By then she’d grown reluctant at my obsession with the Red Court. April couldn’t have known that my early questions were building blocks to a much larger plot. She was making progress at therapy and was doing well in school. But every time I thought about abandoning my plot, a cold feeling of dread would settle into my stomach. I wanted them to suffer, craved it.
“You’d have to find the Queen of Hearts. She’s the only one who knows who everyone else is.”
I had nodded eagerly, writing down what would become the promise that defined me. Gain access. Find the Queen of Hearts. Make her pay. Dismantle the court from within.
By the time April confronted me about my obsession with the Red Court, it was too late. I had a promise that turned into a plan, and there was nothing my sister could say to deter me.
I folded up my anger like a note and slipped it away as my mom and Gideon returned from the kitchen with individual slices of cake, each bearing a single candle. In the Williams household, everyone blew out a candle and made a wish, no matter whose birthday it was. My dad started it ages ago, but only to placate his two young daughters who demanded to blow out candles on his birthday. In the dozens of birthdays since, it’s come to mean so much more. It’s our way of sticking together. When one of us is celebrating, we all join in. And when one of us is hurting, we all feel it, too.
I’d made a promise a long time ago, and I was finally, finally going to fulfill it. There wouldn’t be any wish for me this year. I was going to get what I wanted. I pictured the Queen of Hearts and blew out my candle. I was coming for her, and she’d better watch out.
CHAPTER 12
THE FOLLOWING TUESDAY AT SCHOOL, I noticed a large display next to the cafeteria. There were names and pictures plastered all over the walls. It was the nominations for Homecoming Court. Each grade had its own representation for Lord and Lady, Duke and Duchess, Prince and Princess, and, finally, King and Queen.
There, under Queen, was Maura Wright. Her bright, smiling yearbook photo seemed to shout at me in glossy relief next to the two other contenders. Didn’t anyone else notice that her photo seemed just a bit bigger than the others? Or that her picture looked cropped and zoomed in, like she appeared more prominently than the other girls?
I was having a private “Tell-Tale Heart” moment, and any second I was going to start ripping my hair out and screaming like a madwoman.
I skulked away before someone noticed my guilty look and pulled my journal out.
October 9
Is there such a thing as a victimless crime? Or are we creating victims that will never know they’ve been wronged?
I heard a throat clear softly and I slammed my journal shut.
“Is that a diary?” Chase asked with mild amusement.
“No, it’s a journal. I don’t write long, rambling essays on unrequited love.”
“Then what do you write?” He seemed genuinely interested and made a grab for my journal.
I danced backward to keep it out of his reach. “Just how I’m feeling in a particular moment or what I’m thinking about a specific situation. It’s a short record more than a journal. I’m not about remembering specific details of my day-to-day, just how they make me feel.”
After our conversation on the track, I wasn’t sure where we stood. Chase didn’t hate me and there was no point in lying to myself any longer about hating him. I didn’t hate him, but my feelings weren’t fully resolved into any one, categorizable emotion. I TBD’d him.
“Don’t you need details for them to make sense later?”
“No, because that’s not really the point. The point is that I feel a certain way at that exact moment in time. That something moved me enough to stir up some emotion or make me ask a question. I’m out in the world living my life, and this is my proof.”
“That’s kind of badass.”
I laughed. “Journaling is badass?”
He shrugged. Chase was dressed in jeans and a thick gray sweater that I wanted to steal and envelop myself in. “Ok, maybe not badass. It’s cool that you record the pieces that matter this way.”
I tried to quell the blush flooding my cheeks. I was unsuccessful.
“I, uh, think someone over there is trying to get your attention,” Chase said, looking past me at some point over my shoulder.
“Hmm?” I asked, a bit dazed. I shook my head to dislodge the dreamy fog that had taken up residence in my brain and turned to see Gideon looking conspicuously away from us.
When Gideon saw he had drawn our attention, he gave up his ruse and came over to speak to us.
“There’s something I want to show you.” His words were only directed at me.
“I’m talking to Chase,” I said and motioned toward him.
Gideon turned to look at him as if he had just remembered Chase existed and added, “You can come, too.”
Gideon snatched up my hand and began to lead me to the math hallway with Chase trailing behind, looking so entertained I wanted to smack him.
“Oh no. What’s going on?” I asked the question without needing to because it was obvious to everyone watching. I was witnessing another Red Court takedown.
Taped all along the hall were photos. They were all different from the looks of it, but they all featured the same guy. A good-looking senior I recognized but couldn’t name. Though it was a series of unrelated candid shots, the narrative was pretty clear.
A mixture of day and night images, close and faraway, showed that this guy had more than one girl in his life. In some shots, the more public ones, he was pictured holding hands with a petite blonde girl. In more of the night images, he was with a taller brunette.
The photos themselves weren’t scandalous, but I could only guess that what they revealed would be the cause of death for this guy’s relationship.
“Was this that group, then?” Chase asked. His face was one-part pity, two-parts disgust.
Gideon’s expression mirrored my own feelings of distaste. He only pulled us farther down the hall. I felt sick to my stomach knowing what I’d find. Proof positive that this was a Red Court job. That it was perpetrated by members of an organization I belonged to.
We stopped in front of an alcove and I made myself look up at what was in front of us.
“‘You never stop owing us,’” Chase read the sign aloud. Taped to it was a simple playing card—a Joker.
“The Red Court,” Gideon said. “Who else?”
“What kind of person do you have to be to do this kind of thing?” Chase’s hardened voice caught me off guard, and shame washed through me.
“I’m not sure.” Gideon kept his face turned toward Chase, but his eyes flicked to me.