Page 26 of Evil Queen

Mr. Pochetti glared at me, but he looked over at Cherri and stabbed out a finger. “I expect more out of you. I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but I suggest you get it together.”

Cherri didn’t respond, and with that, Mr. Pochetti sneered at each of us and then stormed away, leaving the four of us alone in the courtyard.

“Hey.” A forceful hand grabbed my shoulder as Cherri flipped me around to look at her. “I told you already to mind your own fucking business. I don’t need your help.”

“You would have been expelled,” I replied, trying to keep my voice low and calm. “I’m just trying to do the right thing here, Cherri.”

She looked me up and down like I was covered in garbage. “When have you ever tried to do the right thing?”

“Shows how grateful you are,” Nikita jumped in. She reached out, took Cherri’s hand, and ripped it off of my shoulder. “And don’t touch him.”

Cherri smirked. “Aw, are you picking up my sloppy seconds? How cute.”

Nikita closed in on Cherri, who stood her ground, but I slid between them. “No. We’re not doing this.” I reached out and grabbed Nikita’s hand. “Let’s just go.”

“Yeah,” Cherri huffed over me at Nikita. “Be a good little dog and do what your master says.”

“Fuck, Cee,” Sicily groaned.

Nikita’s hands were balled into fists, so I looked at Cherri, bowed my head, and said, “Sorry.”

I pulled Nikita out of the courtyard and back into the school. I tried to wrap my arms around Nikita, but she yanked herself out of my hold, shook her head at me, and then stormed off. “Nikki,” I called, but it was useless.

For all the effort I’d put into trying to make that day better than some of our most recent, it felt as if it was just another shitty one for the books. To my credit, the other members of The Royal Court seemed at least slightly warmed to me, apart from Alistair, who watched me like I was a jigsaw puzzle for most of our remaining classes that day. I considered approaching him or texting to ask what it was about, but I didn’t need to when he walked up to me as I was getting in my car to leave school at the end of the day.

“Hey,” he said.

I smiled. “Hey.”

“Uh.” A hand went up to push some of his long, light brown hair out of his face. “Can we go somewhere and talk?”

“You want to hang out? Alone?” I asked.

“Yeah.” He turned around and started toward his car. “Just follow me.”

Alistair was the member of The Royal Court with whom I had the worst relationship, so I was in no position to turn down a request to get together one-on-one. I started my car and waited for him to pull out, then followed after him as he led me to a small cafe on the edge of downtown Postings. The ground was still covered in snow, so street parking was sparse, but we found a couple of spots not far from the front of the place and walked the half-block it took to get there. Alistair didn’t say anything as he walked, just looked ahead, and when we got to the door, I rushed up to hold it open for him. He looked at me with the same troubled expression as he walked in, and I followed closely behind.

The inside bolstered my confidence in the Christmas gift I’d gotten him. The place was a half-record store, half-coffee bar, and different old-fashioned record players lined the wall, one with a glass frame for seeing the inner workings spinning old 60s music. Everyone in the cafe turned and looked at me as I entered. The attention was not shocking since I was still dressed like Santa Claus, but enough events had embarrassed me and made my life harder in the past six months that their gazes rolled off my skin like oil on water.

“Uh,” I said to Alistair. “I’ll buy your coffee. What do you want?”

Surprisingly, Alistair nodded in agreement. “Just a plain black.”

I wrinkled up my nose. “Are you fifty?”

He raised an eyebrow at me. “What? I don’t get much sleep these days, and I can’t afford to dilute any of the precious caffeine with creamer. Is it a problem?”

“No,” I said and scuttled off as Alistair grabbed a table.

In solidarity, I also got a plain black coffee and joined Alistair at the spot he picked out. It was only a couple of sips for me before I was dumping in as much of the table’s provided sugar as I could, but Alistair drank the mud like it was a soda.

“So, um…” I cleared my throat. “How’s it going?”

“Yeah, we’re not doing that,” Alistair said. “I need your help with Avery.”

“Is she still struggling?” I asked. “Alistair, I’m—”

He held up a hand. “Like I said, we’re not doing that. I don’t want to talk about any of the shit in our past or anything other than if you can help me help Avery.”

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