The Sinners - Ruby Vincent Page 0,71

he can’t get product in, he can’t pay the pot. His first priority was avoiding giving Rio another reason to shoot him.

Royal made to pull back and stopped. His phone hovered over my lap.

“Nice try,” he said under his breath.

“Royal?”

A darkening cloud passed over his face. Royal’s cell creaked under his tightening grip. “Nice try.”

“Royal? What—”

He shot up, startling me into dropping my fork. I didn’t get the question out before he grabbed my hand. “Ember, we need to go. Now!”

I chased him without a thought, tripping down the stairs, and racing outside.

“What’s going on?” I cried.

“Nice try! He knows, Em. It’s a fucking setup!”

I wasn’t following a thing he said. Royal ran faster, near carrying me around the food hall to the dorm building. He took the back staircase two at a time. My lungs burned staying on his tail.

What the hell is going on?!

Royal burst into the boys’ side and threw open the door to his room. Startled, boxes of pills flew out of Hiro’s hands.

“Shit, man! You scared me. I thought you were security.”

Royal didn’t hear him. He yanked out his drawers, tossing everything out and pawed inside. I goggled at him, chest heaving, shirt clinging to my sweaty back.

“The dealer knows we’re on to him,” Royal rasped. “Nice try. That’s what it meant! This random search isn’t random. Neither is that guy showing up in Horsemen territory dropping my name. I’m being set up.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?!” Hiro shouted.

Darting to his bed, Royal flipped the mattress in a single heave.

“I’m talking about this!” Over the leaning mattress, Royal held up a small baggie of white powder.

Stunned, I could only stare as Royal ran into the bathroom and flushed the vile stuff down the toilet.

Holy shit. It’s true. Someone did this! Who?!

“Hiro, quick,” he ordered. “Check the triplets’ room. They want the drugs found, so all the obvious hiding places. Ember, your room too. We all left during break and everyone knows you’re with us. Security must be on the second floor by now and we have to check everything, put it back, and be out long before they get here.”

I jerked like I’d been slapped. My room? It’s not possible.

“Ember, go!”

I took off running.

Cam’s and my room was neat, clean, and seemingly undisturbed. I tore the place apart. Under the mattress, in the drawers, the bathroom cabinet, the toilet tank, our shoeboxes, and even in our tampon stash. I searched every possible hiding place and then put it all back with hands that shook so badly I dropped Camila’s pen cup and broke it.

Someone planted drugs. This was serious. Bigger than silly feuds with the Raveners or Rio’s pathological need to control his territory. This was the people I loved being expelled, arrested, slapped with records, and their entire future thrown off course. Yes, in my cold bathroom as I flushed the baggie of white powder I found in Camila’s shoebox down the toilet, I could admit that I loved them.

They were the family I made when mine deserted me. Another shadow man was after them, and he wasn’t messing around.

“Ember!” Royal ran inside and scooped me off the tile. “Did you look everywhere?”

“I— I think so,” I croaked. “I mean, yes. I did. I found it.” I looked into his eyes. “I found it, Royal. In Camila’s stuff.”

“They got Cassius and Clay too.” Royal carried me outside and down the stairs. “They didn’t try with Hiro. Every place he can hide something is used for his products. He couldn’t risk Hiro stumbling on it himself.”

“Why would they do this? How did they even know it was you?”

Royal reached the pavilion. He set me down and took what might have been his first breath since he read that text.

“I took a gamble asking Destiny about the dealer, and another when I texted him with an unknown number.” Royal leaned over me, arms on either side of me, hair brushing my forehead. I saw through the gap in his shirt to the sheen of sweat covering his chest. “I assumed he’d have enough people sliding his number around that he wouldn’t notice. But I was wrong.” A harsh laugh tore out of him. “Or maybe it was Destiny. I don’t know anymore. This could have ruined us, Em. Kicked out in our senior year. Arrested. Cam loses her acceptance. We weren’t even close to finding him. He did this just to show us he could.”

“Royal, sit,” I whispered. “Breathe.”

Royal dropped to his knees. His