EVIL QUEEN - Rebel Hart Page 0,13

back to the rest of us. “I’ve got it,” Colette said, quietly and to herself. “I’m going to fix everything, okay? Everything’s gonna be fine.”

“Holy shit,” Kyle muttered to me.

“Yeah,” I whispered as my heart broke even more than it had already. “Things are worse than I thought.”

5

Nikita

Words couldn’t quite describe how much I wanted the day to be over already. It was stressful, trying to focus on school on top of everything that was going on with The Royal Court, and Cherri’s big reveal certainly wasn’t helping things. I’d gotten pretty lucky, if it could be called that, to share all of my morning classes with Colette, so I was able to keep an eye on her, but it was painful to watch. After her frustrating interaction with Cherri, she hadn’t said much. She only clung to the box of Cherri’s things and stared at whichever teacher was leading the class, though it was obvious she wasn’t listening. By the time I sat down across from Jaxon at The Royal Court’s typical lunch table, I was exhausted beyond measure.

“Okay, that should be the last one,” I said to Jaxon as I sent him the last of the four recordings of my morning lectures while we waited for everyone else to arrive. “You sure she’s gonna listen to them?”

Jaxon poked at the fries on his tray while he made sure all the recording would play properly. “No, but maybe I can play them when we’re driving to and from school or something. I don’t know. I’ll get the info into her somehow. Colette is going to snap out of this at some point, and she is going to flip her shit when she realizes how much she was slacking in her academics. It was brilliant to record the classes. I’m sure she’ll be grateful.”

“I also took pictures of the notes. All things considered, I’m glad the teachers are still operating like Connor and Nathan have control. Otherwise, my phone would have ended up in that little lockbox thingy.”

“No kidding. It was nice getting preferential treatment before, but with all this shit, we’re really gonna need it,” Jaxon replied.

Jaxon definitely wasn’t wrong about how much we were going to need that special treatment. There were about five months of school left, and all of us were graduating, apart from Brayden. It wasn’t like there was ever a good time for all this shit to go down, but there was certainly a worst possible time, and we were in it.

Over the next ten minutes, everyone slowly arrived at the table. Nathan and Kyle arrived at about the same time, both with about the same level of exhaustion on their faces as I felt. Colette, who’d gone right to the bathroom and begged me to leave her alone after their last class, showed up a little after that and immediately sat down next to Jaxon, dropped her head against his shoulder, and was asleep not long after that.

Avery and Alistair were next to arrive, though they came in much later. It was likely because Alistair was damn near pulling Avery to keep her moving while also balancing both of their lunch trays on one arm. He put their trays down before helping Avery to sit down at the bench, and then he sat down next to her and gently rubbed her back.

“Baby, how about some of your salad? Just a little? I have an orange soda you can have if you eat a little,” Alistair coaxed under the watchful gaze of everyone, even Colette, who had stirred once they sat down.

Avery’s normally exuberant cocoa skin was a few shades paler, and though she didn’t look as malnourished as Colette did, she was much thinner than she was before all of this put her under so much stress. She had only managed to pull her hair back into a messy bun, and she wasn’t wearing any makeup. Avery didn’t really need makeup since she was one of those annoyingly natural beauties, but she never left the house without a full face. Still, beautiful though she was, she almost looked sickly without a layer of artistry on. To say I felt bad for her would be an understatement.

Fortunately, in the wake of Alistair’s bargaining, which was so practiced that it made me uncomfortable, Avery finally lifted her fork and stabbed it into her salad. It was almost as if that was what everyone else needed to see before they would start eating. Once she put