Gideon made a small, annoyed sound. “You know who you are.”
“A 4.0 student. Runner. Debate captain. First-class fool.”
A few kids stumbled out back toward the hot tub across the yard. We watched them pass us, and I wondered what their problems were. If any of them were running from something, too. Maybe we were more alike than I knew.
“Those are things that describe you. I could add friend, daughter, and sister to that list.”
The word sister sizzled like a brand against my skin.
“But,” Gideon continued softly, as though he was sharing his biggest secret, “those things aren’t who you are. I believe, beneath all the bullshit labels we put on ourselves, there’s a place only you know about. A place where you can feel what you’re made of.”
I thought about the person who lived inside my skin, past the hurt and anger and the Red Court girl I’d let take over. Allowing my eyes to lose focus, I delved deeper inside myself, looking for the girl who wanted to be good. Who wanted to be like Chase. Who, no matter what, knew what the Red Court did was wrong, even when it felt right. That person wasn’t angry at any betrayal. That person was tired of hurting people.
My fingers slipped over the fibers of that girl, grasping at them like they were wisps of smoke. The more I thought of her, the more real she felt, I felt. This was the me I was when I wasn’t pretending to be anything else. The insubstantial girl materialized, and I felt the weight of her press into my chest while I wrapped my arms across my stomach to hold on to the feeling.
“I know what I have to do.”
CHAPTER 44
THAT NIGHT, I grabbed my burner and started a group text.
Me: Attention, ladies of the Red Court
Mandatory meeting
Monday
7am
Theater room
I quickly shut it back down before any potential replies could come in. Then I went to my sister’s room.
Without bothering to knock, I invited myself in. April was propped up in her bed, eyes rimmed in red and tissues scattered around her.
“Ember, I’m so sorry.”
I let her apology fall at my feet without bothering to acknowledge it. “Were you ever going to tell me?”
April looked away and hiccupped a sob. “Every day. I wanted to tell you every day. Since you joined the Red Court, I’ve been sick over it. It’s been killing me.”
Ice like fire licked through my veins, searing everything in a cold that left me numb. “It’s been killing you? Do you know what this has cost me? I’ve given everything I have to destroying the Red Court.”
“I never wanted this. I never asked you to destroy them for me!” Her frustration was palpable.
It was true. Nothing I did was because April asked it of me, but this was a path I was set on over a lie.
My breath gusted out, taking the bite from my words. “You didn’t have to. What kind of person would I have been if I just stood by and let the Red Court continue to hurt people?”
“There were a lot of ways to stop them that didn’t revolve around revenge.”
I flinched. The words only hurt because they were true. “You should have started that sentence with ‘You know I love you.’”
We stood on opposite sides for what felt like the first time. “Why? Why did you lie to me?”
April gathered her composure, putting her tears away. “I didn’t mean to lie to you. That first summer, I was such a mess. I’m still a mess, but everything was so fresh then. When you came into my room that day, so young and asking questions, I couldn’t tell you the truth.”
“You made someone else the villain in your fairy tale so you could save face with your fourteen-year-old sister?”
“Ember, you don’t understand.”
“No, I don’t, but I want to. I have only ever wanted to understand.”
April reached out to me, and because she was my sister, I went to her and wrapped my arms around her slight shoulders.
“I’d compromised who I was for the Red Court. I played games with people who didn’t deserve it, took choices away from others without a second thought. The control, the power it gave me was addictive. What happened was my own fault, I know, but I couldn’t lose you. If you knew the things I’d done, I would have lost my sister.”
Despite everything, I did understand. After her surgeries, starting on a road to recovery with a destination she didn’t yet know, I was one thing April refused to lose. Me and my adoration for my big sister. But I couldn’t let it go, even knowing why.
“I take responsibility for everything I’ve done, but at no point in nearly two years did you tell me the truth, either.”
“Would it have stopped you?”
My words escaped without a second thought. “I don’t know.”
The desperation in April’s face was nearly my undoing. “When you tell a lie, every day it grows. It gains life and turns into something else. I never thought it would go this far. I tried so many times to come clean. After a while, I thought maybe you wouldn’t end up in the Red Court. I hoped you wouldn’t, and then I could tell you everything.”
“The lie did gain life. In me. It became part of who I am.” A sob escaped me. To my surprise, I was relieved. Letting the anger drain from my body left me lighter.
“I’m so, so sorry. I will never stop being sorry.”
“You were going to tell me everything. Tell me now.”
April spoke until her voice was hoarse. She explained how she slipped her name through the slot of locker 1067 on a dare during her junior year, not even knowing about the favor and never expecting the playing card that appeared in her own locker. How she enjoyed the thrill of it and was partnered with Haley the year after. April acted as her mentor, similar to how Haley had with me. The fact that the two had known each other all this time brought my worlds colliding together all over again.
“I was too scared to quit, though, even when it was hard. I didn’t know who I’d be if I didn’t have the Red Court.” Just like me, April thrived on the thrill of the work and struggled with the guilt of what we did. “I think about it now, how stupid I was, and I’m ashamed.”
“What happened the night of the accident?”
April fiddled with the loose threads of her comforter. “I was setting up another senior to be busted for our stupid prank. We knew the punishment wouldn’t be too serious. The mark was a good girl, never in trouble. She would have gotten community service at the most. Still, I think about how cavalier I was about getting someone innocent in trouble for nothing. For a stupid favor.”