Page 100 of Gilded Fake

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My friends. My job. My future.

Royal. Rylan. Colt.

I throw myself into my seat and slam the door as if I can escape them. For so long, words were my weapons when I had nothing else, but now even words have deserted me. They are Dixie’s weapon, not mine. I am defenseless. The thoughts, memories, images drop in crushing blows, an anvil to my raw, animal heart, now torn open and exposed. Everything she’s taken, everything they’ve all taken, every loss was a boot stomping the fragile butterfly inside me. I built a cocoon around the only thing I had left, a heart that was chaotic and wild, a heart that seethed and raged. And now the butterfly is gone, and the cage that protected my heart, that protected them from my heart, is open.

There is no high road anymore. My mother paved the way, but I’ve gone so far off course there’s no way back. The diamond walls around my heart, the cage, the cocoon, are tumbling down, leaving me vulnerable and defenseless. The deadly weapons that once spilled from my mouth have been stripped away. All that’s left is a scream.

The scream that erupts out of me isn’t human or even animal. It’s the scream of a woman possessed, the demon Colt always said I was. And maybe he’s right, because I feel the gear shift in my hand, and the pedals under my feet, and the surge of power in the engine. I hear the roar of the car joining mine, lifting my voice, the voice I kept quiet so long I thought it would be a ragged whisper. But it’s not. It’s primal and raw and fueled with rage that erupts from my mouth, spewing lava and fire like a mythical beast, not a phoenix but a dragon rising into the sky, raining fire on the school that watched me burn on a pyre for years and called it a throne.

For one eternal moment, all I see is that fire, a red, blind wall of the most breathtaking destruction. I’m free, soaring into the sky in victory, an explosive force of unspeakable power and terrible vengeance.

Then I feel the heavy, visceral thud that slams me back to earth.

I sit there for one stunned second, listening to the shrieks outside the car. My breath is too hot in my mouth, a rasp searing my scorched throat, tinged with the taste of smoke, as if I really were a dragon for one moment.

I don’t move. Not when someone pulls Dixie off the hood of my car. Not when I hear sirens. I stare at the dent in the smooth, shimmering green surface of June Bug’s hood, and I feel nothing. No one comes to the car and drags me out and beats me into the ground like they did Colt last year. They shy back from the car like it’s Christine, like I might target them next. Only when the blue lights flash in the rearview does someone approach the car.

Officer Gunn takes my arm and helps me out. I see Harper standing there, and I toss her my keys. She catches them, her lips moving, but I don’t hear her. Everything sounds muffled, as if I’m underwater. The policeman leads me to his car. He’s talking, but I don’t answer. My throat is cauterized. He puts hand on top of my head and guides me into the back seat. I stare through the screen while he and his partner talk to other people. Dixie is being loaded into an ambulance.

It leaves. And then we do.

And then Officer Gunn looks at me in the rearview. “Why’d you do it?”

I know what to say. The Dolces taught me that. How to deny blame. Like Royal, it wasn’t really me, I was out of my mind with grief, I wasn’t there at all. Like Duke, it was the drugs that made me do it, the demon, peer pressure. Like Baron, I had to protect those I love, and I needed to show them what happens when they don’t obey, to spell it out because they didn’t listen to the warning, and there must be consequences. You’d do the same to protect your family, wouldn’t you, Officer? You understand, don’t you? You see we’re all innocent here.

But when I open my mouth, the truth spills from my lips.

“Sometimes you don’t have a choice between being the villain, the victor, or the victim. But sometimes you do.”

He studies me in the mirror a long moment before turning his attention back to the road. “I been there a time or two myself,” he says. “I’m just going to pretend you didn’t say that.”

twenty-two

Rumor Has It… WHPA’s beloved Queen clings to life by a thread after a vicious, unprovoked attack that can only be described as a hate crime occurred in the school parking lot. The brutality of the attack is reminiscent of the one that occurred last year and left the fallen king in critical condition for months. With the Queen in similarly dire straits, her future remains uncertain. Make sure to visit her at Faulkner Regional and show your respects before it’s too late!

Colt Darling

MaybeItsMabel: Congratulations.