EVIL QUEEN - Rebel Hart Page 0,49

my entire life.

“Maybe we’re the most screwed up kids that Postings has to offer, but at least we found each other,” I said to Kyle as I looked at my friends, who were all laughing and enjoying one another.

“That pairs really well with my cliche decorations,” he responded.

I chuckled. “Yeah. It does.”

16

Nikita

Nathan came running into the lunchroom so fast that everyone who had already arrived for lunch for the day stopped eating to stare at him. He didn’t even get in the line to go get food. Instead, he ran directly up to our table.

“Has anyone seen him?” he asked. Jaxon, Colette, Alistair, Avery, and I all looked up at him with our own varying sad expressions, and he just sank down into the seat next to me. “Nothing?”

“I went and talked to a bunch of the junior teachers before coming here,” Colette said, “but all of them say that he hasn’t been in any classes at all. He’s not here.”

April was well underway, and none of us had seen Brayden since he left Kyle’s house during our spring break. It was the Friday of the first week back after the break, and as far as any of us knew, not only had we not seen Brayden, but no one else had either. Wherever he was, he wasn’t at school. Nathan had even gone by his house a couple of times, but no one would even answer the door. All attempts to contact him had been fruitless, and we were officially starting to get worried.

Nathan slammed his head down on the table. “This is my fault.”

“How?” I asked. “You didn’t do anything wrong. None of us did. He was doing fine, and all of a sudden, he wasn’t. I really think something else is wrong.”

“Kyle’s not here yet,” Colette said with hopefulness in her voice. “Maybe he knows something more.”

“Maybe not,” Jaxon said, and at first, Colette seemed frustrated with him, but then he nodded his head in the direction of the entrance. Kyle was trudging into the lunchroom, looking just as dejected as Nathan.

It was a little odd to me that Kyle seemed to take Brayden’s sudden and inexplicable absence as hard as he was, but then again, I thought the same thing about Colette. I was beginning to understand that there was a lot more going on behind the scenes with this group than I realized at first.

“Nothing?” Nathan asked as Kyle reached the table.

Kyle shook his head. “Nothing. I’ve been calling him and texting him. I’ve asked a few of his other acquaintances. No one has seen him.”

“Nathan, have you asked the office if his parents have called in his absences?” Alistair asked. “Maybe he’s just sick.”

“I checked,” Nathan replied. “It’s strange. Not only will they not tell me, but even the administrators who I usually exercise some level of control over wouldn’t tell me anything.”

“That is strange,” Colette said. “Have you ever experienced that before?”

“Never. Whether through intimidation or bribery, I usually have some kind of sway over them, but none of my tactics seemed to work. I even threatened to let it get out that Principal Hix kept Miss Abrams on staff after she and I had our little thing, but he seemed confident that it wouldn’t be an issue. Either that or he was more afraid of someone else.”

The table went silent, and I had a feeling that everyone was thinking the same thing I was. The only person in Postings with more power than Nathan was his father, Connor. Nathan had mentioned that after he saw that Connor had been in the office before the board meeting, he felt like Connor was sticking closer to Postings than he first thought, but what would any of that have to do with Brayden?

“You guys, I’m sorry,” Kyle said.

“Wait,” Colette said. “You’re blaming yourself now?”

“I agree,” Alistair said. “The whole self-blame thing is getting really old.”

“Yeah, especially when I don’t think anyone is to blame here,” Avery said. “There’s an outside factor at play here, and none of us know what it is. All we can do is be patient and hope that everything works itself out. We should also probably employ some sort of buddy system. No one is alone, ever.”

As if we all sensed it telepathically, our eyes drifted over to Kyle, who just rolled his eyes. It was unspoken. By default or by whatever bond the two had developed as of late, Brayden was Kyle’s partner in the eight of us. Nathan and