who these scare tactics and threats are coming from.
The next text reads:
- You came after us. We’re coming after you.
I tap out a response.
- My list of haters has grown leaps and bounds since starting at Suckshore, but my list of fucks given hasn’t. Your inability to sign your name shows that you’re just a bunch of pussies hiding behind a screen. You don’t scare me, and that’s the … ~ TRUTH.
I copy and paste it in the first message then hit send, then the second, and then the third.
The phone blows up as I start to set it down, all different numbers from before. One by one, I open them.
- Conquest
- War
- Famine
- Conquest
- War
- Famine
- Conquest
- War
- Famine
- Conquest
- War
And the last:
- Keep your family out of this, and we will, too. Involve them, that’s on you.
Then more and more messages pop open, all different phone numbers.
- Conquest
- War
- Famine
- Conquest
- War
- Famine
- Conquest
- War
- Famine
- Conquest
- War
- Famine
They keep coming until I finally shut my phone off.
The words—conquest, war, and famine—refer to three of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. The one they left out, the fourth—death.
When my door opens, I jump up and gasp.
“Jesus, Truth.” Justice laughs as he walks toward me. “You watching scary movie clips again?”
I nod.
“Sit down and get your leg up,” he says as he walks toward me, shaking his head.
I sit back and do just that. Justice then lifts my leg, props the pillow under it, and puts the cold compress back on my ankle.
I hear a sound and jerk my head toward the window.
Justice laughs and starts walking toward my door.
“Wait—tell me about your time with Bella and Tags.”
He looks back and laughs again. “You don’t wanna hear about it.”
“Yes, I do,” I say adamantly.
“Like hell you do. You’re scared. Let me grab my pillow and blanket, and I’ll be back.”
I don’t even deny the fact that I want him in my room, because I do, and that’s the truth.
Chapter Eight
Idiom
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
Truth
Let’s hope so.
I wake up listening to the all too familiar sound of my alarm, “Love Myself” by Hailee Steinfeld, and smile to myself, expecting Mom to come in and start dancing around my bed like she does every school day. So, when I hear her tiptoeing in and there’s no, “Ready to dance your way through the day, Tru?” I am confused.
As she turns off my alarm then tiptoes back out the door, I remember yesterday and the night before. I remember Justice sleeping next to me because, apparently, my one night of badassery was kicked in the tit by a text invasion by the horsemen.
I cover my head, close my eyes, and try to go back to sleep. I try, and I try, and I try, but it doesn’t happen, and I know why—I need to face shit head-on.
I scoot to the edge of my bed and pull the blanket off my head. I then grab my phone and turn it off airplane mode. There is only one message, a group message from the girls.
- Good luck today ~ Kiki
- Break a leg … but not really ~ Brisa
When I scroll through my old messages and see all of them except the two I received yesterday morning are gone, I sit straight up in bed. “No fucking way.”
Justice … shit. He must have seen and erased them, which would make perfect sense, but what makes no sense is that he didn’t wake me up freaking out.
I send him a quick text.
- Morning. We good?
- No. I’m fucking exhausted, and you’re sleeping in.
- Chat at lunch?
- Hitting the gym with Max and Amias. You got the girls and Patrick.
He’s not letting on one bit. Ugh!
- Chat after school?
-Everything good, T? You’re acting like a freak. Still hiding under the blanket?
- Fuck off.
- That’s better. See you soon.
I lie in bed for a while, wondering what Justice knows about last night. He didn’t mention a damn thing. He simply laid next to me and droned on and on about the special that Convicted Ink, Bella and Tags’ reality show, is doing starting in September and how awesome all the artists are. Some are from overseas, they came for a chance to compete in the twelve-hour challenge that starts at midnight and lasts until noon the next day. He also told me that they would have started earlier, but they specifically chose those hours so Bella, Tags, and Luna could come see me in the