Page 9 of Wicked Games

She giggles and looks around nervously, like she’s expecting Killian or the twins to jump out from the shadows and catch us talking about their club. “WellI’mcurious. I wish you’d gotten tapped for initiation so I could get all the juicy details from you.”

I make a face. “You know I hate that saying.”

“I know, and that’s why I say it.” She bumps my arm with hers. “Juicydetails are the best kind.”

“Why do I put up with you?” I ask, not bothering to hide my smile.

“Because the stepfreaks need to stick together. And you don’t have any other friends to hang out with.”

Laughing, I push the door to the stairs open for her. “Stepfreaks unite.”

One of the first things Eden and I bonded over when we met was our shared experience of being the unwanted stepsibling of a powerful member of the Rebels. Her stepbrother, Jordan, is one of the leaders, and he hates her even more than Killian hates me.

Jordan is the one who coined the term “stepfreaks” for us, and he’s also the reason no one at school will have anything to do with Eden.

People stay away from me because I’m weird and don’t care enough to fit in. Part of it is also because Killian openly despises me and people don’t want to get on his bad side, but most of it is because I don’t give a shit if anyone at this school likes me or not.

Unlike me, Eden cares what people think of her. She does her best to hide how much Jordan’s bullying and being ostracized on campus bothers her, but she didn’t grow up in this world like I did. And she’s still learning exactly how fickle people in our tax bracket can be and how little they truly matter in the grand scheme of things.

“What do you want to do tonight?” I ask, hoping to distract her from where I know her thoughts have gone.

“There’s a movie screening in the quad at nine,” she says as we hurry down the stairs together. “Or we can hang out in my room and watch something until curfew since Heidi’s off on some shoot somewhere.”

I link our arms together as we leave the stairwell and walk through the grand entrance of the building. “Whatever you want sounds good.”

A few of the guys in the lobby give us some side-eye, but I ignore them.

Living in Hamilton House is going to be an adjustment, but it’s only until the end of the year. I’ll be fine as long as I keep playing my favorite game of pissing Killian off and making him lose his shit for no reason other than it’s fun.

3

KILLIAN

My phone pingsseveral times in rapid succession. I pick it up to check my notifications and let out a weary sigh when I see Natalie’s name.

I’m tempted to ignore her, but that would only lead to her blowing up my phone and pissing me off even more.

Natalie: when are you picking me up?

Natalie: Are you excited to see my new dress?

Natalie: I think you’ll *really* like it

The last text is a row of smirking and winky face emoji.

I let my head fall back against the padded headboard. I really don’t want to take her to the Black and White party at King House tonight, but I can’t cancel without her throwing a fit, and I’m so not in the mood to deal with that on top of everything else I’ve got going on right now.

Killian: I’ll swing by around 9

Natalie: are you sure that’s early enough?

Natalie: we might not even make it out the door when you see how good I look for you

She adds another row of winky face emoji.

Killian: I’ll see you at 9

I’m just putting my phone on the bed when the door to my room swings open. Felix doesn’t even glance my way as he closes the door and walks over to his side of the room.

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