Page 12 of Cruel Elite (Princes of Ravenlake Academy 3)

4

Noah

Texts from Finn and Viktor blow up my phone before I even make it home.

They’re mad at me for bailing on their last night in town, but I don’t care.

How could I when I have so many other things on my mind?

Really, it’s just one other thing: revenge.

I don’t see any lights on as I gaze through the eight-foot high windows that make up most of the first-floor of my house, so I assume my mom is asleep.

But as soon as I push open one of the double front doors, I smell the alcohol.

A trail of wadded-up tissues lead me through the white-tile entryway and into the sunken living room. I can see where my mom haphazardly kicked off her heels in front of the liquor cabinet.

The doors to the cabinet are hanging open, and the once-plentiful stash of booze is growing barer by the day.

My dad was the one to keep the liquor cabinet full, bringing home gifts from clients and expensive bottles he would buy in celebration of an anniversary or a new contract.

I suspect that’s why my mom is resisting going out and buying her own.

Even after all this time, she’s waiting for him to come back and do it for her.

I slam the doors shut. The bottles inside rattle ominously.

The living room is steeped in shadows, the massive sectional little more than a charcoal smudge in my vision.

Except, as I scan the room, I see something else.

A misshapen lump that separates itself from the sofa.

I pull the cord on the standing lamp next to me. Mom bought it at an antique store when I was a kid. Dad hated it—the green fringe hanging down around the shade especially—but Mom insisted.

Now, it casts a yellowy, aged glow across the room.

And across her.

But despite the sudden burst of light, she doesn’t move. For good measure, I clap my hands twice.

No reaction.

My mom is still in her sleek black work pants and white button down, but the pant legs are bunched around her knees and the shirt collar is rumpled and smeared with her lipstick. Black mascara smudges dot her cheeks and a ruined tissue is wedged between her face and the arm she is laying on.

Usually at this time, she’s still coherent enough to be awake and remember my name.

She must’ve gotten an early start on the drinking tonight.

I walk over to make sure there isn’t a liquor bottle tucked somewhere that she’ll push onto the floor and shatter in the night.

All clear in that department. Instead, there’s something worse.

A picture frame.

The edges are gilded and fanciful. I recognize it from the mantle over the fire place. That’s where it used to sit—before I took it down and put it in the basement.

Apparently, she found it.

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