by Ruby Vincent
“Then what are you going to do?!” Sofia’s voice was reaching new levels of high-pitched. The noise made Adam peer curiously at us. “You have to do something!”
“I will. The solution was obvious when I thought about it. I’m going to hire my own bodyguard.”
“You— Wait. You can do that?”
“I’m going to Evergreen with it when we get back, but he’ll have a hard time going against it after what the last one pulled.”
“He better say yes, or I don’t care what you say, I’m sticking to you like glue.”
She pulled me in for a tight hug that only ended when Adam fell onto his backside and burst into wails.
I put the baby on my lap and gave him a bow to play with. He quieted instantly.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Sofia asked.
“I’m fine. I promise.”
“Good.” An expression came over her face that made my eyes widen. “Then I want every single detail about you and Jaxson, and don’t think you can hold out on the dirty bits because Adam is here.”
“There are no dirty bits!”
In spite of being grilled like a criminal, winter break was amazing. The only break in our weeks of laughing, celebrating, and having a good time was the call I had to put in to S, but I was careful to do that while I snuck off to the bathroom at Santa’s village.
The usual sadness clung to me as we crested the hill to Evergreen Academy. Trading time with Adam and my mom for tyrannical headmasters and sneaking assassins was a hard sell.
I lifted my eyes and looked at Adam in the rearview mirror. Seeing him sitting there perfectly content staring out the window while he munched on his cookies, reminded me why I was doing this.
“I have people who depend on me.”
“You keep that secret phone close by, kid. I’ll be calling you at least three times a week and no buttoned-up fool is saying otherwise.”
“Yes, Mom.”
“And you nail your midterms this time so you can come home for spring break.”
“I will.”
Mom pulled up to the curb and killed the engine. “Alright. I love you. Be good, but not too good. You’re allowed to break the stupid rules.”
I was pretty sure no one else was getting that as a send-off.
“I love you, Mom.” We hugged and kissed, then I leaned over the seat and did the same to Adam.
All too soon, I was standing on the edge of the curb waving goodbye as she drove away. It took me a minute to notice there was someone next to me doing the same.
“Such a shame,” said Ryder. “It would have been so much better if you had been in that car driving away.”
“Hello, Ryder. I would say that it was good to see you, but of course, it’s not.”
He tsked. “That comeback is kind of weak. I know you can do better than that.”
“True. Give me a minute to wade through the indifference I have for your existence to see if I can care enough to try again. Oh, nope. Nothing,” I finished without skipping a beat. I faced him with a smile. “But here is something I do care about. Did you ever have that chat with Dad?”
Ryder’s expression didn’t change. “You still on this? My dad’s gone. Probably dead. If you think bringing it up is going to get to me, then you don’t know me at all.”
“Oh, we’re talking about Benjamin Shea again?” I took a step closer to him. “Can I ask you something? Did you ask yourself why that guy ran around with all those women—cheating for the world to see?”
“Because the guy was a bastard.” Ryder was so matter-of-fact you would have thought we were talking about the cafeteria lunch menu. “Next question.”
“But that’s not really why, is it?”
The granite was cracking—a frown marring his otherwise perfect feature. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
I didn’t know that it would happen that day or like that. There was a time that I didn’t think I’d be able to open my mouth and say these words at all, but standing before him in the haze of exhaust in front of the place that had morphed from my dream into my nightmare, the words fell from my lips as though it was always meant to happen like this.
“He didn’t do it because he was a bastard, Ryder. He did it... because you are.”
Chapter Seven
The granite crumbled.
Ryder’s face went slack with shock, eyes wide as he stared at me like he had never seen me before. “What did you just say?”
“Come on, man. Don’t look so shocked. I’ve been dropping hints for how long?” I flung every word at him like daggers. “Benjamin Shea is not your father.”
“You— You—”
“No reason to be upset about it. The man was a bastard like you said. A truly awful shit human being,” I spat. Anger roiled in my stomach—heaving and churning. It threatened the calm I was going for. “The way he acted in public was nothing compared to him in private. I know how he treated you and your mother.”
“No, stop— Shut the fuck up!” he burst out. The mask was gone and Ryder couldn’t reclaim it. His eyes bulged as starkly as the veins in his neck. “You’re a fucking liar!”
I lifted my shoulders. “Fine. You don’t have to believe me now, but I come with receipts. I’ll prove it to you.”
I picked up my bags and turned to go. I made it two steps before a hand seized my forearm. “Where do you—?”
“Miss Moon, is there a problem here?”
A man in a crisp, black suit peeled himself off the gates and strode up to us. Ryder’s grip only got tighter.
“Who the hell are you?” he demanded.
The man didn’t even look at him. “Miss Moon, my name is Sylvester Kane. I have been assigned as your personal security. Do you need me to step into this situation?”
“No, thank you, Mr. Kane.” I gave Ryder a hard look. “He was just leaving.”
Ryder looked at Kane like he was seriously considering his chances of taking him. In the end, he turned on me. “This isn’t over.”
“Course not,” I said cheerily. “We have so much more to talk about.”
He released me with a growl and stormed off.
“Okay,” I said to Kane. “Let’s get this over with.”
Together, we joined the line leading through the gates and all the way to the academy courtyard. The line moved punishingly slow, but that’s what happens when hundreds of students were forced to open their bags and have them searched.
It took an hour for us to finally reach Gus and his staff. They checked my bags, found nothing, and sent us on our way. We went straight to the headmaster’s office.
“Hello. Is he in?”
The receptionist rang Evergreen up and then waved us on. He rose from his desk when we walked inside.
“What can I do for you, Miss Moon?”
I gestured at Kane. “You can allow my new bodyguard on campus so that he can protect me. That’s all.”
It was such a simple request, but Evergreen’s eyebrows shot up his forehead. “Excuse me?”
“I can’t trust anyone else after Noemi, but I’m clearly still not safe after the fire. Hiring my own security makes the most sense.”
His frown deepened. “This is a closed campus. We don’t allow anyone other than properly vetted staff to stay here. I understand your concerns, but the answer is no.”
“I—”
Kane placed one massive hand on my shoulder. “Miss Moon, if you would allow me. We expected resistance, so my employer told me to give you this.” Kane pulled a letter out of his coat pocket and held it out.
Evergreen made no move to take it. “I will not be swayed by Miss Moon’s letter either.”
“Miss Moon is not my employer.”
The headmaster’s self-assured expression twitched. Kane stared him down until he finally snatched the letter.
I watched Evergreen’s face cycle through many emotions as he read the contents. By the time he looked up, he had settled on pissed. “Very well.” He sla
mmed the paper on the desk. “But you will meet with every term stated. Is that understood?”
Kane inclined his head.
“Leave my office.”
I waited until we were in the hall to ask, “Any chance you’ll tell me what the letter said?”
His silence answered well enough.
“Thought not.” I waved him on. “Come on. My dorm is this way.”
We weaved through the packed courtyard and escaped onto the grass. The noise faded as I led him into my building. “Where will you stay?” I asked as I pushed into my bedroom.
“The headmaster will provide rooms for me in the staff building. If you don’t feel comfortable with that, my employer has offered to send my coworker Bea to remain here with you during the night.”
“No, that’s okay.” I flung my bags on the bed. “You and I should get along fine, and I feel safe here now that Gus has replaced the windows. I guess we’ll have to agree on times to meet since I can’t text you.”
He shook his head. “The no-phone rule does not apply to you. We need to be in constant contact. That was explained in the letter.”
“Really?”
Kane proved it by pulling a cell phone out of his breast pocket. “This is yours. My number is programmed in.”
“Wow. What else you packing in there?”
I was half-kidding, until Kane opened his coat and revealed his gun. My laughter dried up. “I will do everything in my power to protect you, Miss Moon.”
“I don’t doubt it,” I croaked. “But, uh, I’m staying in for the rest of the day so you’re good to go and get settled in.”
He inclined his head and backed out. I waited until I heard the downstairs door close behind him before leaving my room. I slipped into one of the doors on the second floor, lifted the mattress, and scooped out the hammer, button cam, extra phone, disguise, and everything else I had been hoarding for my revenge.
I didn’t know that the headmaster would search our rooms, but I wasn’t taking a chance. The guy was still spitting over the leaked video. I took my things back to the room, sat on the bed next to my list. The first text I sent was to Alex.
Me: It’s time. Pull the next trigger.
“I’M SO GLAD THIS STUPID ban is over,” I overheard Natalie say. My new seat at the front was further from Maverick and Ezra, but closer to the Diamonds. “Dad tried to convince the headmaster that chess was academic and shouldn’t be counted in with stupid things like football and drama, but he wouldn’t budge. Now I’m behind a whole semester and the tournament is in a month.”
Isabella looked over her compact mirror to give her friend a look. “You’ll do well. You wouldn’t be a Diamond if there was anyone who could compete with you.” She cut eyes to Airi. “And now that you have a new violin, you can grab first chair.”
“You’ve only told me that like a dozen times,” Airi said with enough force to make me blink. “I get it already. I’ll audition.”
“Don’t be like that, A,” said Natalie. “We just can’t stand to see you brought down by that slum trash. You don’t want to lose your place as a Diamond.”
Wow, who knew Natalie could get even more unpleasant.
“Hey, Moon.”
Sighing, I turned to face them. “What do you want, Bard?”
“I saw you got a new bodyguard.”
I twisted around to where Kane stood in the back—still and ever vigilant.
“I don’t get it,” she went on, “if you’re so scared. Why are you still here?”
“You know, you care a lot about what I’m doing. It’s starting to creep me out. Why don’t you worry about yourself for a change?”
“You—!”
“I agree wholeheartedly,” a stern voice cut in. Wheeldon peered at us over his laptop. “Concern yourself with reading and signing the new student guidelines, Miss Bard. Spend less time on Miss Moon.”
A snicker fell from someone’s lips. It was mine.
Natalie turned bright red, but didn’t argue further. She ripped open the book and got to reading.
Finding these new handbooks on our desks the first day back wasn’t a welcome surprise. In it were all the rule changes Evergreen made last semester, plus a few more thrown in. We had to sign them and agree to accept the consequences for having phones and speaking to the press. So much of this felt wrong, but if people like Madeline Richards didn’t have lawyers strong enough to make him back down, then who could?
I signed the book and handed it back to Wheeldon at the end of class. A new semester meant new classes, and next up for me was Chemistry, according to my schedule. My head was bent over it when someone sidled up next to me.
“Hey, mama. Have a good break?”
I replied without lifting my head. “What are you doing, Jaxson? People are going to see you talking to me.”
“And they’ll think I’m hitting you up for sex as usual. You going to answer my question?”
“Yes, I had a good break.”
“Nice. I did too.” He sounded so relaxed, like we were two normal teenagers strolling through the halls. “I missed you though.”
A flush crept up my neck. How could he say that so casually?
“Did you miss me?”
I roughly cleared my throat. “Normally I would have blown you off by now so you should go before it starts to look weird.”
“One more thing. What did you do to my boy?”
“Have to be more specific. Everyone is your boy and your girl.”
“Only one person is my girl.”
I had no answer for that. I just kept my eyes on my schedule even though the words were blurring together.
“As for the boy I’m talking about, I mean Ryder. Dude’s been acting like a zombie, and when I finally got a word out of him it was Valentina.”
“I don’t have a clue what that’s about.”
“Now, why don’t I believe you?”
“We’ve covered this, Jaxson.” I stopped dead making him stumble to a halt. We had arrived at the Chemistry classroom. “It’s because you’re not stupid.”
He gave me the beginnings of a smile. “Don’t wreck him too badly. He’s not as bad as you think.”
“You can tell me that when he’s drowned, choked, and used your father against you.”
Jaxson lost the smile completely. “Fair enough, but—”
“But what?”
“I thought you would have changed your mind about this revenge thing after...”
Jaxson didn’t go on, but I was happy to do it for him. “After what happened between us?” I looked around to make sure no one was listening. “Just because we spent one day together and didn’t kill each other, doesn’t change what happened. I’m not going to stop.” An awful thought occurred to me. “And if that’s why you said all those things—”
“That was about you and me and no one else.” He said that so firmly I wanted to believe him. “I’m not playing you, but I know why it’s hard for you to believe that. How about I come over tonight and we talk?”
A part of me wanted that, but all of me knew what that talk would be about and I couldn’t have it with him. “Tonight is not good. I’ll be up to my neck in homework.”
He nodded. “Fine. Tomorrow night. Until then, Moon.”
“Wha— But I—”
Jaxson was already walking off.
Shaking my head, I entered the classroom and went for one of the desks.
“Don’t get comfortable.” I jumped. Turning around, I saw a man rise from behind the desk and squint at me through small, circular frames. “I will be assigning seats.”
“Okay.”
Not knowing what else to do, I still sat down and waited for the class to fill up. Professor Johnston made us get up as promised and named our lab partners and new seats. I ended up in the middle with Ciara.
“I need an A in this class,” she announced the second she sat down. “So I don’t have time to mess around.”
“I don’t do a lot of messi
ng around. I leave that to you guys.”
She frowned. “Look, we have to be lab partners, and no one expects us to mess up our grades for the marked, so you don’t have to worry about me, but everyone knows you’ve been on some revenge kick since you got here, and if it’s going to be a thing, I’m asking for a new partner.”
“The only people who need to be worried are those who’ve given me a reason. Did you?”
She pressed her lips together and didn’t speak another word to me for the rest of the lesson. After class ended, I swept out of the room for my next subject, my shadow trailing me only a few feet behind. Halfway to class, I realized something. No one was giving me nasty looks or hissing terrible things at me.
I thought after the break the effects of the video would have worn off and people would be ready to come after me again. Maybe they’ve decided they’ve had enough.
Or maybe it’s the unfriendly-looking, gun-toting hulk of muscles staring everyone down like he’s ready to pop their heads like a grape. Cowards like an easy target.
That sounded a lot more likely, but whatever the reason, I wasn’t worrying about it. I needed to focus on bigger fish. If Alex had done what they said, and they always did, then Maverick was in for a surprise.
I STOPPED NEXT TO MY locker and turned to Kane. “You don’t need to come with me to lunch.”
“I’m to be with you at all times.”
“I have my phone, and I’ll be in a room full of witnesses. I’ll be okay. Please go.”
He didn’t budge.
“Okay,” I drew out. “Then how about this? Whatever you see me do, will you keep it to yourself?”
“I am bound by nondisclosure agreements. They extend to you.”
This I didn’t know. “That’s perfect. In that case, you can come to lunch with me.”
Kane trailed me to the cafeteria and up to the lunch line. There was usually a hush that fell onto the room when I walked in, but this time I didn’t think it was me. The large man joined me at my table and made unsettling eye contact with everyone who looked my way. He was no Noemi, but that might have been what I liked about him.