Page 20 of Wicked Games (Fallen Royals 2)

But… she might just be my opposite—and equal—force. If she finds her spine.

I shake my head, water droplets flying. It’s going to be a sleepless night, I can feel it coming like a freight train. The rattle of restlessness will keep me awake for hours. It leaves me with two options: fighting to keep my eyes closed or burning off energy and crashing.

Option two has always been my go-to.

I lace on running shoes and yank on a sweatshirt. Eli’s parents are on the couch in the living room, the television screen flickering blueish light over their faces. They don’t seem to notice me slip past them, out the front door.

As soon as I hit the sidewalk, I run.

There are a million ways to exhaust the body.

A million ways to burn energy.

Running is least satisfying, but it works… Until I find myself standing outside the Jenkins’s house. I faintly register that I’m panting. I’ll have to work on that before lacrosse season starts. If Coach finds out I’ve let myself slack even a little, I’ll be booted from captaincy faster than I can blink.

Her house is dark.

Not that I should’ve expected otherwise, seeing as how it’s the middle of the fucking night.

It doesn’t stop me from scaling the side of her house with practiced movements. I never told her that Liam’s family used to live in this house, and we snuck in and out all the time. It was hard when we were fourteen. Now, not so much.

Her window is still unlocked. I slide it open with one hand, then lift myself up. My entrance is nearly silent. I straighten and glance around the dark room. Her bed is made. Her uniform is crumpled toward the foot of the bed, a pair of running shoes just below it. She took her boots and high-heels with her.

I lie down on the bed, fluffing the pillow under my head. It smells like her shampoo.

She isn’t a girl who wears a lot of perfume. None, except the soap she washes with. I think I like that best. Amelie and Savannah—and any other girl who got close enough for me to notice them—coated themselves in expensive shit like it was a layer of armor.

Not Margo.

She’s true to herself… but she’s hiding.

A wolf in sheep’s clothing.

She forgets that I knew her as a child, too. It isn’t a one-way memory. I catch her looking at me with regret. Maybe longing. And I know it’s because she wishes she could untangle the mess she made. The knots bind us so tightly together, it’s killing us.

Through the walls, one of her foster parents is snoring.

I shift around on the bed, leaving my mark. I have no doubt she’ll notice it when she returns. And make no mistake: she is going to return. The Jenkinses will find her and bring her back, even if it tortures them.

They’re honorable like that.

Why couldn’t Margo have been placed with someone else? A family less forgiving?

I’d call it fate that Margo was put with the Jenkinses, but unfortunately for them, fate operates by a different name: Lydia Asher.

My mother.

I pick myself up off Margo’s bed. I still have a pair of her panties in my dresser. The pair I ripped. But I cast a glance around the room and I can’t help but to think that this place doesn’t feel like her home. She’s inhabited the closet and the bed, a few drawers in the dresser. Beyond that… nothing. No pictures or posters on the wall. The same fucking bedspread that was probably there the day she arrived…

It’s understandable why she doesn’t call it her home.

And after what I did, it’ll feel even less like it.

Keep her off balance.

I’ve been spinning off-kilter for years. It’s justifiable to want the same for her.

How does it feel, Margo?

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