of the two of them together haunts me for the rest of the day, duking it out with the image of Gabriel locked in a cell. It doesn’t help that Isaac finds me after Women’s Studies class and asks me shyly if George is still single. “She keeps ghosting me and not answering my texts, and I’ve seen her hanging with Eli Hart at school. I thought he had a thing for you, but if he and George are an item, could you tell me? I don’t want to harass her if she’s not interested.”
He sounds so dejected. I assure Isaac that everything is fine and George is still crazy about him, even though I honestly don’t know anymore. When I saw them together at the football game, I thought they were being friendly, but now I’m not so sure.
When Isaac is out of sight, I slam my fist into my locker, leaving a second dent in its formally pristine surface.
As soon as the final bell rings, I rush to the gym to see Antony, hoping he’s managed to find out something about Gabriel. But he’s already left. A text beeps on my phone.
I’m needed at the club. I’ll be home tonight with news. Don’t go to the station yourself or send the Dark Horse or do anything else stupid. You can’t help him.
Goddamn Antony, he knows me too well. There’s nothing for me to do but go back to Malloy Manor to stew in my nervous rage.
Noah makes extra-strong coffee for both of us and spreads out his homework across the ballroom. Queen Boudica leaps on his history project, spreading papers everywhere. Noah growls at her, but five minutes later he’s on the floor tickling her stomach, his assignment forgotten.
She’s got him wrapped around her little paw, which is as it should be. Noah may be a dark prince, but he knows when to bow to a queen.
I stare down at the pictures I snapped on my phone for potential future purposes. George and Eli? I can’t believe it. They look so cozy together, smushed up in the beanbags whispering to each other while they point to something on George’s laptop. It could just be an assignment they’re working on, but why lie to me about it? And after the football game, too…
I can’t see George cheating on Isaac. So why did she lie?
She did it so smoothly, too. She’s a natural. I should take lessons from her.
At least looking at the pictures is more fun than social media right now. The story of Gabriel’s ‘confession’ has spread across the world. Musicians are posting their own stories and videos from tours with Octavia’s Ruin, building a narrative of Gabe as this out-of-control drug fiend who doesn’t know his ass from his elbow most of the time. That last part is true enough, and everything is just this side of believable that it’s tough to read.
If he gets out of this mess, he needs to sort out his shit.
I’m happy to see the band from homecoming, Broken Muse, release a statement on their social media supporting Gabriel and calling for their fans not to judge someone based on clearly doctored social media ‘evidence.’ But a link in the comments leads me over to Cleo’s YouTube channel where she’s posted three ‘confessional’ videos about Gabe that are complete bullshit. Utter bollocks, as Gabe would say. And she’s gained another two hundred thousand followers overnight, good for her.
“Argh!” I toss my phone across the room. Queen Boudica looks up from her position on Noah’s stomach, studying the flying rectangle as it hits the wall and drops onto her cat bed.
She hops off Noah and trots over to me, climbing into my lap and kneading her sharp claws into my thigh. I stroke her fur and feel a tiny bit calmer. It’s been the two of us alone in our palace against the world for so long, and now her world’s been flipped upside down alongside mine. But she’s taken everything in stride.
Her eyes narrow in concentration as if tearing my thigh to shreds is the most important business in the history of the world. As I bury my fingers in her fur, I graze over the raised scar where that bastard cut her. A hot sizzle of possessiveness courses through my veins. I remember what I’m fighting for.
Queen Boudica didn’t know she’d chosen another queen when I took her home from the diner that night. But she’s my family, same as Antony