Dukes of Madness: Royals of Forsyth U (Royals of Forsyth University Book 5)

One of the most annoying things about being Sy and Nick’s best friend is that they’re fierce individuals, but sometimes so alike that I can’t help but feel like a stray. Like right now, for instance, the way they’re both still and composed and looking perfectly chill as all five Kings enter the room.

Meanwhile, I want to gnaw my fucking fingers off.

Growing up, I always had problems with authority, so it’s not like finding myself in front of powerful men who wanted to slap the everloving shit out of me is something new. The stakes sure as hell have grown, though.

I wouldn’t know it, looking first at Nicky, and then Sy. Both of them have the perfect poker faces, chins raised, ready to face this head on. Nick has that cocky tilt to his mouth that always makes people flustered with the impulse to put him in his place, and Sy…

Sy looks like a Bruin.

Fuck the biological bloodline bullshit. I never really thought much of it myself. Sy’s a Bruin just as much as he is Perilini; just sometimes one dad’s influence shows more than the other. Here he’s all Davis Bruin, arms crossed to show off his bulging, sculpted muscles. Don’t fuck with me. He exudes it.

Doing my best to copy him, I slouch further in my chair.

Fuck, I wish I were high right now.

All three of us are silent as the Kings filter in. First, Ashby, King of the Princes, in his finely tailored white suit, and then the Baron King, in his black suit and ornate bronze mask. They’re an interesting contrast; light and dark, day and night, sterile, bright and ominous shadow.

Next, our own King, Saul Cartwright strides in, his stony face not even bothering to grace us with a look. After him comes Killian Payne, King of the Lords, and although he’s got a bit of that blank-faced Nick-action going on, I can still see annoyance clear in his features. I bet he’s got better places to be, and I suspect all of them are between his Lady’s supple thighs.

Man.

I know the feeling.

Lionel enters last and I try hard not to roll my eyes. Bit theatrical, if you ask me. We’re meeting in one of the only neutral places in Forsyth, too close to the campus for any substantial squabbles. It’s a building I’ve only been to once, the day after Sy and I got our titles as Dukes. Even then, we only stayed for ten minutes, nodding along to Saul’s directives like we weren’t bored out of our minds and ready to get to the real business—the massive celebration waiting back at the tower.

This place was the original Forsyth courthouse, built sometime in the 1900s. It fell out of use about the time the Royalty came to power. Not nearly enough pomp for the Forsyth elite, with its peeling walls and squat hallways. But in truth, I really like it, my eyes drawn to the intricate plaster molding, imagining the thought, care, creativity some old, dead fucker put into making it look… regal. It kind of reminds me of the clock tower, rich with history, the air thick with the scent of dust and old, crimson conflict.

If these walls could scream…

It’s on the historical register, so it’s kept up alright, but it’s only ever used for shit like this: cross-Kingdom meetings, initiations, and what we’re here for today, punitive tribunals.

This is just like being in Catholic school all over again, staring up at solemn men in their ridiculous garb as I get my dressing down.

One by one, they all take a seat behind the bench, nothing but the sound of an ancient boiler chugging to fill the space.

Until Ashby speaks. “Well, you all know why you’re here.”

Lionel Lucia, never one to miss an opening, instantly springs up, face flushed with fury as he jabs a finger in our direction. “You fucking mongrel bastards!”

Killian shoves him back to his seat, shooting the man a glare. “They get to prove their innocence, Lionel. Save it.”

“Yeah, I’m not gonna do that,” Nick says, voice perfectly clear. “I killed Bruno Perez.” Lionel looks at the others, gesturing to Nicky as if to say, See? Ashby’s face is hard with displeasure. Killian sighs, and the difference between him and Nick suddenly seems perfectly clear. Saul, on the other hand, looks like he could jump over that bench and strangle Nick himself.

Sounding bored, Nick goes on, “These two had nothing to do with it, though. I acted on my own, independent of the system.” And here’s the smirk, sharp and cutting. “It was fun.”

Lionel leaps from his seat again, reaching into his jacket for the gun he’s not even bothering to conceal. Sy stiffens when he sees the piece. None of us are packing—tribunal rules. Apparently Lionel is above those, too.

The Baron King gets there first, slapping Lionel’s hand away. “Oh, sit down, Lucia. You’re not the only judge here. Let the boy speak.” The Baron pushes Lionel into his seat, and then turns his masked nose back to Nick.

“He attacked our Duchess,” Nick explains.

Ashby looks around the room, as if he’s confused, searching for the punchline. “And?”

“And he paid for it.” Nick announces this while studying his fingernails. Jesus. To be that calm and collected instead of a mass of frantic energy.

“This is ridiculous,” Sy jumps in, unwilling to let Nicky go down alone. “Let’s just be honest here. Lionel and his Counts have been bucking Royal rules since as far back as I can remember. I might not have snapped his neck, but I stand behind my brother for doing it. Hell, I wish I’d been there to do it myself. It’s about time someone struck back at your slimy, slithering bullshit.”

“This isn’t how things are done,” Ashby insists.

The Baron King finally speaks, agreeing, “There’s a reason our Royals have cross-Kingdom impunity. It is, if I’m not mistaken, the only thing standing between the three of you and a multi-house mobbing.” He gestures vaguely to both Lionel and Ashby. More apathetically, he adds, “And Lucia girls are such troublesome creatures. Ask yourselves if she’s really worth the trouble, Nicholas. The last time I saw you, she seemed so willing to trade your life for trivialities, didn’t she?”

I look at Nick, confused, but Nick just stares coolly back at him. “That’s between me and her.”

Ashby interrupts, “Royal women have always been a vulnerability to their men, but no one made you choose an heir to a rival house as yours!”

“I didn’t want one at all.” Sy sits forward, fixing them with a hard look. “In fact, I remember being explicitly told in this very room that having a Duchess was non-negotiable. And why? What was it Saul told me?” He looks as if he’s calling up a memory that I know for a fact is already at the forefront. “Oh, right. Because they give us something to fight for. And yet, when we fight for her, you drag us into your farce of a courtroom to get a dressing down. How does that make sense?”

“Watch,” Saul growls, “your tone.”

“He’s right.” All eyes turn to Killian, who’s nodding at Sy. “I don’t know how it was in your time, Ashby, but speaking from a more… recent experience,” the barb at the man’s age is pointed, making Ashby’s eyes flare, “you force us to form attachments and then punish us for protecting them. It’s fucking stupid.” Ignoring the heat of the other Kings’ eyes, Killian casually continues, “The fact is, we give North Side too much leeway with the system. What’s the word you used? Impunity. We always have. And we all know why.”

“Keep pushing me, Payne.” Lionel grits out, tense and taut. “You’ll find out exactly why.”

Killian raises a palm, laughing humorlessly. “See? How the fuck do we let that stand?”

Ashby whirls to tell Killian, “Nothing is stopping you from arming your own house.”

Killian sits up straighter, his eyes as hot as lasers. “Let’s make one thing perfectly clear. My house is armed to the fucking teeth. Lucia defies territorial agreements by arming his. He should be the one sitting before us.”

Lionel snorts. “I’m not the one ambushing Royalty.”

“Your Counts ambushed my Queen. They kidnapped her and tried to rape her. I only allowed Perez to survive then because I was under my father’s command.” Killian out sizes every man on that panel by five inches and fifty pounds. He’s also at least twenty-five years younger. The Kings may be glib, but there’s deference to the Lord because of his sheer size. “Don’t play the victim, Lionel. None of us are buying it.”

Nick’s eyes flick from Killian to the rest of the men. “Hey, I didn’t ambush Perez. He attacked my Duchess on school property, and I ran him down. Our fight was clean. I just bested him. Again.”

“And now he’s dead,” Ashby says. “That’s not how we do it.”

“West End has taken three of my heirs,” Lionel says, voice low with controlled rage. “I have no one left to precede me, in blood or title. This is an act of war!”

Nick shrugs. “Not my fault you hitched your wagon to a baby back bitch.”

But Saul jumps in, face contorted in disbelief. “That’s rich, Lionel, coming from the man that wired this town to blow to hell and back if he doesn’t get his way. You couldn’t even keep your own daughters under control.” He gives Lionel a pointed look. “The women in your house seem to find trouble under your rule, don’t they? Is that the Duke’s fault as well?”

“Stop!” Ashby shouts, palms flat on the table. He peers down at Nick. “We know for a fact you were ordered to leave the Counts alone, because it was decided in this room, weeks ago, after you stole his daughter from his own home.” He regains composure, looking pompous in his crisp white suit. “At the time, we considered this to be an inter-house conflict. A contract dispute, if you will, over the ownership of Lavinia Lucia. That was a confined situation. None of us care which bed the northern whore finds herself in. But the Duke’s messiness continues to infect the rest of the houses. On top of a dead Count, my nephew, Felix, has gone missing. Considering his last appointment was a weapons drop with the three of you,” he gives each of us a significant look, “I’ll put two and two together and say that we have a rogue house on our hands. Your own King can’t control you. You’re rabid.”

Saul slams down his fist, his eyes murderous. “Are you calling my abilities into question?”

“That’s exactly what I’m doing!” Ashby glares back, and suddenly, the scene unfolds. It’s not just old men fighting. It’s decades of squabbles like this. Royals bickering over territory. Over soldiers. Over women. It spreads in front of me like an inevitable landscape. “Which is worrying, because you don’t even have a legitimate claim to that fucking seat!” Saul shoots up, and Killian places himself between them. Ashby goes on, gesturing to Nick, “If this is the Bruin that takes your Kingdom, this institution is doomed.”

Nick pipes in matter-of-factly, “I don’t want to be King.”

“Of course you don’t. You’re too busy sowing chaos with your disloyalties to head a house!” Lionel sneers. “Your word is worth less than the dirt on the bottom of my shoe, boy.”

That statement settles across the room in only the way the truth can. Lionel’s right. Partially. Nick’s loyalties are his own: to Sy, his parents, me and the Duchess. He’s too wild to be contained to one role for the rest of his life. Unfortunately for him, when he stepped back into the ring and took the win, he shackled himself to this fate.

Ashby eyes slide over to me. “And what do you have to say, Remington? How does it feel to know your fellow Duke has murdered a Royal, dragging you into a war?”

“Honestly?” I shrug, not bothering to lie. “I think it’s fucking hilarious. That punk bitch had it coming.”

Killian says in a warning voice, “Remy, watch it.”

“Don’t give him orders,” Sy says, glaring at Killian. “If you’d settled the score a year ago when Perez attacked your Lady, none of this would have happened. Since none of you would man the fuck up, it fell on us. We’re not going to apologize for it. And seeing as how you’re all here, you should hear this. The Dukes are done hanging off the ropes. If someone comes at us, any of us, we’re hitting back.”

Saul snaps, “You’re not King of this goddamn house! You’re not even a Bruin. You don’t get to make those calls, Perilini!”

Sy, fuming, clamps down on a remark he clearly wants to make and smartly remains silent.

“That’s enough,” Ashby says, looking annoyed. “We can argue about this all day. It wouldn’t be the first time, but there’s no escaping the consequences for your actions.” He looks down the panel. “Does anyone have a motion?”

“Strip these mongrels of their titles!” Lionel bursts, fist coming down on the bench. “And enforce the return of my daughter to her home.”

I jolt out of my seat. “Abso-fucking-lutely not!” Lionel’s mouth parts—to argue, no doubt. I speak over him, voice low and deadly. “You’ll never get her back. You’re lucky I wasn’t with Sy that night when he found her. I would have slit your fucking throat in your own goddamn bed.”

Lionel looks at the others, disbelief clear on his face. “You’re going to let one of our lessers threaten me like that?”

“Technically,” Nick offers, “that wasn’t a threat. It was a hypothetical.”

Ashby isn’t amused. “Mr. Maddox, another outburst like that and you’ll be removed from the rest of the tribunal.” Sy grabs me by the forearm and pulls me back down in my seat.

When the Baron King stands to speak, I doubt anyone’s expecting it. “I propose no punishment. Lionel’s viper had it coming. The Bruin boy earned his death. If not the Dukes, then another house would have taken him. To stand and face a foe—to fight for your life, instead of seeing it snuffed out with a pellet of lead? The viper’s death was an honor.” The masked Baron turns his focus to Lionel, ignoring everyone’s exasperation. “You speak a big game about the Dukes being out of control, but Perez was…” He pauses, gloved palms out. “Well, calling him a blood-thirsty lunatic would be an insult to my house, so let’s just say he wasn’t fit for the Royalty. If he acted on his own, then he deserved death. And if he acted on your orders—” Lionel opens his mouth to speak but the Baron lifts his gloved finger in warning. “I’d consider your next words carefully, Lucia, because if you were behind any of these acts then you’ll be the one we shine the spotlight on today.”

“I agree with the Baron,” Killian says, arms crossed over his chest. “No punishment.”

Ashby opens his mouth to vote but Saul cuts him off. “I have an alternative.” Nick watches our King carefully, eyebrow slightly raised. “Royal probation. One month. Friday Night Fury can commence, because all of us have investments in those fights, but they lose one week, and access to the gym for training is off the table.”

Sy bursts, “What?!” and Saul shoots him a glare. “How do you expect us to win if we can’t train?”

“No frat activities,” he goes on in a gritted voice, ignoring him. “No other appearances. No trouble at all, period.” Saul lifts his chin. “And the boys will do one run for you each. Whatever you need, they’re at your service.”

Saul shifts forward and back in his chair, and it makes me itchy. I haven’t seen him this worked up since Vinny moved into the tower. Leave it to Saul to find a way to make losing a fight a distinct possibility.

“This is bullshit,” Nick mutters under his breath, but then gets louder. “I did this. Not Sy or Remy. This is on me, I should take the heat.”

Ashby chuckles. “That’s part of the problem, boy. You don’t realize that every move you make affects the rest of your fraternity. Every single one of them is at risk from your behavior. You need to take some time to really understand what it means to be a leader.” He looks down the line. “Can everyone agree on the terms of probation?”

“No,” Lionel says like a petulant child.

“Yes,” says Killian.

“Yes,” votes the Baron.

And then Saul. “Yes.”

“I’m also a yes,” Ashby says, banging a gavel on the wooden podium. “But it’s the last amount of leeway I’m inclined to give.”

Things in the tower that night are tense.

There’s a couple hours where Nicky and Sy hunch over in the little nook below the loft, staring out the observatory windows as they talk in quiet, intense tones. I watch them from the doorway to my bedroom, feeling these unbearably orange niggles of suspicion that they know more than me.

Vinny, too.

She floats around the space like the moth on her chest, throbbing too hard to ignore, but too ephemeral to get a hold of. She worries, though. That much is obvious. When Sy goes to bed, shutting the door behind him, she lingers around the spiral staircase to her loft, waiting to be called inside. She’s got this mahogany-tinted aura about her. Anxious, maybe. Pissed off.

“He’s not mad,” I tell her when she wanders into my room, her gray eyes drinking in my newest series of canvases. “Not at you, at least.”

She reaches out to run her fingertips over a smudge of orange sky, feeling the raised, messy texture of dried acrylic. “I know. Sy isn’t like you and Nick. When he’s mad at me, he’ll tell me. In detail. Aggressively.” She slides me a look and I grin, small and devious.

“He’s not a subtle guy,” I agree, tapping my marker against the workbench as I watch her.

Every time she’s in here lately, she’s looking around, poking through my canvases. I can tell she favors the darker ones. The pieces slashed with red and black. She always looks at them longer, going still as her brain soaks in the pathos. Right now, she’s fixated on a demon, her onyx skin singed with fire, jaw open wide. I don’t care for it. It looks like something you’d find at a head shop—commercial and mass produced.

“Earlier,” I say, tapping my marker faster, harder against the worktop, “at the tribunal, the Baron King said something.”

She reaches out to touch the demon’s face. That’s another thing she does. She always feels the texture of the paint. If she were anyone else, my eyes would twitch in annoyance, but I always let her, feeling a fissure run through me at the sensuality of her touch. “Yeah?” she asks.

My marker keeps tapping. “Something about the last time he saw Nick. That you were willing to trade his life for something trivial.” Impatiently, I ask, “What was that about?”

She shrugs, tossing me a confused glance. “Well, he was there that night, wasn’t he? When Nick fought Perez for me?”

Frowning, I watch the marker, tapping. That could be it, but, “He acted like—”

“Can I have this?” She turns, holding up a charcoal sketch of Sy I did it right after we moved into the tower. It was part of a study on skin color, so he’s dark, the charcoal smudged out from the shadows. His eyes are unfinished, making him appear wraith-like, but I was so happy about the way I captured his hair—a dark, curly mass of energy following a fight—that I never bothered to complete it. “It’s really good,” she says, eyes wide and hopeful.

Wordlessly, I take it from her, going to my shelf and grabbing a can of fixative. Vinny follows, watching eagerly, hands clasped in front of her. She observes closely as I lay the paper flat, spraying a fine layer over the smudges and whorls.

“Might need a few coats,” I explain, laying it next to a series of sketches I finished for my life drawing class.

“Thanks,” she says, pushing up on her toes to kiss me.

I have more questions, but her tongue is hot and distracting, and when she drops her hand to cup my dick, the fuses in my brain spark to life. Instinct kicks in, because fuck yes. Wherever this is leading is more interesting and fun than going over the words of Kings.

I reach for her shirt, pulling it up, breaking away only to rip it over her head. The skull in the center of the moth stares back at me, so close to being completed, its wing spread wide. I touch it just like she’d touched my canvases, slow and reverent.

Everything falls apart after that. Lips and teeth, nails digging into flesh, wet and warmth and starshine. It’s so saturated with purple that I’m inside her before I even get my pants all the way off.

I’ve never fucked a girl like I fuck her just then, laid out on my bed, my eyes drinking in the sight of my ink covering her chest. I fuck her sweet and brutal, shoving her thighs wide, hips hammering into her as my lips make love to the piece on her chest. She cries out, fingers clutching and bruising, and it’s the best kind of music.

Afterwards, she sleeps in my bed.

But I don’t.

In the stretch of stillness between her breathless afterglow-sighs and the steadiness of her sleeping breaths, I think of snakes and horns. When I roll away from her and pull up my pants, I watch her from the corner of my eye. She tosses and turns, the silky expanse of a thigh hitched over my rumpled blanket like she’s seeking something to press against. But she doesn’t wake up.

A moment later, I’m pushing the blade of a knife into a small, viper-stamped pill, crushing it into a fine powder. White pigment, clean and new, and the black barrel from an old pen help it go up the chute.

Black means sorry.

It’s bitter in the back of my throat, but I’m used to it, cleaning up the evidence quickly before gathering my markers. I give her sleeping form, serpentine and curled, one last look before slipping out the door.

Across the tower, Nick’s room is dark.

I don’t mind it. It’s almost better this way, squinting into the fog of shadow to make out the outline I’d left on the inside of his door days ago.

Vinny’s face.

I spend the next five hours in front of it, frantically giving life to the vision that’s throbbing in the back of my mind. If Nick stirs, waking to the sight of me in front of his door, then I don’t notice it, too absorbed in the desperate need to exorcize it from my brain.

When I get to campus the next morning, my head is still firmly located in Nick’s room, ruminating over the image I’ve painted there, so I’m already annoyed. The worst part about studio time is that the teachers expect you to show variety. Spending too long on one piece—one style, one color, one subject—is an academic death sentence, but that’s just how the machine inside me runs. My brain can’t merely glance off an inspiration. It needs to hold it down, stare it in the eye, learn the substance and purpose of it. It takes weeks, months, sometimes even years.

It doesn’t help that my father is waiting at the entrance of the fine arts building.

He has a cup in each hand, a long wool coat pulled around him as he waits. His beard is well groomed, like always, and his hazel eyes pierce me like lasers. When I freeze, hand fisting the handle to my portfolio too hard, he gestures to me with a coffee. “I come in peace.”

I push past him, swiping my student ID against the card reader. “Fuck off. It’s too early for this shit.” The surprise is reckless of me. He stopped incessantly calling my phone three days ago. That was a sure sign of an incoming ambush. Sy would be embarrassed at my lack of situational awareness.

“For you, maybe,” he says, following me into the building. “Or should I say late? You look like you haven’t gotten a lick of sleep. Predictably. You never were very good about taking care of yourself.”

Ignoring him, I climb the stairs to the second floor. I share studio space with three other people, but none of them are in yet, so I flick the lights on, dump my shit into my corner, and shuck off my jacket. “If you’re here for the phone, you can forget it. I already chucked it off the clock tower.”

I sense his pause more than I see it, busying myself with the fresh, new canvas in front of me. “Well, that’s too bad,” he says, setting the coffee on the table beside me. “But easy come, easy go.” After a beat, “It’s been destroyed?”

I shoot him a glare. “That’s what I just said, isn’t it?”

Sighing, he lifts his own coffee to his lips. “I don’t know why you’re so pissy with me, Remy. All I’ve ever done is—”

“Manipulate, control—”

He fixes me with a hard look. “What’s best for you.”

“Yeah,” I say, scoffing, “you’re a real giver.”

“That’s enough.” His mouth tenses as he sets down his cup. “I don’t like this. You’re not taking care of yourself. Simon is no longer updating me on your day-to-day condition. And to top it off, now there are all these rumors about you being involved in a murder.”

“It’s none of your business,” I insist, feeling antsy and amped up. I’d snorted another pill before leaving the tower, and now it’s battering against my chest.

“My own son’s reputation is absolutely my business,” he argues, voice rising. “You’re growing too visible here, Remy. Allowing you to become a Duke was obviously a mistake.”

I whirl to him, incensed by the casual displeasure in his tone. “You didn’t ‘allow me’ a goddamn thing. I fought for it. I worked for it. I took it. None of it is because of you!” It’s why he hates my major. There’s nothing in it that he can point to and say, ‘That’s because of me’. It’s not big enough—not flashy enough. “That’s the real reason you hate me being here, isn’t it? You can’t own a part of it, and it drives you fucking crazy.”

“Oh, Remy. You can’t really be so blind, can you?” Father tilts his head, a sad smile softening his features. “I own so much more than you think. Your tuition, your degree, your transportation, your dues to Saul.” Shrugging, he notes, “The only reason they want you at all is because of my money.”

I bark a humorless laugh. “Is that what you tell yourself?”

“I’m only saying this so that you’ll see these people for what they really are.” His face grows firm, eyes hardening. “They don’t care about you. Not like family does. Not like I do.”

I’m shaking my head before he even finishes. “That’s a lie. You don’t know them.”

Gently, he responds, “It’s the truth, and somewhere deep down, you know it.”

“Sy—”

“Thinks you’re his lab rat. You’re his dissertation, son. Your diagnosis, your behavior—it’s his midterm project.” He lifts a hand, gesturing wildly. “And Nick? He wants your connections to the law. It’s the only way he could possibly get out of all this trouble he’s been in.”

“Where are you even getting this?” I ask, gawking at him. “Nick’s never asked, not once—”

“But you have.” Father raises his chin, daring me to deny it. “How many calls have you made to your uncle this year alone? How many times have you used your connections to the police force to get Nick above water? A little cover up here, a little extortion there.” He gives me a sad look, full of dread. “You do it because you’re a good man. I know that. You want to take care of the people you love. But sometimes, all people see is what you can do for them.”

“Stop.” I push my fingers into my gritty eyes, temples throbbing. “You’re twisting things around.”

But he barges on. “They’ll stab you in the back. They’ll use you. They’ll go along with your delusions to make you feel accepted.”

“No.” I shake my head, fingers twitching with an impulse I can’t even give in to. Vinny isn’t here to show me her star, but I still try to count them, vivid in my memory, envisioning the points.

One, two, three, four, five—

“And don’t get me started on the Lucia girl,” my father goes on, voice flippant. “It’s a bit convenient that a King’s daughter ends up in your bed, isn’t it?”

Losing count, I snap, “You don’t know anything about her.”

His grin holds, knowing and cold. “I’ve had more women in my bed like her than you can imagine. She’s using you, Remington. For your money, your connections, and your power. Put your marks on her—your bears and silly stars—but don’t think for a second she’s loyal to you.”

My head snaps up, the words stabbing through my thoughts like daggers.

…your bears and silly stars…

How the fuck does my dad know about her tattoos?

“No,” I tell him, slamming my hands over my ears. “You’re lying! Shut the fuck up!”

I turn and face my worktable, taking a deep breath. Several, filling my lungs with air, trying to still my mind. This is what he does, I remind myself. He needles and pokes and prods until I’m twisted up and can’t find my way back again.

Not anymore. Not with Vinny.

My hands drop, slamming on the metal table. “I’m not letting you get in my head and mess with my mind. People may fake their way into your life and into your bed, but that’s not my life. I have real friends, a family, and a girl I can trust.”

I say this aloud, facing the paints and pens and paintbrushes sorted into the shelf in front of me. It’s less to him, than to me. A mantra. But I have to face him. I know that. Curling my hands into tight fists, and I spin, ready to show him real power.

But he’s gone. No longer in the doorway. No longer sucking in my air. No longer existing. I rush to the hallway and find it empty.

I blink, filled with a blinding, blood-rushing anxiety that he was never here to begin with. Panic builds, mixing with the lingering bitterness of the Viper shit in the back of my nostrils. Jesus Christ. Here or not, I let him get to me, but there’s one thing I won’t let him do.

Get to her.