“Forget your fucking laptop,” Royal says. “We’ll buy you a new one.”
Suddenly, I’m sure he’s going to run over Colt’s body, which is sprawled on the ground outside the open door of his truck. The cabin light shines dimly inside the truck in the blue evening, spreading just far enough to reflect off the pool of blood spreading across the wet asphalt. I think I’m going to be sick.
I’ve seen plenty of fights, and I’ve punched plenty of people, but this wasn’t a fight. It was a beating, the kind of thing gangs do to their rivals. There’s a reason I stay away from the gangs in Faulkner, despite the protection and community and employment they offer.
I enjoy using my fists as much as the next girl, but for me, it’s a sport, a rush, and a payout. It’s almost never personal. I don’t want to fight someone who threw shade and insulted my pride. Pride is overrated already. I’d rather put food in my mouth. And I don’t give a shit about territory or guns or drugs or any of their business operations. Getting out of town is more important.
And unlike these assholes, I don’t fight to hurt people. I’m not a sociopath. I don’t take pleasure in other people’s pain.
As Royal pulls out of the lot and roars off down the road, my stomach begins to settle, and I’m glad I distracted them with babble about my backpack, so they didn’t get any ideas about running over Colt’s body while he lay there unconscious on the road beside his truck. But now that the shock is wearing off, anger takes its place.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I demand. “You could have killed him! You left him in a ditch to die.”
“Calm the fuck down,” Royal snaps, touching his head with his fingertips. “You gave me a headache, and your screaming isn’t helping.”
“He won’t die,” Baron says, patting my knee and then leaving his hand there. “We have an agreement with Colt. He bends over and takes it in the ass like a bitch, and he gets to live. He even gets to stay at Willow Heights. He’s got it good. Hell, we didn’t even take his letter jacket.”
I gape at him, a hysterical laugh bubbling up inside me. They let him keep his fucking letterman jacket? As if that fucking matters after they took his family, his friends, his life away. They think a letter jacket matters to him? These guys aren’t just monsters. They’re so far removed from humanity they have no idea what they’ve done to Colt, how their actions affect people.
“What is wrong with y’all?” I ask, my voice laced with disbelief. “What happened to you?”
The wipers go on as drizzle begins to fall, and the only sound in the car is the mechanical swish of them moving back and forth across the windshield. No one says anything for a long minute. I really think about my question, about what I know. Yes, they’re rich as sin, but they still have problems. Their dad is maybe in the mafia, no one seems to really know for sure. Their mother abandoned them in some way. Their sister died.
But is it enough to explain this?
Most of the kids at Faulkner had stories like that. None of my friends had two biological parents. The only people I knew who had good families, at least from the outside, were people in my periphery, the upper echelon of Faulkner’s social order, like Lindsey Darling or even Maisy Gunn. And no one at FHS was like this.
“You don’t get to ask questions,” Royal says, breaking the heavy silence in his low, accented voice that reminds me all over again that there is so much about this family I don’t know, that I can’t begin to understand. “You answer questions. This shit doesn’t go both ways. Got it?”
“Got it,” I grit out. “Let me guess. Next thing, you’re going to tell me women should be seen and not heard?”
“No,” Royal says, pulling up to a red light. “I want to hear what you have to say for yourself. Why were you with Colt Darling after I specifically told you not to talk to him?”
“What are you so afraid of?” I ask. “That he spilled all your dirty little secrets?”
“No questions,” Royal reminds me.
“Fine,” I say, sitting back and crossing my arms. “I was with him because he’s my friend. I didn’t know that carried a death sentence.”
“I warned you to leave that guy alone,” Royal says flatly. “You disobeyed.”
“Yeah,” Duke says, twisting around in the seat with a gleeful smile as we slide through the wet streets of Faulkner. “We told you what would happen if you talked to him, and you talked to him. So, this happened. We can’t just let you get away with it.”
“Because then someone else might dare disobey the kings?” I taunt.
“Exactly,” Baron says, squeezing my knee. “You’re not as dumb as you look. So it should be easy for you to figure this out. What we say goes. What you say doesn’t matter. And when you act like the rules don’t apply, you see exactly how wrong you are. That’s what just happened back there. Consider it a friendly reminder.”
“Yeah, but here’s the thing,” I say, slapping his hand away. “I tried the whole obedience thing, and look where it got me. Nowhere. So what’s the point in obeying, if in the end, I’m fucked either way?”
“You’ve never played by our rules,” Royal growls, sounding equally frustrated and wounded by that affront.
“Except I did,” I say. “I got down on my knees and sucked your dick, just like everyone else.”
“Not like everyone else,” Royal mutters. But I’m too pissed and adrenaline-fueled to care whether he’s trying to insult me or compliment me. I can’t believe I ever cared, that I ever dreamed of being one of these psychos. They crossed a line, and there’s no going back. I fucking hate these boys. I hope they burn in hell for eternity.
But I won’t show them how much they’ve affected me. They don’t get to win everything.
“You said you wanted me to suck your dick, so I did it,” I say flatly. “And you went out of your way to make damn sure I didn’t like it, too. To remind me it was a punishment. But I stuck it out to the end—okay, maybe not the end, because apparently you have some hang-up about ejaculation, but until you were done. I stayed on my knees as long as you wanted me there, like an obedient little servant. And what did I get for falling in line and obeying you? Nothing, that’s what. I didn’t get to disappear into the masses of other girls you face-raped in the basement. You still released the video. So remind me again, what’s the point in obeying?”