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ALLIE
“Who’s the chick?” Landon asked, staring at Maddie, who Imani had basically adopted since Biology this morning.
Imani ushered Maddie into Poison’s filthy basement and toward the stained couch, near Jace and me. We had gotten here about five minutes ago and were waiting for Nicole because she apparently had information.
“We didn’t invite her.”
Imani crossed her arms. “Well, I did.”
“It’s okay. I can go,” Maddie started, glancing nervously at all the boys. “I just wanted to thank you for what you did to Principal Vaughn. He—”
“What’d we do?” Kai asked from the other couch, drawing his finger against the muzzle of his gun he had on display for everyone to see.
I didn’t doubt that he would use it within a moment’s notice on anyone he might believe was a threat.
Maddie stopped short, cheeks flaming, and shrugged. “Um …”
“Don’t answer them,” Imani said.
“I thought you hated us?” João said to Imani after inhaling smoke from his bong. He placed it down on the concrete floor and blew the smoke from his nose, eyes closing briefly. “Why are you here?”
After sitting next to me, Imani crossed one leg over the other and rested her head against my shoulder. “Because I’m not letting you guys make any more dumb decisions without my consent.”
“What? You think you own us now?” João said to her, leaning forward with his forearms on his knees. He laughed lifelessly at her. “We make decisions around here. You take no part in it, not even if you fucking beg to.”
After they quarreled back and forth for another five minutes, Nicole came clanking down the stairs in a pair of red heels and a small black dress. I rolled my eyes and curled my arm around Jace’s. If she thought she could dress like this and get any man she wanted, she couldn’t because Jace was mine.
Mine.
Nobody would take him away from me.
“Hey, guys,” Nicole said when she stepped into the room.
Everyone, except Maddie, glared at her, not really wanting her here, but she was the only one who probably had solid information on her father.
She looked at Maddie and scrunched her nose. “Weird that you’re here, but okay.”
She kicked off her heels and sat on the sofa next to Jace.
I pulled him closer to me, so he wasn’t even touching her, and clenched my jaw. “You said you had information. Tell us or get out.”
Nicole widened her eyes at me, but I didn’t have time for her bullshit. She was known to talk in circles and to talk forever, making up lies and gossip that the entire school would end up believing somehow. I just wanted to spend time with Jace and relax, not do this.
Jace placed a hand on my knee and squeezed gently. “We’ll leave soon, baby. Settle down.” He leaned closer to me and gently tugged on my earlobe with his teeth. “I’m yours.”
Nicole straightened herself out and cleared her throat. “About my father …” She looked from João to Landon to Kai. “This can’t … nobody can know that this information came from me. Please, if you can make it look like you got it some other way, do it. I don’t want my father to be angry with me. I want him put away.”
My eyes widened slightly. Put away? As in … thrown in jail? As far as I knew, Nicole never seemed like she hated her father. She always gushed about how much money he would spend on her. She acted as if she hadn’t moved from the bad part of Redwood to the rich when we were in middle school, acted as if she had grown up rich her entire life.
“He’s using the cheer team to do his dirty work.”
Landon rolled his eyes. “God, why is it always the cheer team in the drama?”
Nicole pressed her lips together, and I actually saw tears in her eyes. “I’m being serious. He found out that Principal Vaughn was taping people in the locker rooms. It started with the cheer squad. Vaughn let it slide as long as he was able to take some of the film of the girls. He’s been using it against us and blackmailing us into getting information about people in Redwood for him, threatening to leak the tapes and ruin our lives if we don’t.” She turned to Jace. “That’s why I slept with Carter. I never loved you. I just … my father wanted me to get information out of you. I knew it was wrong. I fucking knew it.”
“What?” Jace asked, staring over at her. “He’s doing that?”
She wiped tears from her cheeks with a shaky hand. “That’s not all. He roped some of the girls into a sex ring and was helping pimp them out at one point. He’s doing it all for the money. He’s so … so greedy. He doesn’t care.”
My chest tightened. I wanted to hate her but didn’t know that she had been through so much. I had prayed that one day, she would get hurt as badly as it’d hurt me to find her with Jace at the Overlook two years ago. But I hadn’t meant like this. I would never wish this upon anyone.
“I-I-I’m one of those girls,” she said, a complete and utter mess of tears and snot. “He used me, forced me to have sex with men sixty years older than me. Just to get a quick few bucks. I’m sorry for everything I’ve done. I’m so sorry.”
