Page 45 of Wicked Games (Fallen Royals 2)

“Is it okay if I have friends over after school?”

Robert’s eyebrows go up, then he grins at me. “You said friends. Plural.”

I blush.

“Okay, okay, I won’t interrogate you. You catching a ride with them?”

“Riley, yeah.” I look past my foster dad to Caleb, who is once again angled in my direction.

Thankfully, he keeps his eyes on his canvas.

“Good. I forgot about a department meeting after school. Time’s almost up,” Robert says. “If he gives you trouble, you let me know.”

I frown. “Aren’t you supposed to be impartial? Since you’re a teacher.”

He offers me a small smile. “Yeah, the teacher in me should. But as a dad, I’m ready to knock his teeth in for hurting you.”

I smile back, although inside… inside my lungs are shredding. Not as a foster dad—as a dad.

Don’t read too much into this, Margo.

“Mr. Jenkins?” one of the students calls.

He winks and turns away from me. I watch him go, reminding myself to breathe. My attention drifts back toward the canvas. I’ll need to work on the rest of my portrait of Caleb soon, although I don’t want to. I may as well do it while the anger is fresh in my mind—because who else knows his soul better than me?

The person he only wants to destroy.

The bell rings, shattering my concentration. The room explodes into movement, everyone hurrying to pack up their belongings, while I sit still. What’s the hurry? The buses will leave, and then it’ll just be the upperclassmen in their cars. Riley isn’t aggressive enough to be one of the first out.

Caleb is putting his things together slowly—too slowly. I roll up my brushes and cover the palette with paint on it, stashing it in one of the drawers at the back of the class.

And then I get the hell out of dodge.

Riley’s waiting for me at my locker, her foot jigging. “God, I thought you might’ve gotten kidnapped or something!”

I laugh. “Who would kidnap me?”

She huffs. “I don’t know. Listen. We need to ask Savannah about that text. I don’t trust her with a ten-foot pole.”

“Yeah.” My stomach flips. “Savannah is going to meet us at my place.”

Riley grunts. “Lovely.”

We walk out to her car, and I nudge her with my elbow. “Where was Eli today?”

It isn’t common for any of the golden boys to miss school—it’s practically sacrilege. Theo and Liam were more subdued today, too. Only Caleb continued on as normal. Well, the new version of normal, where he ignores me and lets Amelie grope him in the hallways.

“He had a family emergency.” She links her arm with mine. “He had to fly to Chicago.”

“Hope everything’s okay.”

She sighs. “He was touchy about it.”

We head toward the Jenkins’s house, and I pull out my phone. “What if I text Unknown while Savannah is with us? If she answers, then that means she’s guilty, right?”

Riley taps the steering wheel. “Yeah, unless it’s like a burner phone or something.”

“Then why go to the trouble of blocking it?”

---