deal with him,” said a familiar high-pitched voice.
My blood ran cold. Who the hell is that?
“As for you, it’s time to end this.”
I cried out when my hands were roughly yanked behind my back. Something wrapped around my wrists, binding them together. I tried to buck them off, but a knee pressed on my back, keeping me still. There was more than one person here. This was not just Ace.
The hand over my eyes vanished for one blessed second only to be replaced by a dark cloth. “Stop! Let me go!”
I bucked again as the hands slipped under me and lifted me up. I was being moved.
“I’m here!” I screamed. “The Spades have me! Help!”
Jaxson. Ryder. Maverick. Ezra. Where are you? Why can’t I hear your voices? Why can’t you hear me?
I could not hear anyone, not even the voices of my captors. Their silence made me even more afraid. If they were arguing, shouting, panicking over whatever they were going to do next, that would have been better than the cold, efficient way they took me and Eric out. They knew what they were going to do next, and there was no hesitation about it.
“W-who are you?!” The tight band I had not felt in so long constricted my chest. I thought I knew fear, but nothing compared to the terror that shook me and tore my lungs. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think about anything other than what Eric said.
“People kill over fifty dollars. Do you think they wouldn’t do worse for fifty billion?”