by Eden O'Neill
The audience chuckled, my friends too, at least the ones I could see. Most of them stood toward the front, clapping after the mayor’s joke. One person I didn’t see was Ramses himself. In fact, I hadn’t seen him since he’d taken the cookies. A quick rotation, and I noticed Royal, LJ, Jax, and Knight weren’t around either, despite their dates being up front as well.
What’s up with that?
The mayor said another joke, but I had other thoughts on my mind. I put my hand out to Lena. “Nice meeting you.”
“Nice meeting you, December,” she stated, her smile warm. “I hope you get something out of the journal. I’m sure your sister would have wanted you to have it.”
I would have, had it been the other way around, and thinking back on that, I excused myself for another reason. I hid on the other side of the big-ass tree, hunkering down to send a text.
Me: Hey, you didn’t clear the garbage from the house recently, did you?
I sent this to Rosanna, waiting with bated breath. If I accidentally threw out my sister’s journal…
She was taking too long, and since Ramses welcomed me the use of his house, I cut out of the ballroom to make a call. I hadn’t been everywhere in his mansion, but I knew my way around enough to find someplace quiet. I passed attendants and caterers delivering more food to the festivities along the way and smiled at them all before dipping into the closest room I could find. That room ended up being an office, a fire softly burning on the hearth near a large oak desk.
I sat in the chair, swiveling around. I started to dial when a creak, then voices hit the room.
“You guys have taken to stalking people now?” came behind me. “And here I thought you boys were better than four against one.”
Ramses.
I eased my chair around but just barely, peeking to the side of the high, brown leather chair. Four boys did stand against Ramses, and my heart jumped at the various sizes and builds. Jax, LJ, and Knight stood in a standoff with Ramses Mallick.
And at the center was Royal Prinze.
Royal had his hands braced on his biceps, his boys behind him like he was there to intimidate.
What the hell?
I started to move.
“Is this about December?”
I stopped, frozen by Ramses’ words.
Ramses frowned. “She told me how you came to her, told her to stay away from me?” He shook his head. “Really, Prinze?”
“I thought she should be warned about who you are,” he stated, easing his jacket open and moving hands to prop on his hips. “Or was I incorrect telling her what an asswipe you are?”
He really did have some nerve, but Ramses, I noticed, held no reaction but to face the floor.
He folded fingers over his face, a sigh on his lips. “Maybe you weren’t wrong about who I used to be. I admit I threw my weight around here, but I’m past that now. All that’s in the past for me, and it’s not true now.”
“It’s not true now,” Royal parroted, mocking him.
Ramses pulled in thick eyebrows. “Yeah, it’s not true now, and anyway, isn’t this all a bit much?” He put his hand out toward Jax, LJ, and Knight. “I mean, I get wanting to protect your friend’s sister, but even this is overkill. What? You got a thing for her or something? Because seriously, dude, you can calm the fuck down about it. She and I are just friends—”
“We’re not here about December,” Royal growled, but could have fooled me. He passed a glance to the other guys. “Because if that’s all this was about, believe me, it’d just be me and you standing here.”
His threat lingered hard in the air, like it was warranted and he had any type of ownership over me and what I did. The audacity of this boy sickened me, and I nearly announced my presence if not for Ramses moving to speak again.
Ramses tilted his head. “What’s this about, then? The need for the posse?”
“We represent all, bro,” Jax intercepted, looking hard and not in his familiar ways. He was usually such a jokester, but his jaw clenched hard. “We represent the Court.”
“The Court?” Ramses asked.
LJ nodded. “We wanted to make sure you knew where you stood…”
“And the place you fit in.” Knight stepped forward. “You made a choice freshman year, and it wasn’t Court.”
Ramses actually chuckled more than I would dare to do in front of those mini tank trucks. He folded lanky arms. “You want me to stay away.”
“What you choose to do is up to you,” Royal stated, parting away from the other guys. “Just know it won’t have anything to do with the Court. You keep on your side of the yard, and don’t even think about going out and trying to join now, join us.”
“Or what?” Ramses sneered. “No offense, guys, but I don’t give a fuck about you and your shit.”
“Let’s hope it remains that way,” Knight grunted. “Because even if you were in, you’ll never be a part, not really.”
“Nah, never,” Jax finished for him. The guys all started to back away, all but Royal, that is. He remained firm in his position.
In fact, he gained on Ramses, getting in his face.
“You’ve been warned,” Royal threatened again, looking the epitome of a mob boss. He turned away.
“I thought the Court was done with hazes out on Route 80.”
The room seeped of all air, a vacuum sucking it dry to the point no one spoke. They barely even breathed, and I was amongst silence, my head shaking.
Route… 80?
“I thought you were done,” Ramses continued, watching as the other guys came back. “Done after me.”
The guys said nothing, Royal said nothing; meanwhile, I was having a mini breakdown. My sister had been out on Route 80, wandered the tracks before her ultimate death. She’d died out there.
Ramses’ look could kill. “You know there can’t be a more fucked-up way to make someone earn that little piece of metal on your fingers?” he stated, and my heart thudded into my neck. Ramses’ nostrils flared. “I didn’t do it. But did someone else?”
I bit down on my lip the same time Royal got Ramses by the shirt, the metallic taste of blood in my mouth. I shook, unable to see… unable to think. What he was saying wasn’t true. What he was insinuating was bullshit. What he was…
Ramses didn’t fight Royal, and I think that’d been the point. He wanted him to do something.
He wanted something to happen.
I shrank in the seat, seconds from throwing up right there. That’s when a hand came around Royal’s arm, LJ.
“Royal,” he gritted, yanking him back. “Don’t. Just don’t.”
Madness was in Royal Prinze’s eyes, a madness I felt on the brink of traveling myself. The sheriff had said my sister hadn’t been out there by herself, how the guys wished they could have done something.
“I’m sorry, December. I’m sorry…”
So many sorrys Royal had said to me that night, so many when they hadn’t been his fault. My sister’s death hadn’t been his fault. At least, that’s what I’d believed.
It took all I had in me not to cry out, biting down on my bloodied lip. If her being there had been because of them, because of this…
“Don’t talk about things you know nothing about,” Royal threatened again, but this time, his deep voice cracked. A clear emotion had been behind it, stuff he let go the moment he released Ramses. He pointed at him. “And you know what? You do need to stay away from December. Stay the fuck far away because if something happens to her, if you hurt her—”
“Something tells me I couldn’t do worse than someone else,” Ramses said, his swallow hard. He stood tall. “Go with your friends, Prinze. Go with your friends and leave my house.”
Commanded. Royal was commanded, and I never thought he’d leave.
But he did, he did with all the guys, leaving Ramses, and I didn’t get his response to that at all.
I fell, fell clear off the chair, and once I did, I cried my goddamn lungs out.
�
��December?” Hands came down to me, a tall boy in the room. Ramses Mallick was at my side, but the moment he got hands on my arms, I pulled back.
“Stay away. Stay the fuck away!”
“December—”
“It’s not true. Tell me it’s not fucking true.” I hit his chest, blinded through tears. “Tell me they didn’t haze my sister. Tell me they’re not the reason she’s dead!”
Ramses’ mouth shut, his look pained, and I cried out more, his long reach coming around my shaking arms.
“I don’t know, December,” he said, rocking with me. “I don’t know, but I suspected. That’s why I asked Prinze. To see if I could get a reaction out of him.”
And he gave him exactly what Ramses wanted. They all did.
“It’s not true,” I cried. “It’s not. It can’t be.”
Ramses gripped me tight. “I hoped it wasn’t. I knew what my haze was, and what happened to your sister was just too close. I didn’t even put two and two together until I met you and started thinking about it. Once I found out who you were and your relation to your sister and hers to Prinze? It all just made sense.”
“But why would they do that? Why? They loved my sister. He loved my sister—”
“I don’t know.” He looked at me, his face serious. “Maybe it was something else. Maybe your sister wanted to join the Court so bad she was willing to do something like that for acceptance. That was the one haze even our senior members directly forbade against because of me. There was so much of an uproar about it. I raised hell about it, and the Court wasn’t allowed to do it again.”
She wanted Court intervention…
Royal’s words flooded back to me the night I found out about my sister, what she wanted that night and why she called him. Maybe that was what the Court intervention was, a haze.
A haze gone wrong.
I thought I’d be sick again, and standing, I attempted to leave.
“What are you doing?” Ramses was up with me, following me. He grabbed my arm. “Where are you going?”
“The police,” I challenged. “There’s not one word about this out there, about a haze or the Court being involved. They’re saying my sister was drunk and wandered train tracks—”
“And maybe that’s what happened.” He grabbed me again, my arms. “Maybe your sister lost her nerve and she was leaving. The haze is they make you lie on the tracks. You make it through the night without leaving, you get a ring. Maybe she left. Like I said, lost her nerve—”
“But shouldn’t the world know about that?” I asked, ripping my arms away.
Ramses frowned. “Why do you think they don’t? Why do you think none of this is already out there? The Court and everything they do own this town. They control everything. Even the sheriff is in their pockets.”
Chills, my body covered in them. The sickness rose again, and I placed hands on the desk to steady myself. I faced Ramses. “You think they covered this up? The Court?”
His swallow was hard. “I have no facts.”
But I noticed he didn’t say no. I sat in the chair, and lowering before me, Ramses got on his knees.
“I don’t know what happened exactly out there that night, December,” he admitted. “There’s a lot of blanks, a lot of holes, but I think they need to be filled. That’s why I came back.”
I panned, finding his eyes. “What?”
He nodded. “What happened to me shouldn’t have happened to anyone else. The Court has too much power, and they need to be stopped.”
“And you’re going to stop them?” I asked, shaking my head. “You lied to me, Ramses. Lied about why you were really here. You said you wanted them to see you.”
“They will, and they’ll see you too. They’ll see anyone they’ve screwed over. Your sister deserves justice, December. You do too and me.”
“How?” I cried again, a serious terror in my veins. I was so scared, so scared of the power and this town and even Ramses a little. I was scared of what he wanted to do.
And I was even more scared I wanted to join him.
“We get on their level,” he explained. “Get in their house, and, December, I think with your help… We both just may be able to do it.”
Thank you so much for checking out ILLUSIONS THAT MAY (Court High 2)! You can get the next book in the Court High saga, COURT KEPT, on Amazon. Want chapter one now? You can get that and more by subscribing to my newsletter! There, you’ll get new release news from me and a link to the newsletter exclusive Court High website, which has access to chapter one of COURT KEPT as well as so many other fun bonus exclusives. What are you waiting for? =^)