Page 343 of Hell Hath No Fury
With nothing else to do, I walked back inside. Nauseous with relief and uncertainty, I waited for my father to finish talking with his friends so we could leave.
* * *
The temptation to have Dad’s driver drop me off at Cooper’s place kept me stiff in the seat during the whole ride home. The desire to make everything right in a way we’d never expected blurred the dark scenery outside.
Dad cleared his throat. “You, uh, you understand such… matters as what we experienced tonight are not extremely common.”
Blinking a few times to make sure the emotion had cleared from my eyes, I bit back a smile as I looked over at my dad. His attention was fixed on his phone, but I knew he wasn’t doing anything. “It sounds to me like he deserved it.” Okay, maybe not the removal of his tongue, but I knew the reasoning behind it.
Loose lips sink ships and whatever.
Dad locked his phone and sighed, giving me his practiced expression of indifference. “While that may be so, things like that can still be disturbing to witness.”
It had been, but I refrained from saying I was fine. He undoubtedly knew I was, and it was bothering him. It didn’t stop him from trying to show he cared, and I appreciated that enough to keep my sass at bay. “Yeah, disturbing is right.”
The car dipped as we reached our drive. “There’s a good chance you may never witness something as brutal again in your lifetime with Nightingale, and there’s a good chance you’ll see something far worse than that.”
“I’ll be okay,” I said, smiling a little.
He stared at me a moment and then nodded. “Your mother wasn’t one to stomach it well.”
We both knew I didn’t take after her in that respect, so I merely smiled once more.
We parted ways inside, and in my room, I dug my phone from my purse to send Cooper a text, asking if he was still awake. It was after midnight, so I doubted he was when there was no reply.
That, or he was still ignoring me.
* * *
“I heard he banged her right in front of him as payback for taking his place on the team,” Chandler Fig boasted to Rosette as I walked past.
Rosette said something to her, then trailed after me. “Hey, you look tired.”
“I am,” I said, opening my locker to tuck my bag inside. “But I’ve had two coffees, so I should be awake any minute now.”
She laughed. “What did you do last weekend? Hang with Cooper?”
The way she worded that struck a nerve, and I closed my locker with a tilt of my head. “Yeah, why?”
Rosette chewed her lip, shrugging as she moved out of the way for Annelle to reach her locker. Her voice lowered to a whisper. “No reason, you guys just seem… distant with each other this past week.”
Distant.A nice little word to describe something ugly and huge. “We’re fine,” I said, wishing that were true. “Just have a lot going on, you know,” I said, failing to come up with something, “struggling to agree on some things for college.”
“Still hoping for Ardent Falls?” she asked, accompanying me to first period math.
“Yep. Have you made up your mind yet?” She’d applied to as many Ivy League schools as possible, and we both knew most of them would want her.
“No early acceptance yet.” She sighed. “So I can’t do crap about crap until someone wants me.”
I smiled at that and bumped her shoulder. “You’re going to have a hard time deciding all too soon, so I’d enjoy the wait.”
We’d reached the doorway when Mrs. Banks approached, her smile flat. “Miss Beckett, Headmaster Taurin has requested your presence in his office.”
Rosette slung me a feigned look of fear, then headed inside.
“Um,” I hesitated, my stomach a riot of bouncing coffee. “Now?”
Mrs. Banks frowned, then clipped, “Yes, now,” before closing the classroom door in my face.
