Page 40 of Wicked Mercy

“You need to back off.” His voice was level. Even though the conversation they were having felt private, I knew that everyone in the dining hall was leaning forward, trying to catch snatches of what they were saying. “Leave her alone, Amelia. None of this is her fault.”

She laughed, throwing her head back and exposing her long, perfect neck. When she stopped laughing and looked at me, however, her face was anything but happy. Jackie reached out and grabbed her arm, squeezing it tightly until she finally let go of my left wrist. I wanted to rub away the soreness, but I couldn’t bear the thought of her seeing that she hurt me.

“Bullshit. She brought this on herself. She and Brett had some shit from when they were younger and that’s why she needed to leave. Nobody else here seems to find it very interesting that he’s the one who had dirt on her to make her leave and now he’s dead. You really don’t find that strange, cuz?”

His grip tightened on her wrist. They were looking at each other like they understood each other, like she’d finally gotten through.

“Jackie.” I turned around, resting my free hand on his chest. His heart was beating out a slow rhythm in his chest. “Don’t listen to her.”

Closing his eyes, he sighed, then looked at me. “Rosita, we need to get out of here. It’s time for class and then we need to talk.”

I had no idea what Brett had told him and Kaleb. For all I knew, he had told them everything about his dad. Or, maybe they didn’t know anything. Maybe they didn’t know that Mrs. Cox was involved with the council.

As much as I hated to do it, it was time for me to come clean with the rogues. My best friends already knew, but without knowing exactly what Brett had told Jackie and Kaleb, I couldn’t keep them safe.

I nodded. “Lunch and then class.”

“Lunch and then class.” His grip was still tight on my right wrist as we turned away from Amelia. Her face looked triumphant, but she didn’t say anything.

That was fine. She could think that she won, but she hadn’t. Jackie was her cousin, sure, but he loved me, and he and I had something that she would never be able to touch.

I only hoped that I was right.

Chapter 22

“Do you really think that this is necessary?” Kaleb and Jackie were following me through the woods to the bunker, but Kaleb had suggested that we meet instead under a tree in the quad so that we could talk. “I mean, there’s really no way that someone would hear us in the quad, right? So why all the way out here?”

“I don’t trust Amelia.” I dodged a tree branch and stomped on, leading the way through the woods. We all knew where we were going, but I was beginning to feel like the bunker was mostly mine. I’d spent so much time there recently that I felt completely comfortable leading them there.

Besides, it was my place with Brett. As strange as it felt to be taking the other boys there, I knew that it was their hangout first.

Finally, we reached the door in the ground and Jackie opened it with a grunt. The three of us dropped down into it before I turned on the lights and he shut the door. We were now all sealed into the ground together, which would have really bothered me a year ago. Right now, though, it felt like the safest place that I could possibly be.

“Okay, Rosita. You said that you have some things to tell us.” Jackie tossed me a bag of chips from the table and then sat down on the sofa, motioning for me to come and curl up under his arm. I did, and Kaleb sat on my other side, grabbing my hand and pulling it into his lap.

Okay. I was safe.

I was as far away from Amelia as I could get while still being on Taylor Prep property, and I had two people who loved me unconditionally there with me. Amelia couldn’t find me, which meant that she couldn’t lead the harpies to me, and I sincerely doubted that Brett’s mom knew about the bunker.

“Alright. This is a crazy story, so you guys buckle up. You ready?” Kaleb kissed me on the forehead and Jackie nodded.

“Let’s hear it, honey. But remember, you don’t have to tell us the whole thing at once if you don’t want to or you can’t. We’re here for you, Rose. We love you.” Kaleb’s voice sounded tight and I wasn’t surprised to see that he had some tears forming in the corners of his eyes.

Sometimes I forgot that I wasn’t the only one who missed Brett terribly.

“Okay. So you guys know that Brett and I knew each other growing up, right?”

They both nodded and I took a deep breath, steeling myself to keep going. This was already harder than I had thought it would be, probably because I felt like I was sharing something private. Brett was gone, and the only way that people would know the truth about us was if I told them, but what if I got it wrong? The feeling made me a little sick to my stomach.

“Did he ever tell you two that his adopted dad was abusive?”

“The guy that his mom married just a few years ago?” Jackie sat up and turned to me. “I’ve met him! He was abusive?”

Shaking my head, I grabbed his hand to calm him down. “No, not his stepdad. Not him. He’s a great guy, as far as I can tell. I’m talking about when Brett was really little and first adopted. That dad. He was not a great dad, and he was really abusive. We all knew it.” My voice cracked and I had to take a moment to regain composure.

How could everyone on the street have known what was going on in their perfect little house but not done anything about it?

Clearing my throat, I continued. “We all knew that he was abusive, but nobody did anything. Everyone just…looked the other way.”

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