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I’ve never seen him smile. Not once. Not with his friends, when everyone else is laughing. Not at any of the girls practically throwing themselves at him. It’s both beautiful and horrifying. It’s a cruel smile that doesn’t reach the depths of his icy gray eyes. He looks like he’s about to enjoy ripping the wings of a butterfly.
Unfortunately, the butterfly is likely to be me.
“I don’t think you understand that word, cupcake,” he tells me, though Judith just said my name. He approaches me slowly. I try to walk back again, but my foot hits the stairs, and he reaches me before I can flee. When he bends to reach my ear, I catch a whiff of seaside and wind, a fresh smell, subtle and unique. “You will.”
He walks up the stairs, hands in his pocket, positively nonchalant. As if he hasn’t just threatened two girls in the hallway.
Maverick elbows Rowan, who brushes back his long hair—not that it ever bothers to stay back. “This is interesting.”
“You think?” the blond giant shoots back.
They’re enjoying themselves. That's plain to see. They feed off my fear, and I can’t truly hide it.
I notice Cain when he calls me, echoing Jason. “Cupcake? You might want to have that phone checked out.” The asshole winks, holding his own phone up.
I glance down at the black screen. I try to activate the screen, again and again, and to reboot it, all in vain.
Shit!
I hadn’t even noticed him do anything, but somehow, with nothing other than his own mobile phone, he’s destroyed mine.
The boys follow after Jason, thoroughly entertained. I watch them leave, unmoving, heart beating too fast in my chest.
Holy shit. So, that just happened.
It feels like an end. A beginning. The kind of choice that’s going to matter to my future—like having braces or cutting my hair in seventh grade, only much bigger. A choice I’m going to regret. They’ll make sure I do.
Once they’ve disappeared from view, Judith clears her throat. “Thank you,” she says, holding my eyes so I can see she’s sincere. “You’re worried for nothing, though. I wasn’t getting…bullied.” She winced as she said the word, like voicing it might make it real. “I just made the wrong choices at their club, and I’m paying for it.”
“Their club?” I’m confused.
Judith hooks her arm through mine and starts to walk up the stairs. “They own a club in the city together.” She shrugs like it’s no big deal. I suppose to her, it isn’t. “It’s a tradition for legacy kids to get a lump sum when we turn eighteen. It comes directly from our parent’s club, if we join it.”
I’ve always known they lived in a different world, but what the fuck?
“Cain was born in February, Rowan in April, Maverick and Jason around May, so they all got theirs last year. They pooled it together to buy a failing club in the city at the beginning of the summer. It’s already the hottest new place. I went this weekend, and well…”
Judith lowers her gaze. She’s picking at her nails. I doubt it’s a habit; they’re perfect, like the rest of her. Her head snaps up, and she meets my gaze. “I bought some weed there,” she admits. “But there was a police raid this weekend, and the club got a big fine. The guys wanted to know who I bought it from, and well, I don’t want a drug dealer on my ass, so I kept my mouth shut. They aren’t happy about that.”
I swallow hard. Great. I’m so glad I opened up my big trap. I don’t judge easily; a few of the girls I wait with at my dad’s restaurant smoke. It’s legal in New York, who cares? But they’re over twenty-one. If Judith chooses to take drugs underage, well, it’s not exactly my business, is it?
I stepped into a mess that I had no business stepping in.
I can understand both sides of it—if it had happened in my dad’s restaurant, he would also have wanted to know the identity of the drug dealer selling to minors on his turf to stop that nonsense. And I’m not dumb enough to fail to see why Judith would stay silent to protect herself.
Bottom line, she fucked up and has to deal with the consequences. I drink from time to time at parties, with a fake ID. If I got caught, I’d expect to have to clean up a mess, too, though perhaps not a mess as terrifying as the four idols of Cross.
It’s time for me to back down and keep my head buried in the sand.
If it isn’t too late already.
You will.
Jason’s warning replays at the back of my head.
Maybe I can talk to him. Let him know I’ve deleted the video. He’d leave me alone then, right?
“If you’re sure you’re all right,” I murmur.
