Page 81 of Unspoken Truths

I never will be due to this damn bet.

“Why are you so on edge?” Elijah asks, leaning on the locker next to mine. “The little mouse up to something?”

“You could say that,” I mutter. I don’t like lying to my best friend, but we’re no longer working on the same team.

Somewhere along the way, Rachelle has become important to me. It was a slow and excruciating process, yet here we are.

“Any ideas as to why she hit me?” he asks.

“Something I did reminded her of her rapist,” I say, my lips barely moving.

Elijah stills, swallowing hard. “I didn’t think about that,” he mutters. “This is going to complicate things. Does anyone else know?”

“Nope,” I tell him. “Complicated is an understatement.”

“Did she run and tell your father?” he asks, forcing his body to relax so he almost appears boneless. We’re very good at playing pretend. It reminds me that we need to figure out what his parents’ company actually does, because one day he’ll be following in their footsteps.

In a way, I can understand the spiral Rachelle is in, I’m just better at channeling it into other things. Control is a conspiracy the world tells you is within reach, except nothing is further from the truth.

All we can hope for is to pull as many other people’s strings as possible so the lie is never found out. It’s what my friends and I excel at.

“Not exactly,” I say. “This game may end sooner rather than later if we aren’t careful.”

“What aren’t you telling me?” Elijah asks.

“There are just a lot of places to jump from at my house is all,” I sigh, closing the locker door.

“You’re fucking with me,” he snarls. “We can’t talk here, Nacio. Dammit.”

“We just need to decide how far we want to go before the tether breaks,” I say. My heart is pounding even if I seem completely calm. Even if I wasn’t starting to feel something for the little mouse, my continued existence is tied to hers.

If she dies, my father will kill me. Dad is completely in love with Julia, and in the small glimpses I’ve allowed myself to see, Rachelle is one of the only reasons my stepmother lives and breathes. She may have made mistakes when she brought pieces of shit into her daughter’s life, but it’s clear to me that Julia won’t back down when it comes to her.

The wire connecting me to the people in my life is so thin, I’m feeling hard pressed to walk along it. Elijah knows me so well, it’s going to get him to buy what I’m saying. The only way to ensure that he does is by being as cruel as possible in my delivery.

“What’s the timeline that the other Kings had?” he asks, his eyes slowly taking in the hallway. We could move from our position here, but it would be noticed.

Right now, people are tracking us so that they won’t get in our way, much like you would a predator, but otherwise are all involved in their own lives. Our next class begins in ten minutes, and is one of the longer breaks we have.

“Dead, fucked, ruined, or all three by senior year,” I murmur. “She’s unstable, getting her to kill herself less than a month in when we’ve barely done anything will be seen as failure.”

“We need a meeting at lunch,” Elijah grunts. “I’ll let the others know.”

Pushing away from the lockers, he disappears to find the others. Our phones are locked up during the school day. Mrs. Hartwell is taking her position as interim headmaster seriously. At this rate, the school may not hire anyone else until the next school year.

Shutting my locker door, I sling my backpack over my shoulder as I lope through the hallway. As I walk around the corner, my eyes narrow as I see Dale Haelton shove Rachelle into the wall. She’s arguing with him, appearing so damn small against his six foot frame.

I wasn’t the only one to notice her name on the swim meet newspaper piece last Thursday, and it created waves through the school. Liliana spent last week cleaning house, insisting that she was tired of the newspaper being viewed as an easy club to be involved in.

I don’t blame her one bit, and my father was very proud to see Rachelle is now a reporter and writer for the newspaper. Seems like such a small thing, but it’s a coveted spot to have, especially since she’s also taking the photos for the article. Jared looked fierce in the image she chose for it.

I think none of us know what to do with the little mouse who surprises at every turn.

Dale is two inches away from Rachelle’s face now, and the crowd parts as I stride toward them.

“You’re nothing!” he screams. “How dare you steal my article and my spot on the paper.”

“Maybe if you were doing what you were supposed to, Liliana wouldn’t have had to kick you off,” I say, my hands slamming over his ears.

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