Devil Incarnate (Boys of Preston Prep #4) - Angel Lawson Page 0,207

nice start. Just holding the ticket in my hand will be enough to make this all bearable, for just a little while longer.

“Okay,” I say, pushing back the nerves that have started building in my stomach. The deeper I get into this, the scarier it is. Scary because it involves exposing myself to strangers. Scary because they’ll have a part of me—the same part of me I’ve been trying so hard to keep to myself. Scary because I need it, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned this past year, it’s that needing something means giving in to someone else’s power.

“My tank is down in the laundry room,” I explain, antsy. “Let me grab it and just get this over with.”

Mary hangs up and I leave my phone on the bed. The laundry room is downstairs, off of the kitchen. Even though it’s been a year, I’m still not used to the size of this house—my stepfather’s house. Before my mom married Daniel, we were living in a two-bedroom apartment that overlooked the railroad tracks. Now we’re in a cozy seven-thousand square foot McMansion with a pool and an entertainment room downstairs. For a long time, it felt more like a hotel than home.

Now it feels like something else.

I sneak through the kitchen and eye the discarded pizza boxes on the island. That and the trash talk coming from the basement are a sure sign that my stepbrother and his friends are downstairs.

I pause at the realization, feeling stupid.

Laughter bounces up the stairs, like a sharp warning. Killian and his best friends, Dimitri Rathbone and Tristian Mercer, are inseparable, spending all their time together as the reigning kings of our high school. The three of them comprise the complete royalty of the senior class. I don’t need to be living with one of them to really know them—everyone just does.

I shouldn’t be surprised they’re over. It’s all around school that Tristian got dumped by his girlfriend the other day. If petty high school drama didn’t look like juvenile bullshit from my vantage, I’d probably call it a huge scandal. Being a girlfriend to one of these three is like winning the damn lottery. You get the infamy, the expensive gifts, and what basically amounts to three round-the-clock bodyguards. These three share everything, and they protect what’s theirs.

She’s obviously smart, though. She probably discovered what all those other girls never will: that it’s not worth it. They’re cold boys, eyes always watching. There’s a certain cast to their faces when I’m around that makes the hair on the back of my neck rise. Luckily, I’m a junior and it’s been made very clear that I’m never to look at or address them, and under no circumstances should anyone consider my stepbrother and I family.

Not that I’d ever want to be associated with an asshole like him, anyway. There for a minute, right at the start, Killian had been fine. Not kind, nor warm, nor even cordial, but a lot like a prisoner might treat his cell-mate. It was an acceptance, an acknowledgment, that neither of us had a choice in this. He’d been almost sympathetic, bordering on friendly. Briefly, I’d thought of us as allies.

It didn’t last long.

I’m not sure exactly when it stopped, but these days, my stepbrother goes out of his way to make it perfectly clear that he loathes me. His friends alternate between ignoring me and sending me vicious, mocking barbs as their eyes track me, waiting, hoping to get a rise out of me. I used to wonder why, trying to figure out what I’d done to make them so mean to me. Killian and his friends are the kind of boys who are blessed with it all; looks, brains, money, athleticism. They’re gods around campus and the attitude doesn’t stop when they’re at home, especially down in Killian’s lair.

I know now that they never needed a reason.

Hearing them is just a reminder of how exhausting it all is, tiptoeing around this house, avoiding all the landmines. There’s one at every step, it seems. The whole thing has made me paranoid. I feel like I’m constantly being watched. Or that someone has been in my room. I could handle that, though. For my mom. For security. But once things escalated…

I take a deep breath to settle my nerves. I have The Plan, right? I just need to get the money and then I’m home free. I’ll get my shirt, flee back to my room, lock my