Defiant Princess (Boys of Oak Park Prep #2) - Callie Rose Page 0,2
family. And I believed—I had to believe—there was information out there that would bring each one of them down too.
I just had to find it.
What I’d managed to gather so far wasn’t all that damaging, but I printed out and kept everything that seemed like it could be important, no matter how small.
I spent the thirty-minute ride rereading an article about Finn’s junior high and high school football career and expected rise to fame in college and beyond, and when the bus dropped me off on the dark street near Mina’s house, I shoved everything back in my bag.
That article in particular pissed me off. My dream of dancing professionally had been considered a waste of time by my grandma, and now I’d probably never have the chance to really pursue it. But Finn was still on track to make a career out of the thing he loved most in the world.
Maybe it was because talking about our two passions was the first moment I’d felt an actual human connection with the blond quarterback, but it felt so unfair it made me want to scream.
Mina’s home was on the opposite side of Sand Valley from the apartment I’d shared with my dad, so I hadn’t had to go near the old place, and I’d made a point to avoid that part of town. She lived in a small two-story house, and Ian, Brick, and I were all stuffed up into the upper level, in three rooms that could only generously be called bedrooms. The boys were both younger than I was, but Brick cursed like a fucking biker and already boasted about his sexual conquests like a thirty-year-old manwhore.
I didn’t talk to either of them a lot, but I knew they both considered me “soft”. They’d both been in the system for years already, and the cynicism it’d ingrained in them was heartbreaking to see.
Then again, maybe they were right. Maybe I needed to learn the kind of cynicism they had, to stop viewing people I met as potential allies and instead separate them into just two categories—people I could use, and people who were in my way.
As I crept up the creaking stairs of the old house, Brick passed me, sneaking in the opposite direction. He lifted his chin when he saw me, the movement barely discernible in the dark. “Hey. Where you been?”
“Work. Where are you going?”
He snorted. “Don’t worry about it, sis.”
I rolled my eyes. I hated when he called me that. He called Mina “ma” and Ian “bro” too, and every time he uttered the words, they came out coated in bitter poison.
“Yeah, fine,” I muttered back, but he was already moving again, disappearing down the stairs like a ghost.
I slipped inside my small room and dug my Big Daddy’s uniform out of my bag to lay it over the back of the rickety chair in the corner. I would need to wear it again tomorrow, and I didn’t have time to wash it, so Febreeze would have to do. Then I changed into my pajamas and sat on the small twin bed, massaging my sore calves and quads, delaying the inevitable a little while longer.
Exhaustion tugged at me, a bone-deep tiredness that begged me to close my eyes, but I always resisted as long as I could. Because no matter how tired I was, no matter how hard I pushed myself during the day, it was never enough to keep me from dreaming.
And in my dreams, I sometimes forgot to hate them.
Chapter 2
My eyes snapped open as I sat up with a gasp, hands scrabbling for purchase in the empty air around me. My entire body tensed for an impact that never came, and after a horrible moment where I hovered between waking and sleeping, I let out a long, shuddering breath.
I’d had this dream before.
In the dream, my mother—or at least someone who resembled my vague memories of her, with hazel eyes and dark brown hair—found me again.
In my dream, she wasn’t dead.
She’d never been dead.
She told me, in a rush of words that didn’t make any sense, that she’d been hiding out, waiting, biding her time. Plotting her revenge, just like I was plotting mine. She told me it was time—time for us both to exact our vengeance.
Then she led me up to a cliff in the hills that overlooked Roseland, and as we stood up there together, gazing down at the pristine, luxurious town, she made me promise to never forget.