“You’re in the right place,” Josie says, holding up a hand and leaning across the table to high-five him. I catch Lo’s wounded look from the next table, and I know she saw it, too.
“Actually, can we not make this about your breakup drama?” I interject. “Dixie and I are friends with Lo. This is more about disrupting the social order and protesting the power the Dolce boys have—and beyond that, the power the founding families have over the administration.”
Rylan glowers at me and then jerks his chin at Colt. “Aren’t you from a founding family?”
“Yep,” Colt drawls, crossing his tattooed arms across his chest and leaning back in his chair. “But what’ve I got to lose? I’m a peon like the rest of y’all.”
Amber glances at Magnolia.
“You are, too?” Rylan asks her.
“I’m a Darling,” she says, pursing her pouty lips and looking down her nose at him. “What about it?”
“Oh, yeah,” Josie says. “Why are you here? What’s in it for you?”
Magnolia shrugs and raises her chin defiantly. “I believe in the cause.”
Josie narrows her eyes. “But you’ll be Queen B next year,” she says, looking Magnolia up and down. “Look at you.”
“She’s right,” Dixie says. “The Dolces are seniors, and that’s the last of them. They only have that one family. You have cousins and a brother… Even if your family doesn’t have the power it used to in this town, between your name and your looks, you’ll still be the most popular girl in your grade.”
Magnolia crosses her arms, but unlike Colt’s relaxed position, she looks defiant. “A lot can happen in a year.”
I watch their exchange, finding new admiration for the stubborn little freshman. Looking at her, it’s hard to forget how young she is. She’s got curves, but she’s still small, the kind of small that girls are before they’re done growing. Her cheeks are round, her eyelashes spidery and long, coated with black mascara that makes her big eyes stand out. She looks like a living doll, perfect and innocent, and I can’t help but wonder if that’s a Darling trait, if that’s why people associate the wordDollwith that family.
But thinking about her age—she’s only fourteen—makes me reconsider her joining us. I was so caught up in just filling the table on Friday that I didn’t question why she’d put herself in this situation. If anything, she’s made herself a target by openly defying the Dolces.I’vemade her a target by allowing her to join us.
Shit.
As if the Dolces need another reason to go after the Darlings. They already threatened Magnolia last year, and I’ve seen Duke talking to her multiple times since I came back to Willow Heights. I thought she was just some dumb, giggly freshman, flattered by his attention and flirting with him. Now I’m not so sure. Young or not, she’s definitely not a dumb kid.
A hush falls over the room, and I turn my attention to follow everyone else’s. Gideon Delacroix has just emerged from the food line with DeShaun, their serving girls behind them. It’s just the two of them, so at least I know they’re not in attack mode. Duke and Baron would be in for any mayhem like that. But it’s just Quinn and some other girls behind them.
My heart sinks when Gideon laughs at something DeShaun says.
So, I guess that was it. He wasn’t about our cause, after all. Not unless it came with a built-in girlfriend. Hell, for all I know, Baron put him up to it to discredit us, to make it look like it was about some petty high school dating drama.
But whatever. We may have lost him, but we gained two new members of the Dolce Defectors.
When they reach our table, DeShaun gives me a polite nod and keeps walking, heading for his seat next to Duke as usual. Gideon stops at our table, though. I stiffen, noticing then that he has a plate in his hands, too. My first thought is that he’s going to dump it over one of us. Instead, he sets it down and pulls out the last chair. He motions for his serving girl, and that’s when I see that Quinn and a handful of others are still with them. I look around in confusion. Quinn already told me she wouldn’t join us.
She hurries over, sets a plate in front of Dixie, and scurries away. Gideon’s server sets a plate in front of Colt, and I finally realize what’s happening. I sit there frozen, suspended in some surreal world while my own serving girl, the one who carried my food for me when I was Royal’s plaything, sets a plate in front of me, a plate with a little of everything, because she knows what I like after serving me for half of last year.
Two other girls I vaguely recognize as friends of Quinn’s deliver plates to Josie and Magnolia, rushing away before we can ask what’s going on.
“Thank you,” I call after them, then turn to my friends. “What the fuck was that?”
“Can’t fight the good fight on an empty stomach,” Gideon says, giving me a quick wink before starting in on his chicken.
“You did this?” I ask, diving into my own food. I still get a panicky feeling about skipping meals, even though I no longer worry about whether I’ll have dinner. Food hasn’t been a guaranteed part of my days for long enough that I take it for granted.
“I can’t take credit for the idea,” he says, glancing at his old table. I wonder who’s sitting there while secretly supporting us. Gloria, who I saw talking to Quinn this morning? DeShaun, who once told me he liked me but he’d put his boys first, who turned the tide at the Swans vote, who walked over here with Gideon? Or Cotton, who might be one of those secret Darling supporters Colt mentioned when I first came to Willow Heights?
All I know is that someone there is supporting us, which gives me hope. They’re too scared to come out and join us now, but they’re risking the Dolce boys’ wrath if they’re caught. And those girls who crossed the picket line to bring us food… They have a target on their backs now, too. How am I going to protect all of them, and Magnolia, when I couldn’t even protect myself?
two
Royal Dolce