Page 73 of Cruel Abandon (Fallen Royals 5)

Given the week we’ve had, my skin pricks with alarm. I grab a baseball bat Dad gave me as a joke and quietly crack my door.

But it’s just Whitney.

I swing it fully open, and she whirls around. Her eyes are red, but she appears steady. At least for now. Still, I’m not prepared for when she lunges forward, her fingers biting into my arms.

“The girl in the woods,” she says. “It was Nat. She’s dead, Skylar.”

I frown. “Did they say that on the news? We can’t assume—”

She laughs. Loud and in my face, and it’s not a good laugh. It’s the kind that sounds like it’s disguising knives or barbed with poison.

She says, “God, who even are you? You were just trying to tell me she was gone the other day, and now you want to preach hope? The detectives called me down to the station and told me it was her. They asked me to identify something she was wearing, Skylar. My best friend was fucking murdered and her parents were too out of their minds to see her.”

I don’t have a reply. I open and close my mouth but in the end decide to go with silence. What would I say, anyway? That I was the one who found her? I could describe every inch of her, including the gaping slash across her throat.

“My parents are here,” she informs me. “They’re helping me move out.”

I freeze. “What?”

She flips her hair back. “Do you seriously expect me to stay?”

Did I?

Maybe.

Up until right this moment, death didn’t feel like anything other than an unstoppable force. But it’s a wrecking ball, too. It just doesn’t snuff out a life—it demolishes everyone close.

This is Whitney’s destruction, and I’m powerless against it.

I wander into the living room. Her parents are already laying out boxes in the living room, our furniture shoved aside. Their pleasantries seem mostly cast aside as they work alongside each other.

My parents would never.

Any attempts to help each other would be met by snide remarks, and having them both under the same roof for an extended period of time is… unpleasant.

Whitney rolls out a suitcase, dropping it next to the boxes. They systematically fill those boxes, starting with her room and then migrating to the bathroom, the kitchen.

I make one last-ditch effort for her to stay. Mom will do something crazy if she realizes I’ll be living alone, and I can’t handle that right now.

“You can’t go,” I try, facing Whitney. I try to grab her arm, but she maneuvers out of my reach. “There’s still finals, and—”

“This is final,” her father answers loudly. Quieter, he says, “Just let us do this in peace. We’re taking our baby home.”

The apartment door, which must’ve been ajar, bangs open. It crashes against the wall. My mother and Liam fill the doorway.

I suppress my groan. So much for not letting Mom find out.

“What is going on here?” Mom demands.

Before the divorce, she was soft-spoken. Somewhere in the middle of that mess, she grew a backbone. It was an impressive transformation, and now…

Well, it’s harder to lie down and take shit once you’ve stood up for yourself.

She squares her shoulders back and strides in, pausing next to me.

“We’re moving Whitney back home,” her dad informs us. “The city is too dangerous.”

Mom will protest. She’ll say that there’s an alarm system, and the school is taking extra precautions, everything will be fine.

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