“Hardly,” he bites back. “You forget my sister is still missing.”
“Of course, I haven’t forgotten,” I answer more softly, my head craning towards the two of them as we pass. “But what are they doing together? They don’t look like they’re fighting.”
“I haven’t seen them get along since freshman year.” He keeps his eyes straight ahead now as we walk by, leaving them behind us.
“And even that was just a trick…so you could fuck with Lily,” I remind him, feeling their eyes still burning into our backs.
“Well, she doesn’t appear to have any hard feelings about it now,” he states dismissively.
“She did with me yesterday,” I snap, stopping to pull him around the corner. I put my arms on his shoulders to make him understand I’m serious. “Really, Emmett…if you could have heard the way Lily was talking about you and Vivian. Something’s not right about this...they’re acting like best friends.”
“You’re paranoid.” He rubs my shoulders and kisses my forehead. “You have nothing to worry about with those two. They’re basically outcasts now after the news of Vivian’s parents’ involvement in those sex trafficking rings. And Lily’s been blacklisted for a while now. They don’t have any more power here.”
His words don’t settle right with me. Outcasts. Blacklisted. Power. This is the kind of hierarchy Emmett is used to. I could be comforted knowing that by mere association, no one is going to fuck with me now that he’s the only one left standing at the top. But these are exactly the kinds of things I want to avoid.
I let him walk me to class with my arms clenched tight around my chest as I try to wrap my head around everything. When I was the one being tortured by the old gang of Elites, it felt like time moved by in slow motion, but now, all at once it seems to have sped up and completely turned everything around.
We pass the can in the hall where I caught Emmett dumping trash on Lily just for talking to me. That was when I first realized he was the same boy who I’d met at the track meet earlier that summer. Only in the halls of WJ Prep, he didn’t seem like the same boy at all. Nothing like the mysterious, funny, charming guy who lured me into a kiss even though I didn’t know who he was. Here he was an animal with Vivian hanging by his side and their little pack.
I hate that nothing with him can ever just be what I want it to be. It’s still hard to look at him without some bad memory popping up in my head. His sister’s disappearance is looming, and now Vivian’s back to make things even worse. But when he squeezes my hand and kisses my cheek before I walk into class, the thrill of it is almost enough to chase the rest away. At least temporarily.
My mind is like butter throughout the next period. Constantly sliding right over everything I’m supposed to be paying attention to and dripping back to thoughts of Emmett and the night before. It’s a sort of daze I should be used to by now. For better or for worse, I’ve been in some form of it since the moment we first met.
After class, I can’t help but frantically search the sea of scrambling students for Emmett’s face. Caught in this distraction, I round the corner and accidently walk straight into another girl. I don’t even have to look all the way up to realize it’s Vivian, and of course she looks pissed. Just my luck.
“Well, if it isn’t the little boyfriend-stealing skank herself,” she jeers with cold eyes before I can even begin to attempt a half-hearted apology for running into her. It’s no use saying sorry to her, anyway. She’s going to hate me now more than ever.
Vivian is freakishly thin, yet still somehow curvy with perfectly manicured nails and a relentlessly pissed look always plastered on her face. She keeps her blonde, curly hair up in perfectly tight buns that frame her pouty, red lips. She is intimidating and beautiful. And Emmett’s ex-girlfriend. A fact that seemed irrelevant until she was standing in front of me.
“Fuck off, Vivian. I’m not in the mood,” I bark, turning to move past her.
“What’s wrong? Troubles with Emmett?” Lily taunts, popping out from beside Vivian to block my path.
Lily is several inches shorter than me with long, brown hair that goes smooth and straight down her entire back. She has hazel-green eyes that used to be the only kind and friendly sight I would encounter in these halls, but now they’ve turned fiery and malicious. She wears a snarling grin that matches Vivian’s.
Her dad works in real estate, buying properties and renting them out, and probably manages the very property my mom and Brendan rent. He also dabbles in stocks, like all the dads around here do. But her dad is especially skilled with it. Her family was blacklisted by the Elites when her dad refused to day trade a ridiculous amount of money from the Jameson Automobile Company. That’s how Lily and I became friends, but apparently the standards have changed now that all the Elites are under investigation.
“What’s gotten into you?” I scoff. “Why the hell are you with her!?”
“Well, since you turned out to be a backstabbing, lying cunt…I had to find an ally somewhere,” she replies callously.
“This isn’t a game of survivor, Lily,” I insist, knowing this is a pointless argument to make. But this isn’t the Lily I know. “It’s just life. You don’t have to be so calculating. I thought you were better than those kinds of games.”
“I could say the same about you,” she snaps back through pursed lips.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t done anything to you,” I defend myself, shaking my head in exasperation. I still don’t have a clue as to why Lily hates me so much. Much less why she has joined forces with Vivian.
“My dad is going to prison, you dumb bitch,?
?? Vivian burns into me. “We’re losing almost everything. And it’s all your fault!”
“I didn’t have anything to do with that!” I gawk back at her. “If your dad didn’t want to go to prison, then maybe he shouldn’t have been selling underage girls on the black market.”
“Shut your fucking mouth!” She wags her finger in my face. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I don’t have to, but the police sure do,” I reply bitterly, cowering slightly at her stance. I’ve slapped Vivian once before, and I’d gladly do it again. But I did not walk into school today prepared for a fight. I’ve grown too used to the peace and quiet of the past couple of weeks.
“What the hell is going on here?!” Emmett’s voice booms out from a few feet away.