by Huss, JA
“What’s going on?” I ask.
But then Dane is grabbing his throat. Choking on… what?
“He’s allergic!” Elizabeth screams. “Call 911! Call 911!”
Dane is already collapsing. His head hits the marble floor with a sick thunk, and blood spills out from under his hair.
Everyone begins shrieking.
Jack is kneeling next to Dane, yelling, “Where’s his EpiPen? Where’s his EpiPen?”
And Elizabeth is frantically looking for her purse. Which—was she even carrying a purse?
“What the hell is happening?” Ax asks.
“He’s allergic to strawberries,” Cooper says. And there is no panic in his voice. He is calm and cool. “Very. Allergic. To strawberries.”
“What is the address of this building?” some girl holding a phone yells. “How do I explain how the paramedics get here? Is there a parking lot?”
Jack is doing CPR.
Elizabeth is on her knees crying.
Cooper, Ax, Lars, and I just stand there. Watching this whole thing play out. And then, when I glance over at the Chairman, he holds his flute up to me.
He smiles and mouths the words, “Cheers, Cadee Hunter.”
Then he takes a long sip of his strawberry champagne.
And watches his middle son—the man who raped me when I was fifteen. The man who just an hour ago told me I was bred for him—as he dies on the floor in front of everybody.
CHAPTER NINE - COOPER
We leave. We don’t even wait for the paramedics. Dane is so clearly dead within minutes, and I cannot stand Elizabeth’s shrieking one more second, so we just… leave.
I know what people are going to say. I know. Because walking out on your brother who is lying on the floor dead, his body not even cold yet—that is some heartless shit.
That is some next-level hate.
That is some epic indifference.
Or… or… it’s just the only way to get through the next half hour without laughing out loud and pumping your fist in the fucking air with triumph.
Because that’s what we do the moment we pull out of the High Court parking lot.
We cheer.
It wasn’t even planned. There was no discussion. Hell, Ax, Cadee, and I didn’t even agree to leave the building. We just… walked out. Together. And crossed the campus, and got in the car, and Ax started it up, and Cadee got in the back, and I rolled down the window, and then we pulled out and then…
It started as a laugh.
And I get it. I do. It’s not funny. And we’re sociopaths for thinking it is.
But then, it wasn’t just a laugh, it was a cheer. It was a whole bunch of ‘fuck yeahs!’
And by the time Ax pulled the Camaro into the gravel driveway of the Old Alumni Inn we were whooping like maniacs.
My brother is dead.
And less than two hours ago he was smug. He was confident. He was sure of his place in this world. So sure he was in charge and the rest of us were going to be doing his bidding.
And now he’s dead.
I laugh again and just shake my head.
“Anaphylactic shock,” Ax says. He’s pacing the room with his phone pressed to his ear, trying to get details from Lars. “What the hell is that?”
“A severe allergic reaction,” I say.
“I can’t believe he’s really dead. Ax,” Cadee says. “Ask Lars again. He’s really dead?”
“He’s really dead, Cades,” Ax says. “They already took the body away.”
She looks at me with a mixture of relief and guilt on her face. I shake my head at her. “Don’t. Do not feel guilty. We didn’t do this. I don’t know what happened, but we didn’t do it.”
“I think your dad did it,” Cadee says.
“What?” I say.
Ax ends his call. “Lars said he’ll be by later.”
“I mean, I know that’s stupid,” Cadee continues. “But he…” She looks at me, then Ax. “I glanced over at him while it was all happening. And he lifted his glass to me and said, ‘Cheers, Cadee Hunter.’”
“No,” I say.
“No shit,” Ax says.
“I swear,” Cadee insists.
“My father did not kill my brother. That’s crazy.”
Isn’t it?
The three of us just stare at each other. Then Cadee gets up and says, “I’m going upstairs. I think I need to lie down or I might pass out.”
“Sure,” I say, getting up to give her a kiss before she can escape. “Don’t think too hard about this, Cadee. He… I mean, I know he was my brother, but he…”
“Deserved it,” Ax says, finishing my sentence. “No one is sad that Dane Valcourt is dead today.”
“Elizabeth sure looked sad,” Cadee counters.
“She’s sick,” I say. “She doesn’t count. I think she might’ve known about Dane. Maybe even helped him cover it all up.”
“I think she knew about me too,” Cadee says. “He said some weird things to me before you guys showed up in the bursar’s office.”
“Like what?” I ask.
“No,” Ax says, pushing Cadee towards the stairs. “Go upstairs and rest. We have all the time in the world to talk about this now. The main threat is gone.”
She looks at me and I nod. “Yeah. Go upstairs and rest. Don’t think about it. None of us had anything to do with what just happened. And we should not feel guilty that the world has one less sexual predator.”
She nods and then turns away and goes upstairs.
Both Ax and I watch her, staying silent until we hear the bedroom door close and her feet squeak the floorboards above our heads.
“What the fuck?” Ax says.
I flop back down into a chair, just trying to process the day. It’s not even two o’clock yet and the world has changed.
Dane is dead.
My brother. Cadee’s rapist. The villain in this story.
Dead.
“Now what?”
Ax narrows his eyes at me. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t get it.”
Ax sighs and throws up his hands, then walks over to the couch and sinks down into it. “I don’t get it either. Seems pretty convenient.”
“Yes,” I say, pointing my finger at him. “Convenient.”
“And what about that shit your father spewed today about the building? Do you really think it’s been in the works for three years?”
“How could it not, Ax? You don’t just wake up one day and say, ‘I think I’ll put a four-story glass building in the woods.’”
“So…” I know what he’s going to say. Because that’s exactly how I feel about it. “Did we misread him?”
“Do you think we misread him?”
Ax doesn’t answer.
“Look, I lived with the man my whole life. He’s not this guy. He just isn’t.”
Ax doesn’t look convinced.
“He’s plotting something. He has to be.”
The sound of tires on gravel makes us both turn our heads and look out the front window.
“Well, that’s interesting,” Ax says. “Looks like Lars got his car back.”
I huff at this. “Lars is getting a lot of things out of this deal, isn’t he?”
We both get to our feet and push through the screen door to meet him outside. He gets out of his black BMW and walks towards us, stopping at the bottom of the porch steps like he has no intention of coming inside.
“What’s up?” Ax asks.
But Lars is looking at me. “Just thought we should clear the air.”
“Interesting,” I say, hopping down the steps and walking past him. “I see you got your car back. Money too? New place to live.” I stop just short of his car and pivot to look at him. “I cannot fucking believe you, Lars.”
“Look, I’m not interested in fighting your wars, Cooper. I have worked my ass off all my life trying to get where I am. We have one year and then we’re all going our separate ways.”
“So you figured…
you’d what? Get a head start?”
“Dude,” Ax says, following me down the stairs. “It’s betrayal. We had a deal. We were all moving out—”
“That was Cooper’s idea. This is his fight, Ax.”
“Have you conveniently forgotten that I can’t go home?”
Lars and Ax have a serious staring contest for a few moments. Lars breaks away first and starts pacing back and forth in front of the dead planter beds that line the porch.
“I guess you did,” Ax says. “Hey, look. I’m glad you got lucky. I really am.”
“It’s not about luck, Ax,” Lars snaps. “You’re an asshole.”
“I’m an asshole?” He laughs. “I didn’t ask to be in that family.”
“And I didn’t ask to be in mine,” Lars counters. “It just shook out that way.”
“No,” Ax says, his voice low and deep. “No, it didn’t just shake out that way. We all know that what happened to me was a plan.”
“You guys,” I say. “I don’t think we should get into this now. OK? There’s enough going on right now. We don’t need to dredge up the past.”
“You always say that,” Ax says. And now his anger is directed at me. “You always say that, Cooper. Because your situation has always been easy. Both of you got off easy compared to me. And none of this is my fault.”
“Well, it’s not our fault, either, Ax,” Lars says.
We’re silent for a little bit after that. And I don’t know what they’re thinking about, but it can’t be far off from where I’m at.
We were fifteen when we stumbled into some of the truth about what’s going on here at High Court. Because not everything is as it seems. We could feel it. And at first it felt a little bit like luck.
Lars really got lucky. For all intents and purposes, the Mayor’s family is normal. Lars has two much younger twin sisters. They still have three more years of Prep before they’ll have to face any of this. And aside from wanting to get out of here and start a life in the city, they are what motivate him. He truly is a good brother and son. And if I had his family—mother still there cooking dinner every night, a father who liked doing things with them—they have a yearly fishing trip to Alaska and the end-of-summer family reunion—hell, I might’ve slipped into my father’s expectations willingly.
But that’s not how I had it. My mother died in a car crash when I was five. Her side of the family is totally estranged. She was not from here. Didn’t even go to High Court. Not the prep school or the college. In fact, I don’t actually know how my parents met. My point is, I didn’t have a family like Lars.
And Ax? Hell, his life has been a nightmare. His mother was one of us and she was the offering during her senior year of college. Which meant that her firstborn son—her only son, only child ever, actually—also became the offering.
She lost her mind during that pregnancy. That’s what we’ve gathered over the years. And then started taking it out on Ax the moment he was born.
She cut him with a serrated steak knife the first day he was home from the hospital. That’s where he got those scars on his back. Four diagonal lines across his back from shoulder to waist. When he was an infant, I imagine they could not have been more than five or six inches long. Babies are small. But the scars grew with him and now they are each easily a foot long. Jagged and ugly. A reminder that certain people around here are fucking crazy.
And where you end up—which mansion, which family—none of that shit is luck.
“Listen,” Lars says. “I only came by to tell you one thing.”
“Yeah, what’s that then?” I ask.
“I’ll take care of her. You don’t have to worry about Cadee.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean”—he pauses—“she’s my Queen now, Cooper. Not yours. You left.”
“Yeah, and you stayed,” Ax growls.
“I did,” Lars says, not even missing a beat. “I stayed. I’m not the one running away, I’m the one playing the game. You two have dropped out.” He laughs. “No, I take that back. You”—he looks at Ax—“you never started playing in the first place. Your life has been one long self-pity party.”
“Ohhhhh,” Ax starts, trying to laugh it off. Because if he doesn’t, he might just punch Lars in the face. “You did not just go there.”
“Oh, I did,” Lars says, cutting him off. “All you do is complain, Ax. You got the Judge. I mean”—he laughs—“that’s a pretty fucking lucky draw.”
“Lucky?” Ax’s face is contorting into an ugly expression. “Lucky? My ‘mother’”—he air-quotes for the ‘mother’ part—“thinks I‘m a fucking demon. She tried to cut it out of me with a knife when I was a baby. Lucky? That’s not luck, Lars. That’s sickness. This whole thing is a sickness and you’re buying into it.”
Lars looks at me. “Do you agree?”
“Uh. Yeah.” I shrug with my hands. “But I’m still too caught up on the words, ‘She’s my Queen now, Cooper,’ to really process the entirety of this conversation.”
“You’re the one who quit, Cooper. Not me. This was always the plan. You just conveniently forgot because Cadee Hunter showed up at the beginning of summer and you suddenly decided to put her first over me and Ax.”
Ax puts his hands up. “Hey, leave me out of your argument. I’m on his side.”
“We have one year left,” Lars continues. “One year and we have real power to make serious decisions. And you suddenly decide to step away and drag the entire summer rush with you because Dante Legosi says he’s got a plan? How fucking stupid are you? He’s not bowing out. Mona isn’t bowing out. None of them are bowing out, Cooper. They’re all very much back in. Except for you two. So you can be stuck on my promise to take care of Cadee all you want, but at least I’m there. At least I’m present. Which is more than I can say for you.”
I breathe out a smile. It’s not one of those conciliatory smiles or even a slightly amused grin.
It’s a knowing smile.
“You’ve always wanted her, haven’t you, Lars?”
He chuckles. “Does this surprise you? I mean…” He pans his hand wide at the world. “I grew up here too. I know just as much as you do about what’s going on. And there, on the edge of all this weird, dark shit, lived a girl who didn’t belong. And isn’t that what we’ve all wanted? Isn’t that what we’ve all been after? Not belonging?”
Lars stares at me for a long moment. No real expression on his face. His mouth slightly open and his eyes a little distant like he’s conjuring up a memory.
He focuses back on me, shrugs. “You’ve dropped out of the game, Cooper. Good for you. But the rest of us have to play along in order to win. And if you won’t be there to protect Cadee this year—then I will.”
And that’s the end of it.
Ax walks over to me and we both stand there with our arms crossed as Lars gets back in his BMW and drives away.
We let out a long, collective sigh. Then, without another word, Ax turns and walks back into the house.
I sit on the porch for a long time, my back pressed up against the bannister, just gazing out at the view.
It’s not a great one from this side of things. Mostly everything is wild and overgrown. Massive hundred-year-old tulip trees that were probably breathtaking in the spring with their pretty yellow flowers and will be equally as breathtaking in a few weeks when the leaves start to turn, but are nothing but green now.
There are no well-manicured hedges or brightly colored flowers in the plots of dirt that were once beds. And the lake—as well as the sunset—is on the other side of the inn.
So I’ve seen better views.
But it’s peaceful. And it’s real.
I’m still sitting there when another car enters the driveway.
I sigh before it even pulls up next to the porch.
My father gets out of his black Maserati Quattroporte and buttons his charcoal-gray suit coat as he smiles at me from behind sunglasses.
“What are you doi
ng here?”
“Obviously, I came to see you.” He walks towards me, then stops a few paces off to gaze around at the inn.
“Cadee’s fine. She’s sleeping.”
“I didn’t come to ask about Cadee, Cooper. I came to ask about you.”
“Well, I’m fine too.”
He unbuttons his suit coat and lowers himself onto the top step of the porch just opposite me, bending his long legs and leaning his broad shoulders up against the bannister the way I am. Our bodies angled towards each other like we’re about to have a conversation. Then he takes off his sunglasses and slides them into a pocket inside his jacket.
“Dane’s funeral will be on Saturday.”
I don’t know what to say to that. It’s customary to be sad when your brother dies, but I’m not sad. I’m not even thinking about Dane. At all.
I’m thinking about Lars. And Cadee. And all the things that will happen between now and graduation.
“Oh,” my father says. He gets back up, walks to his car, then comes back with a shiny blue and gold plastic bag. “Cadee left this under the table in the dining room.”
He hands the bag to me and I take it, not really meaning to peek inside, but it’s hard not to notice all the blue and gold shit bursting out the top. I take out the socks and cannot stop the smile, even if I was trying to. And I’m not.
“She’s excited, Cooper. She didn’t have all the opportunities that you did. She was left out. And now she wants in.”
“Yeah.” I sigh, dropping the socks back into the bag. “I’m not going to let that happen.”
My father exhales loudly. “Let me tell you a story about a man and his son.”
I glance up at him and shake my head. “I’m not interested, Dad. I’m really not.”
“That might be true. But you’ve never heard this one. So indulge me for a moment.”
I throw up my hands. “Whatever.”
“Once up on a time there was a man who lived in a big mansion across the lake from a very exclusive school. He had three sons. The first, his own spitting image in every conceivable way. Smart, and talented, and focused on his job.” He kinda drags that last word out, emphasizing the ‘b.’ “The second was not his son.”