“What the hell?”
We all turn to find Cooper and Ax making their way over to us.
“What is going on?” Cooper demands.
“Cooper,” his father says. “I’m glad you came up.” He smiles at his son, then pans his hands wide. “I wanted you to see what you’re missing.” Then he points to Lars. “But don’t worry. Lars is more than happy to take your place, since you and Ax insist on staying at that inn. Such a big place.” Then he turns to me. “I’m sure it will be lovely by the time next year comes around and who knows, maybe you’ll want to move out at that time. Go back to it. Or maybe you’ll want to stay here and sell that place? Once you fix it up, of course. I hope Cooper is handy. If he’s going to live rent-free in your home, Cadee, I do hope you make him work it off. Nothing is free, after all. Cooper always did have a hard time learning that lesson.”
Cooper takes a deep breath. And then he smiles at his father. “Will you excuse us, Dad? Cadee, Lars, Ax, and I need to have a little chat.”
“By all means,” the Chairman says with a flourish of his hand. “We’re having a toast in the dining room on the bottom floor. Cadee, please be down there in fifteen minutes.” Then his eyebrows lift up. “I have one more surprise for you. And trust me, you won’t want to miss this one.”
Then he takes my hand, kisses my knuckles, and walks off.
“What the fuck?” Ax whispers when the Chairman is barely out of earshot.
But Cooper has already turned to Lars. “What the fuck?” he repeats. Only he’s not quiet about it. “What are you doing, Lars?”
“Don’t blame me,” Lars protests. “I’m just filling a vacancy.”
“Hey!”
We all look at the entrance to my new room and Jack Valcourt enters, pushing the swaths of sheer blue curtains aside. He stops just short of entering. “Wow.” And he whistles to illustrate his awe. “This turned out fantastic.” Then he palms the air with his hands. “But it wasn’t me. I didn’t turn this place into a room fit for a queen. That was all Leela.”
Cooper sighs. Loudly.
“What’s the problem, Coop?” Jack asks his little brother.
“You know what the problem is. We moved out, Jack. Why the hell would you go along with this?”
“This isn’t about you, Cooper.”
“Agreed,” Lars says. “It’s about Cadee.”
“Don’t you want her to have a place of her own? Even if it’s just during college? You’ve grown up in pure privilege, Cooper. She has struggled her whole life. Don’t be a dick about this, little brother. Just be happy for her.”
Cooper turns to me. Takes my hand in his. “I am, Cadee. If this is what you want, I’m behind you one hundred percent. But—” I know what he wants to say. Don’t fall for it. It’s a trap. He’s setting us up.
“But nothing,” Jack says. “And it’s not Lars’s fault you bowed out of being King. You could be living up here with her, Cooper. I mean, hell. If we had this when Leela and I were seniors, we’d have had a blast up here on our own private floor.”
Cooper’s mind must be spinning with visions of Lars and me up here. Alone. All year long. He sucks in a long breath, like he’s about to make an ill-advised speech about such things, but Jack cuts him off.
“Cadee,” he says. “You’re needed downstairs. We’re christening the building, so to speak. And since that plaque out front has your name on it, you’re the guest of honor.”
I look at Cooper, unsure what to do.
“Don’t look at him,” Jack says. “This is Cadee’s day, Cooper. Let her enjoy it.”
“I don’t need you to tell me that,” Cooper retorts. Then he offers me his hand. “Come on. Let’s celebrate.” And when he smiles at me, unleashing those dangerous dimples, I sigh inside. Maybe even swoon a little.
Because having him here, and this building—this whole day, actually, with the exception of Dane—it’s like a dream come true. And I really do feel a little bit like a princess.
I understand what’s happening. Sort of. I get the general idea, at least. This is just another payoff. The Chairman had my parents killed to cover up for his sex-offender middle son.
I’m not going to justify any of that.
But… but… this building has my family name on it. And I am being forced to live in it as a condition of an elite education. It feels very privileged of me to complain about that.
Even if there are strings. Lots of them. And I have no idea what they are. But when I agreed to play this game at the beginning of the semester, I did it to get justice. And some of this feels a little bit justified.
No one has admitted the truth.
Yet.
But they will. And by the time this is over, I will make them admit their crimes.
I put my hand in Cooper’s and he squeezes it. Jack leads the way, Ax falls in behind him, then Cooper and I, and Lars picks up the rear.
We pass all the other Fang and Feather initiates as we make our way back down to the bottom floor. And Jack loudly announces the celebration, so they fall in behind us, everyone talking at once. Not just the girls, either. The boys seem to be just as excited about the new building.
The cottages that act as dorms on the other side of campus are super nice too. I don’t think it’s normal for colleges to offer such sweet accommodations the way High Court does. But this building is way over the top when you consider how few kids will actually live here.
Cooper explained how Fang and Feather works. Each incoming class has three male and three female initiates. That’s six per class. So we should be a total number of twenty-four. But no one in the freshman class was weeded out during summer rush, so that’s four extra. Plus me. For a grand total of twenty-nine members.
I would not call the building huge. It’s four stories, including the royal top floor. But it has a compact footprint. Still, only twenty-seven people in a place that must surely have over ten thousand square feet of combined space.
It’s like we’re living in a vertical mansion.
All the kids around us are excited, but none of them are in awe the way I am. And why should they be? High Court College is grooming the future ruling class—these kids have come to expect opulence like this.
Me, on the other hand?
No. This is not normal. And I’m suspicious like Cooper. We know better. All of us—the summer pledges and the seniors—we talked all about this that first night at the inn. Went over every possible way it could play out. And Dante had an answer for every scenario. He had a plan B, C, D… it got to a point where we were just confused.
But Lars understood. His mind works that way.
Still, none of us talked much about Dane. And an hour ago he was threatening me. Practically insinuated that I was going to be his… what? Concubine?
That’s what it sounded like to me.
But this building? It tells me that maybe Dane isn’t calling the shots like he thinks.
Or it’s all a setup. To make me comfortable. Get me used to the high life and then threaten to take it all away if I don’t fall in line.
Isn’t that what the Chairman has been doing to Cooper all these years?