There was something there. Something in the way he said it knocked an idea loose in my head, an idea that had been lingering in the back of my mind since we saw the hallway takedown. Chase seemed so certain in his assessment of the Red Court and the girls who ran it. Almost like he knew us, was involved with us.
“What favor did you ask for?” I was taking a shot in the dark. When Chase winced, I knew my words hit their mark.
“Wouldn’t you know?” He refused to meet my gaze, fidgeting with the cuff of his hoodie.
His quiet words and the accusation they held tore a hole in the life raft I was desperately clinging to; without it, without him, I wasn’t sure if I could stay afloat. I was no longer me, the girl he kissed in the hallway and texted with at night. I was the monster.
“Actually, I wouldn’t. I’m a nobody underling.”
“Does that make you any less guilty?”
Shame washed over me, leaving me vulnerable. I pushed back at it the only way I knew how. “You made a choice, too. No one forced you to ask for anything.”
I took a step away from Chase and was overcome with the horrible feeling that I would never be that close to him again.
“And I’ve never stopped paying for it. You don’t know what it’s like to live every day wondering if today is the day when they ask too much, want something I can’t give.”
I did know that feeling; I’d already faced that fear and come out the other side without my best friend. “What did you ask for?” I repeated my question without avarice or assumptions.
“At the end of last year, I was struggling in Honors Biology. I took on too much, too many advanced-level classes. There just wasn’t enough time to maintain my GPA and my sanity with how much I have to help out at home. My grades are everything to me. A scholarship is the only way I’m going to college.” His shoulders, normally strong and steady, were hunched and his head hung low in defeat. I wasn’t alone in my shame, but if I was misery, I wasn’t in the mood for company.
“So, you asked for help and got it.”
“No, not really.”
That couldn’t be true. The Red Court always finished its jobs. “What do you mean?”
“Turns out I didn’t need the help. I studied my ass off and did all the extra credit I could. Just before summer, I got some anonymous note that said they looked into it for me and confirmed my A, but because they had to check at all, I still owed them. Owed you.”
“Not me. I wasn’t even involved until last month.”
A small amount of softness returned to his gaze. Maybe knowing I wasn’t a part of one of his darkest moments bettered me in his estimation. It shouldn’t.
“I don’t get it, Ember. You already have the grades, and a place on the track and debate teams. Why would you even need to be a part of something like this? Do you get your kicks from controlling other people’s lives?”
I wanted to tell him about April. And how I thought I could make the Red Court better. But I realized that there was nothing that could justify the pain it inflicted. But he owed the Red Court and would do what he had to. If it ever came down to it, would he use me as a bargaining chip the day they asked too much of him? I couldn’t be sure.
“I can’t—” My voice came out in a choked whisper. I was about to tell him that I couldn’t trust him, but the words wouldn’t come out. I wanted to trust him, craved his trust in return even if I didn’t deserve it.
It didn’t matter that I couldn’t say it. His hurt expression told me he understood. “What? You don’t trust me? I guess I don’t blame you. You’re part of some screwed-up group that likes to mess with people. You probably can’t trust anyone. Not even yourself.”
My story, the real story of my life, was burning in my throat. I ached to let it out. It wouldn’t budge, wouldn’t let me say the words that might win Chase back to my side.
The time had come to do the thing I should have done weeks ago. I had to push him away for good. “That day in the hall, when you helped me, I was only there because the Red Court told me to be.” My words hit Chase like bullets, each killing a part of him that cared for me. “My job was to be helpless so you’d get close to me and I could get a picture of us together. They sent it to your girlfriend. She was jealous, but she had every reason to be.”
“Why would you do that?” He stared at me in disbelief, but I had to drive my point home.
“Because someone else was willing to pay us for it. It’s how this whole thing works. We give you whatever it is you want most and then use that against you when we come to collect again and again.”
“Who asked you to break up me and Madison?”
I threw my hands up in the air, unwilling to tell him I didn’t know. It was ridiculous that I could be on the inside of the Red Court and barely know more than one of my marks.
“That’s the worst part in all of this. I don’t get to know why I’m doing something or who is handing out orders.”
“Then why do you do it?”
The impulse to spill my guts to Chase hit me again, harder than expected, but I held off. Behind his warmth and goodness was a person who wanted something bad enough to pay an unknown price for it. Behind his soft brown eyes was a liability I couldn’t afford. Not now that I’d given up so much.
He read the lack of a response in my reaction. “Fine, don’t tell me.” For an aching moment, it seemed like those would be the last words he would ever say to me. Then he said, “I’ll tell you why I did it. I was scared of what would happen if I didn’t have my GPA. When it looked like I might lose that, I panicked.”
My sensitive stomach gave an angry twist at the tears pooling in the corners of his eyes. How the Red Court affected Chase wouldn’t be erased the moment he received his diploma. He’d carry the weight of his mistake long after high school ended.
I reached for words, and found the truth waiting for me. “I wish things could be different. For both of us. But it would be better for everyone if we weren’t friends anymore.” At least my admirer would get their way. I would be staying away from Chase just like they wanted.
“Friends?” Chase scoffed. “How could we be friends when you were lying to me the whole time? This—” he pointed between us “—was never anything, because it all came out of your part in your club. I really can’t believe you, Ember. I thought you were better than that.”
I cleared my throat against the emotional asphyxiation strangling my vocal cords. “You’re right. I guess there’s nothing left to say.”
Chase leveled a blank glare at me, not a trace of his usual warmth or even the anger of the last few minutes. It seemed he was already past grieving the loss of whatever we were to each other.