Page 48 of Her Wicked Knights
"We wait." Colton says. I begin to tell him no, that Marley and Hadley deserve justice, that my mother deserves justice. But he cuts me off.
"We play it cool, we collect information, and then when it's time..." He glances from Rev to me, making sure we're following.
"We take them down."
25
Colton
Mymom’ssobbreaksme out of my reverie.
Blinking, I come back to my body in the church in time to hear my friends’ father talking about angels carrying their souls on high, or some shit like that. Rev isn’t listening to his father; He isn’t even pretending to try. He’s staring at the same person I’ve been staring at, spellbound, captivated. On his other side, Tripp’s mother, Geneva, has her arm around each of them. Her husband stands quietly to the side with his older son, Axel, who stares at the same view as the rest of us. But Axel, for one, isn’t interested in the girl we’re enchanted by. He’s got eyes for someone else up there. Hadley Lavigne stands stoic at the intersection between the two shiny black coffins. If you didn’t know her, you may think she doesn’t care about the lives that were lost. I know her well enough—I spent years popping in her house, eating dinner at her table, and putting frogs in her room.
I know Hadley is in shock. She was ripped away from her dorm in some big city to come take care of her sister who is—at just about seventeen— more of an adult than she is. Her parents are dead, and the life Hadley planned to have is over. She was justthrown into the plot of every ridiculous romcom I’ve ever heard my mom watching, but there’s nothing funny about this. I’m not sure Axel will ever forgive her for the way she left him. I don’t know if there’s a happily ever after around the corner for those two, but it’s hard to care when I’m more focused on my own heart’s desire.
And that desire is sandwiched between my girlfriend and my best friend, her dark curls held back by a headband and her body held up by the two people flanking her.
Marely Lavigne isn’t taking her parents’ deaths well. I was one of the first to go to her after I found out the news. Of course, Jake and Audrey were already there, comforting her in their own ways. By the time I got there, she’d cycled through the first three stages of grief at warp speed and broken down in her kitchen. Jake just managed to catch her before she passed out, crying so hard she wasn’t taking a breath. I wanted to be the one to catch her against my chest, to hold her while she sobbed, to try to convince her everything would be alright. Instead, I just watched her, helpless.
I’ve never been good enough for Marley. She was the only girl in the neighborhood that fit into our age bracket, and she was our best friend for most of our childhood years. She held her own even when we got a little rough, and she managed to be both one of the boys and somehow more special than the rest of us put together. Tripp said she was like a kid sister, but I see the way he looks at her—the way he always has, the way we all do. He loves her, but it’s not the way you love a sister.
Watching my girlfriend pull Marley’s head into her chest makes me feel strangely hollow. It’s wrong, I know, but I want to be the one up there with her. I want to smell her strawberry shampoo and see if she tastes as sweet. I want to erase her pain, to hold her so tight she can’t think about anything but me. Buther boyfriend is there beside her, doing absolutely nothing to ease her pain.
Jake isn’t good enough for Marley. None of us are, but Jake least of all. I’ve seen the way he glances atmygirlfriend when he thinks no one is watching. I know that she’s let him fuck her in every position, that he thinks he is sneaky about it, and thathisgirlfriend is none the wiser. Marley Is a good girl through and through. I think she's jaded, honestly about how dark the world really is. She is brilliant and wise, but she is also really good at not seeing what's right in front of her. Like me, Tripp, Rev. Any of us would sell our souls for her, though we all do an impressive job of avoiding the elephant in the room.
I love them. They’re the brothers I never had, the best friends I could ask for. It’s probably a good thing that Marley is taken by Jake… at least this way she isn’t coming between me and my friends.
When she leans over the coffin to whisper something to her mother’s lifeless body, her dress rides up her thigh. My cock constricts, wanting her unlike I've ever wanted anything before. It's fucked, I know. There are so many things wrong with the reaction that I'm having right now, not the least of which is that this is her parents’ funeral, my mother is standing by my side, and she doesn't belong to me. And the worst part of it all? She never will.
And yet I torture myself, staying near enough that she will remain the object of my desires, always out of reach.
Seeing her suffer is the worst part of this all, but her pain is shared by the people in the church. Her parents were better to me than my own. Having a narcissist for a mother, you grow up learning to fend for yourself. You have to, when the whole world revolves around the person who’s supposed to provide for you. A bad hair day for Cordelia Windham-Hayes often meant making my own dinner. Even now, she’s acting like she’s the person herewho is most devastated by the loss, sobbing so loudly that I think she is trying to make herself faint.
When it’s over, I hang in the back, waiting as the processional of people swarms the Lavigne sisters, trying to convince them they’re not alone, saying how sorry they are, making empty promises. I watch Tripp’s mother, Penelope, hold Marley for a moment longer than necessary. She’s probably the only one who can offer her genuine empathy, because Mrs. Archer is a genuine person. They’re few and far between, I’ve learned.
I let Mr. and Mrs. Archer take my mother home, happy to get her out of my hair. I do love my mother, even if she only loves me half as much as herself. It’s just that I think I love Marley more.
I’ve never told anyone I love them. Audrey and I have been dating for the better part of a year, and I’ve never told her I love her, because that would be a lie. The truth is, I’ve tried to push Audrey away, but she always comes back. And I always let her, because it gets me one step closer to the person I truly want.
I watch Tripp as his warm eyes take her in from afar, looking like he’d like to go and speak to her, wrap her in his arms, make everything okay. But he doesn’t move, his eyes hardening as they land on Audrey, who has inserted herself between the sisters as if she’s one of them. She loves to be the center of attention, even when the attention isn’t the good kind. Her nan isn’t here, but I don’t doubt that if she was, she’d simply watch her granddaughter flit about like this is her damn birthday party.
Rev wraps an arm around Marley, pulling her just a little away from her entourage. He waited to be one of the last in the procession, so she lets him whisk her to the side. My jaw tightens as his arms settle around her waist, his thumb brushing her hip through the fabric of her dress. I’m not sure he even knows he’s doing it—I know Marley hasn’t noticed. And Jake is too busy whispering into my girlfriend’s ear to notice that another man has his hands on what’s supposed to be his. Fucking idiot.
“You should tell her how you feel.” Tripp’s voice breaks the din of silence, making me blink just in time. Audrey flashes a grin at me from over Jake’s shoulder, looking far too cheery compared to the rest of us. I’ll give it to Audrey—she knows how to work a room, but definitely not how to read one.
I nearly snort a laugh when I turn to glance at my friend. He’s got a couple of inches on me, lanky and tall, with dark hair that curls at the ends because he spends so much time running his hands through it. Without his usual backwards hat, he looks like he’s auditioning for some early 2000’s emo band. And yet, he looks good too. No surprise there; the Archersalwayslook good. When gold runs through your veins, I guess that’s just a side effect. “Audrey knows how I feel.” I say, ignoring the thing that none of us have ever said out loud.
“Funny,” Tripp rolls his eyes, shoving his hands in the pockets of his slacks and glancing back toward the rest of our friends. “But you know what I mean.”
“I think Rev might be telling her how he feels right now.” My throat is dry, the words bitter on my tongue as I watch them with an irrational jealousy settling under my ribs. “And fucking Jake is too stupid to notice the threat.”
Together, we watch them for a minute as our friends carry on their private conversations, Jake leaning into Audrey and the two of them whispering like they’re at a movie theater. And Rev and Marley, talking about God only knows what.
Rev’s the one who pulls away first, pressing a gentle kiss to the crown of her head. If Marley feels any type of way about it, she doesn’t show it. Honestly, she may not have even realized what just happened. She looks like she’s shut down, numb, her brain running on autopilot. She looks at Rev, at Jake and Audrey without seeing.
When Rev’s father joins them, my friends scatter. My mother is neurotic and full of herself, Tripp’s parents are unusually cool,but Rev’s father? Well, he’s insufferable. Even his own son can’t stand him.
Tripp falls in line with Rev as he walks for the door, eager to escape his father. I wave them on with a flip of the wrist and a moment later, Audrey pulls Jake by the forearm toward the exit. “Come on,” she tells me, nodding toward the doors. “Quick, while he’s distracted.”
