Devil Incarnate (Boys of Preston Prep #4) - Angel Lawson Page 0,18

your brother?” I snap into the phone while storming across campus. I’d texted Bass the minute I separated from Micha and told him to pick up the damn phone.

“Georgia! My little peach! How are you?” There’s a muffled voice in the background, and then Bass adds, “Sugar says hi.”

“Bass, don’t avoid my question.”

“I’m not avoiding it,” he answers, still sounding half distracted. “Why would I have any idea what’s going on with my brother? Just like you, I spent the summer zig-zagging across our magnificent country with my super sexy girlfriend, forgetting about that asshole.”

“Well…” I start, coming to an abrupt stop. I’ve inadvertently crossed into a game of Frisbee and the disc sails two inches from my nose. “Buck!” I shout. “Dude, come on.”

“Sorry, Georgia!” Buck calls out. He gives me a sly grin that makes me think it wasn’t an accident. “Saw your ChattySnap pics. Looking good on that boat, girl.”

I roll my eyes. Buck and I hooked up at a party at Elena’s house two years ago. I was on a particularly destructive streak at the time, and Buck was an easy target. Stalking off, I grip the phone, explaining in a tight whisper, “Bass, I just saw him.”

“You saw who? Heston?”

“Where?” Sugar has apparently taken over the phone. “Where did you see him?”

“Here!” I hiss, stomping toward the dorm building. “At Preston, helping with the fucking swim team. He’s Coach James’ new assistant!”

“Are you serious?” Sugar’s voice is low with anger. “They let him go? Jesus ass-fucking Christ. You called it. You all called it.”

She sounds so defeated and disappointed, a mirror to my own feelings on the matter. You try to do the proper thing, right a wrong, help the entire female gender by exposing a predator, but what do you get? The same old, misogynistic, protect-one-another bullshit.

“Georgia,” Bass says, taking the phone back. He sounds more focused now, voice low and tight. There’s a jingle of keys. “I’m going to drive down there tonight, okay?”

“What?” I ask, stopping dead in the dorm lobby. “Sebastian, that’s insane! It’s a fifteen hour drive here from New Haven!”

“They kept me in the dark about this for a reason,” he insists, sounding angry. “He can’t just do what he did and get to work at fucking Preston, of all goddamn places.” Quieter, he adds, “There’s no one there for the three of you,” and I know who he means. Me, Vandy, and Caroline. The last remaining Devils.

I deflate just imagining it: Sebastian driving for fifteen hours, just to get here and save me from his brother, like some kind of sad, poor damsel. It’s been a long time since everything that happened Freshman year. I’ve hidden, I’ve avoided, I’ve done terrible, harmful things—all to push what happened with Heston as far away from me as possible. I stepped out from under that dark cloud last spring, when I marched into the police station with Sydney to report him. I did it because I was tired of hiding. Sebastian—the Devils—gave me the courage to stand up and take care of myself.

Now it’s time to find the strength to do that on my own.

“No.” My voice is soft, but final. “You have a life there with Sugar. You guys are happy. It’s time for the rest of us to find our own happiness, and that starts with not having our friend drive home from college to beat up anyone who’s been mean to us.”

“But—”

“But nothing,” I say, voice sharp. “Let us handle it. Plus, you’re wrong. Vandy still has Reyn.”

And maybe Micha’s right.

Maybe we’re less powerless than we think.

Hanging up, I feel a little more determined, but no less seething at the injustice of it all. Making my way up to the fourth floor, I admit to myself that I’m also still pissed about the night before. I’d been so shaken by being matched to him that I didn’t make any other efforts to continue my search. Now, I’m stuck snapping this damn rubber band on my wrist every ten minutes, so rattled by the hum of my needs that I’m not thinking straight. Going to Bass was a bad idea.

I pass my floor mates and pause when I get a few feet from my room. A trunk is positioned in the hall and the door is cracked. Loud, bouncy pop-music spills out the open door. Slowly, I step over the threshold and gape at what I find inside. There’s a bed where my living room sofa should be, and