“This is all about your sister?”
“The Red Court hurt her, hurt countless others. It’s over.” I kept my voice low and prayed that everyone stayed down the hall.
To my surprise, Haley laughed. It wasn’t a pleasant sound. She laughed until tears formed at the corners of her eyes. “Did she tell you that?” she asked between gasps.
“She did. She tells me everything.” I didn’t feel the confidence I put into my words.
A noise behind me caught my attention. April was in the doorway, staring at Haley, a look of shock covering her face.
“What is she doing here?” April asked me without taking her eyes from Haley.
“She was just leaving, actually.” I ignored the frustrated noise Haley made and kept my eyes on my sister.
A look of warning crossed April’s face as Haley began to speak.
“Ember,” she said. “It’s true. The Red Court was involved in April’s accident. I would know—I was a sophomore when it happened. It was my first year as a member.”
Hearing someone else talk about April’s accident was surreal. Finally, I was getting somewhere.
“But we weren’t the ones who hurt her.”
“Haley. Stop it.” April’s voice cut through the thrumming in my head. It was too high maybe, or her words too fast.
Haley kept talking. “Her accident wasn’t part of some plan to do anything to her. She was part of a plan to hurt someone else. April was one of us, part of the Red Court. She was my partner, the one I inherited the theater room from. What goes around, comes around. That was our saying. Right, April?”
The sound of blood rushing in my ears muffled April’s response. Dizziness came over me as my eyes unfocused. As I inched backward, my knees bumped the edge of my mattress and I collapsed onto it.
“What?” I looked to my sister convinced that whatever she said would explain away Haley’s story.
April’s eyes shifted to me, and the truth of Haley’s words was written on her face. I couldn’t believe it.
April had been part of the Red Court.
CHAPTER 43
“APRIL, NO.” My voice was nothing more than a whisper. Still, the words cut through the silence like a shout.
No one said anything for several beats. Had I said that aloud or were the words only spoken in my head?
“You should leave.” April’s words scraped out of her in a rasp.
“Happily.”
Haley’s eyes dropped to the painting she brought me, and an uncomfortable corset of guilt squeezed my sides. Haley was many things: a liar, the Queen of Hearts, and, somehow, a friend. “Enjoy your painting.”
Haley moved past me and out the door. My dad’s voice filtered through my haze, alarmingly jovial. Haley wouldn’t say anything to him, would she? No, that would reveal her own part in this Greek tragedy. Mutually assured destruction was not part of Haley’s game plan.
“Do you want to stay for dinner?” he asked her.
“No,” she quickly replied, before adding, “Thank you.”
Haley quietly excused herself and my dad’s feet padded down the hall.
Coming back into myself, I scrambled across the room and moved my corkboard to the floor before he appeared behind April.
“Your friend Haley seems nice. Is that the painting she brought you? Your mom said she was very talented.” His voice, so light and familiar, pricked at my skin. My whole body felt like an exposed nerve.
“Yeah, she is.” I managed to keep my voice steady, though tension shimmered in the air like heat waves in the desert.
Dad looked between the two of us, about to open the lid on Pandora’s box, but April rallied quickly. “Ember was telling me about Haley’s home life. Her stepdad is a nightmare.”
It seemed April knew Haley better than I did. It seemed I didn’t know April at all.
“Oh, that’s terrible.” Dad’s brow furrowed in concern. “I wish she’d stayed for dinner.” Food, the universal cure-all in the Williams household. “You girls should head into the kitchen. Get it while it’s hot.”
April looked at me with a sad stare before following after Dad. I couldn’t look at my corkboard or at the painting Haley left, so my eyes fell on my reflection in my mirror. I watched, detached, as tears filled my eyes and fell down my cheeks. This wasn’t me. This crying girl, whose heart had been ripped out moments ago, wasn’t me. It wasn’t even the ruthless girl I’d grown accustomed to being, the one who could endure the horrible things I’d done.
I was Ember Williams, ace student, track star, debate team captain, and...idiot. My sister had been lying to me for years. The Red Court didn’t hurt her; she was injured hurting someone else. How didn’t I see it? Her reluctance to help me once she realized what my plan was looked different in this new light. April never wanted me to uncover the truth.
“Ember!” my dad called.
“Coming!”
I swiped at my face, angry at the tears that proved how naive I’d been. With a few deep breaths, I went to join my family.
By the time I reached the kitchen, I was composed. By the time I sat down at the table, I was smiling. By the time I took my first bite of chicken, I was asking my parents how their day had been. April sat in silence, cutting her chicken into tiny, precise bites.
“School was ok,” I answered when my mom asked. “I’m just tired, I think. Winter break can’t come fast enough for me. I’m exhausted. I think I might sleep the whole time.”
Babbling was a dead giveaway that I was definitely not ok. I was a mess, and if I didn’t shut up soon, I would end up talking about how broken and angry I was. My view of the Red Court was so different than when I began. I’d seen the damage it could inflict in a dozen different ways and witnessed how the hurt could ripple through a life, leaving destruction in its wake. There were more reasons besides my sister for why the Red Court had to be stopped, but it all started with the need for revenge. Revenge was the catalyst that put me on this path for the last two years. And it was a lie.
“I think I need a run,” I said and pushed away from the table with only a few bites gone from my plate.
“Now?” My dad’s confused face was edging toward concerned, and I had to get out of the house before he came to his senses and stopped me.
“Yeah, maybe not a run. Just a walk. I need some air.”
Throwing on the first pair of shoes I saw, my rattiest sneakers, I dashed out the door into the cold night air before my coat was on. I had zero intentions of walking around my neighborhood. That would only give me time to think, and my thoughts were what I had to escape. There had to be a place where I couldn’t think.