Page 10 of Evil Queen

“I’m going over there,” Jaxon huffed, already starting to move, but Nikita grabbed his arm. “What?”

“I know. I know you’re worried about her, but she has to do this on her own. Maybe once Cherri shoots her down, she can start to get over it.”

I’d rarely seen Jaxon without a cool, collected look on his face, but that statement brought a look of anguish to it. “It’s gonna kill her.”

“Yeah, but we’ll be there to catch her,” Nikita said, and we all just looked back at the scene.

“Are you gonna take this box or what, girl?” Colette asked with a cheery tone in her voice. “You have so much stuff!”

Cherri rolled her eyes, and I held my breath as she swung her hand out, uppercutting the box, sending it flying out of Colette’s hands. The contents of the box went flying everywhere, and the sound of the box clattering to the ground was the pin dropping in a room of total silence.

I wasn’t sure what I expected Colette to do, but when she just sputtered out a laugh and dropped to the ground to start picking things up, it truly sunk in how bad off she was. “You’re so clumsy. I’ll get it. Jeez, Cherri.”

Cherri just shook her head and stepped around Colette to continue down the hallway, and it was Kyle who decided to take the next swing. He stepped out from the rest of us and into Cherri’s path. She stopped, looked Kyle up and down with an unimpressed expression, and crossed her arms.

“Cherri, please. We just want to make sure you’re okay. We only did what we did because we love you. Please return my calls. We can talk about this.”

There was no response from Cherri as she took a few steps forward until she was face to face with Kyle. She stood there, sizing him up despite the fact that he was a good half-foot taller than her, and eventually, Kyle relented and stepped to the side, allowing her to pass. She didn’t even look in our direction as she passed the rest of us, but Sicily tossed us a quick, sympathetic gaze as he followed her.

When Cherri was finally out of sight, everyone looked at poor Colette on the ground, trying to collect all the pieces of the spilled box. Nikita released Jaxon, and he walked out to where she was and knelt down next to her with a hand on her back. She didn’t acknowledge his presence at first, but when Jaxon reached out to pick up some of the makeup containers, Colette slammed the box against the ground.

“No! Don’t touch anything!” she screeched. “I’ve got it!” Jaxon recoiled hard, his eyes widening. Then he stood up and slunk back to the rest of us. “I’ve got it,” Colette said, quietly and to herself. “I’m going to fix everything, okay? Everything’s gonna be fine.”

“Holy shit,” Kyle muttered to me.

“Yeah,” I whispered as my heart broke even more than it had already. “Things are worse than I thought.”

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