“Then you need to get over here,” I said, glancing around the fogged street at the half-shrouded businesses; a shoe store, dry cleaner, and butcher. My eyes held firm on the swaying wooden sign.
Butcher.
“We both know I cannot do that.”
“Then send someone else.” My teeth chattered. I ground them together. “Now.”
I stormed into the warehouse, my hands, my entire body, wracked with shaking fury. “You fucking cunts.”
The mask was too tight on my face. I yanked it off, uncaring of the snap of thick elastic at my ear, and tore around crates and boxes loaded with nothing. Fluorescent lights flickered outside the office, the door already open.
January tilted her head, her arms crossed over her white blouse. “Such vulgarity will get you nowhere, Jude.”
I barged into the room. The tattoo artist was there, drinking coffee as he prepared his supplies beneath the bright haze of a lone industrial lamp. “Where is he?” I growled. My eyes were so dry that it hurt to blink. I spun back when the sound of my father’s loafers echoed through the warehouse.
“You left the door open,” he said, toneless.
“I left the…” I gave my head a vicious shake. “What the fuck? Did you not—”
“Jude.” He swallowed, throat bobbing. Otherwise, he appeared wholly unaffected.
I knew, though. I knew that façade of his, as well as all that surrounded us, was a carefully veiled lie.
January, my father’s second, owner of The Ribbon, one of two luxury hotels on the island, the distillery, and the brothel masquerading as a men’s shed by the docks, said primly, “You were warned of the cost of initiation.”
Time and time again, especially over the past twelve months.
Every day for the past year, the words had been practically tattooed onto my back whenever I’d left a room—exactly where the bearded guy readying his tattoo gun in the corner of the dank warehouse office would tattoo me.
Supreme benefits at supreme costs.
“Dad,” I said, the word croaked. I didn’t care.
I hadn’t done it. I’d destroyed something, I knew that much, but I hadn’t destroyed the infamous painter’s hand as I’d been instructed.
He stepped forward, clapping a hand upon my shoulder, and looked beyond me to the insignia on the wall. The very same one that was about to be forever etched into my skin. “White cannot exist without black, and all that is gray must follow the fucking rules.”
The sound of gloves snapping over skin cracked through my skull, and then I was shoved onto the awaiting stool.
Fern
“You should totally keep reading,” Cory said with a dramatic groan, fanning her face with her book. “I’m telling you, it’s worth it for this scene.”
I capped my nail polish and glimpsed the cover of her book again. “I just skipped to that part and yeah”—I blew on my nails—“hot.”
Cory made a sound of outrage, but I threw my hand up before she could talk. “You hear that?”
Her brows knitted. “Hear what?” Then her eyes popped at the sound of a shout. “Is that Marnie?”
I scrambled off the bed and dumped my emerald nail polish onto my desk, hurrying to the sliding glass doors.
They were fighting. Again. I was sure of it.
“It’s happening.” Glee filled my voice, my heart. “This is not a drill.”
Cory laughed. “We’ve never done a drill for this.”
“Speak for yourself.”
“Okay, then.” Coraline’s book smacked closed. “They’re always fighting lately, so whatever. I need to get back.”
Coraline Ericson was my best friend, my only friend, and it’d been that way since she’d arrived on Peridot Academy’s doorstep our freshman year.
A farmer’s daughter, she was there on scholarship and had looked comically shell-shocked. I’d shown her the ropes as best I could, being that it was my first year in high school too, but I was no stranger to dealing with the island’s elite.
Technically, I was one of them, but they just acted like I wasn’t. Which was fine. All the better to snoop and daydream without prying eyes.
Cory boarded at school with at least thirty-some other students in our year, a few of which had also been offered scholarships. Most were just tossed out of their parents’ homes under the guise of royal status and stellar education.
Sure, if you counted learning how to bleed and somehow still survive while swimming amongst sharks.
I swatted at her behind my back. “Yeah, yeah. Just wait.” I clutched at my soft black curtains, peering through to the balcony and the French doors that sat across the hedge from my room. That wasn’t his bedroom, but they were in there. A crash sounded, shadows flitting, followed by a scream.
“Fern?”
“Did you hear that? Something smashed.” I couldn’t suck in enough air, and my voice rose higher. “Shit, I think it’s really happening. They’re really over.”
It had to be them arguing in such a this-is-the-end type of way. Jude’s father was hardly ever home, his brother was still in elementary school, and I hadn’t seen their mother in months.
“Don’t sound too upset,” Cory drawled. “It’s not like they’ve dated all through high school or anything.” She paused. “Middle school, too?”
“That doesn’t matter.”
She scoffed. “I think it matters a whole lot. To them.”
I dropped the curtain when the shadows disappeared but reached around them to open the door a smidge.
“Fern?” Cory said again, my name an exasperated nudge.
“What?” I snapped, then froze, hoping like hell no one heard.
They didn’t, and the yelling was coming from outside now.
“Shh, they’re outside.”
“Look, I’m going to call Silas…”
“Yeah, okay.” I peeled the curtain back but growled when I couldn’t see anything. “Bye.”
“I’ll catch up on, ah, all this at school tomorrow.”
I waved her off, almost hissing for her to be quiet.
“… doing this anymore. You’re insane.”
“Oh, I’m insane?” My chest tightened at the sound of his voice. His deep, slightly accented—thanks to hailing from London—voice. Typically, Jude Delouxe sounded aloof. Eternally bored. Always sexy.
Now, well, he sounded angry and maybe even a little panicked.
I hadn’t realized he cared so much. Jude didn’t seem to care about anything except football, his ego, and maybe his little brother, Henry.
“…for real done.”
“You’ll be back.” There he was. That confidence had returned. “How long this time? A few days? A week?”
A scream, throaty with frustration, reached me. “You’re the worst. Like actually evil or something.”
He laughed, low and hypnotic, until a car started. The sound of it leaving, crunching over the pebbles of his long drive followed, and then… silence.
I let the curtain fall and closed the door as quietly as I could.
This was it. Yes, they’d broken up occasionally before, but this felt different.