Page 12 of Cruel Abandon (Fallen Royals 5)

I sag against the counter.

“Oh, and Sky?” he calls. “Your hair makes you look like a ghost.”

4

Liam

Your hair makes you look like a ghost. What a fucking idiot.

Still, it doesn’t stop me from pulling up her social media as soon as I’m home. I stare at her latest picture and frown. She dyed her hair black last year, and now it’s silvery-gray. Almost like stainless steel. She pairs it with dark eye makeup and lipstick that reminds me of drying blood.

I hate her face.

I hate that my heart does this weird little jump.

Dumbass.

My notifications are haywire. I’m regularly tagged in screen recordings of the fight, even two years later, and I get to relive my anger every day. Some of the comments cheer me on, and others say I should be arrested.

When it first happened, my whole life exploded.

Sky deleting it wasn’t the end that I thought it would be—of course not. As soon as the news got ahold of it, I was a goner.

Ashburn College is small, but suddenly national media was on them. And me.

I had to meet with the higher-ups of the college that I never thought I’d have to see. Not in a bad light, anyway. They revoked my existing scholarships and left me to sink or swim. And with Howl done for, I was screwed.

So, I left.

I went home with my fucking tail between my legs. My parents had been living in shame, and Jake couldn’t do much to get me out of the hole I had fallen into. There was too much press around it, around me. It followed me all the way home to Stone Ridge.

Theo and Caleb showed up one day and convinced me to go back. Theo had a spare room in his apartment. He got access to the trust fund his parents set up for him when he turned eighteen, and he put it to fine use. He bought a brownstone with eight apartments in it and rents out all but one. Any cracks about being similar to Caleb are met with his fists, but I can’t help thinking he followed in our best friend’s footsteps.

Real estate is where the money is, apparently.

Like I would know.

Except when I came back, everything was worse. Reporters hounded my steps like I was a celebrity, but, well, I was more living in infamy than anything else.

Another meeting with the dean of students, although I’d classify it as a fucking interrogation. They wanted to know everything about Howl—who ran it, where, when.

I gave them nothing.

It made me wonder if Sky was keeping her mouth shut. If everyone was doing their due diligence and not fucking talking about it.

Instead of worrying, I got a job. I worked in the campus IT department during the week, then as a bartender. I scraped by.

And I watched Sky. I kept one eye on her. Every time I clocked into my shifts, pulled on my uniform shirt, I thought of how I was going to make her pay.

Revenge fueled me through countless questions, beratements, punishments. Everyone had an opinion, but my patience wore thin quickly.

RJ and Colt were the first to spread the truth: that Sky had brought about the end of Howl. It was amazing to watch the tide turn against her—and then all I had to do was seal the deal.

A public declaration of hate.

I shake my head and strip, stepping into the shower. I was at my IT job prior to going to Sky’s apartment. My job really just meant sitting on my phone in the back of the tech room until some freshman called, unable to figure out the Wi-Fi, or the printers, or the student portal.

Idiots.

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