Page 7 of Evil Deeds

I’m pulling her off his body.

My sister is asking what’s happening.

No one is answering.

There are pieces of brain on the wall…

…

…

There’s no moving on from that.

Fromher.

She promised she’d come back. She promised she’d be mine forever.

I never forget a promise.

Not even when they do. Rich people don’t see the consequences of their actions, the ripple effect that goes from the place where they dropped the bomb, onto the commoners. The financial ruin, the personal devastation.

Her father committed fraud, not suicide.

Her mother disappeared to another state, not into a bottle.

She went to private school, not foster care.

They ran, but they couldn’t hide. Not forever. Not from someone as determined as me.

I found her, and I’m coming for her.

I orchestrated the most brilliant revenge scheme the world has ever seen. And now it’s time to collect on the promises she made.

Ready or not…

Here I come.

three

Rumor Has It… Senior projects have been announced! To everyone’s shock, the two Kings and their Queen have chosen the school’s pariah as the fourth member of their team. What other surprises do they have up their sleeves?

Gloria Walton

As if finding out I’m still on the twins’ roster for another year wasn’t bad enough, later in the week I find out they chose Colt to join our senior project. The moment he walks in and announces he’s our fourth member, my heart stops beating. I try to breathe, to keep my fingers from shaking and my soul from leaving my body from the sheer terror ripping through me.

Be just like Jackie,I remind myself as the blinding waves keep coming.

It’s clear within seconds that Colt didn’t choose this, that he doesn’t want anything to do with us. Up until now, we haven’t wanted anything to do with him, either.

I still don’t, but the twins orchestrated this, no doubt about it. The school may pretend to assign everyone based on interests and future career paths, but we all know it’s bullshit. The families with the deepest pockets always gently remind the school to group their offspring together. DeShaun already told me that the founding sons always form the top groups. Sometimes, they let thenouveau richeor a cut-throat founding daughter join. I expected the two senior founding sons—DeShaun Rose and Cotton Montgomery—to pair up with the Dolce twins.

I was already wary when the D-boys showed up in the room I’d been assigned. When Colt shows up, a thousand alarm bells start screaming like sirens in my head. The Dolce family has already taken over Faulkner, but they don’t have the history here that the town’s founders do. Every move they make is an attempt to cement their status as members of the town’s elite. Joining the founding sons on this important assignment is the perfect power move for the twins this year.

There’s no way Baron Dolce, who never so much as blinks without a strategy in place, chose this combination without reason. That becomes even more clear when Colt announces he has brain damage and won’t even be an asset for the team. I knew that already, since Royal cracked his skull and almost killed him, but I didn’t know the extent until he drops the bomb.

“I can’t remember what actually happened,” he says when the twins question him about the attack. “Or the month or so before y’all bashed my head in.”

Suddenly, the roaring, storm-tossed waves of panic crashing through my brain like an Atlantic storm go still as the Caribbean Sea.

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