The Risk: Kings of Linwood Academy #3 Read online

  “Yeah. Amazingly, that doesn’t make her less of a bitch though.”

  He rolls his eyes in agreement as we round the corner and the queen bitch herself comes into view.

  Savannah looks like a model, with long red hair that’s always carefully styled to seem like it isn’t styled. She’s got pouty lips, big blue-green eyes, and a perky rack, and she uses all three of those things like weapons—like tools to get what she wants.

  Which, apparently, is still Trent.

  I wondered if she’d break up with him after he blabbed all her secrets to the guys when they hauled him out behind a nightclub downtown and beat the crap out of him. It still turns my stomach to think of it, but I have a hard time mustering much pity for Trent, knowing he’s the one who assaulted me after a poker game at the warehouse.

  “Guess she forgave him,” I mutter under my breath as the guys and I walk past Savannah, who’s rubbing up against Trent like a horny cat as he leans against the bank of lockers.

  “Or, more likely, decided she’s not done using him,” Dax corrects with a snort.

  He’s probably right. Trent started dating Savannah just a few weeks after Iris died, and from the very beginning, it seemed more like a mutually beneficial power move than a relationship based on actual feelings.

  Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure they’re fucking, but it’s not like they actually care about each other or anything.

  They both look up as we pass, and Savannah practically hisses at me. I swear I can see literal hackles rising on her back. I’ve still got a good amount of blackmail material on her, but I don’t know if it’ll be enough to stop her from coming after me—or if she’ll just get more devious about it.

  Trent’s reaction is almost the complete opposite of Savannah’s. Instead of looking pissed, he looks scared. He straightens a little, pushing the redheaded cheerleader away from him and licking his lips nervously as the four guys surrounding me stare him down. I can see his fingers twitch nervously, like he’s not sure if he should form fists or not.

  Principal Osterhaut has made it clear that he has a zero-tolerance policy for fights on school ground though, so I wrap my hand around Linc’s bicep in warning, shaking my head slightly when he glances at me.

  “Don’t worry, Low.” His lips quirk up in a dangerous smile. “We’ll just keep him busy while you chat with Savannah.”

  God, I hope they can keep their shit together.

  I don’t think any of them intended to go after Trent so hard at the club, but when they realized what he’d done to me, they just sort of snapped.

  Giving his arm one more squeeze, I affix him with my most serious glare, and he surprises me by leaning over to kiss me.

  River’s shoulder is brushing my other side, and Chase and Dax are standing close behind us. Everyone at Linwood knows we’re all close—they see us together all the time—but this is the first time I can remember that Linc has kissed me at school. Especially like this, with his boys standing so close, all hovering around me protectively as if they’ve laid claim to me too.

  They have.

  But I’m not sure everyone here knows it.

  Or knew it.

  Savannah’s eyes fly open wide, then narrow quickly as her gaze travels down to where River’s fingers are loosely tangled with mine. She looks like she just swallowed something unpleasant, and when we walk closer to her and Trent, she stiffens just like her boyfriend did.

  Linc steps forward, jerking his chin at her. “Savannah. Harlow needs a word with you.”

  “What?” She scowls, the fear I saw for a moment vanishing under a fresh wave of disdain. “Why the hell would I want to talk to that skank?”

  Chase and Dax both make angry noises in their throats, and I feel River tense beside me. They’ve warned Savannah before about laying off me—multiple times—but she doesn’t seem to remember the message.

  “Because if you don’t talk to her,” Linc says smoothly, keeping his voice low and almost pleasant. “She’ll have to go find other people to talk to. About other things.”

  Savannah’s mouth snaps shut like a steel trap. Her nostrils flare, and I know she gets the veiled reference to the damaging information we have on her.

  It’s actually nothing all that bad. She hasn’t fucking killed anyone or anything. Most of it isn’t even stuff she’d get in trouble for.

  But it is embarrassing. It would tarnish the reputation she’s spent years building up in this place, and I think that matters more to her than the threat of punishment ever would.

  Her jaw clenches as she glances from Lincoln to the rest of the kings to me. Trent has stepped back two paces, and it looks like he’s considering running while the guys are distracted.

  God, why am I not surprised?

  He’s perfectly willing to ditch Savannah and let her face the music alone, just like his so-called friends let him get dragged outside the club by the four boys flanking me.

  This is what happens when you hang out with people who don’t actually give a shit about you, who are just using you for their own benefit. When the chips are down, when it really fucking matters—they vanish.

  None of the kings would leave each other behind for anything, no matter what kind of threat they faced. And I’m pretty sure by now that they wouldn’t leave me behind either.

  I know I wouldn’t leave them.

  “Fine.” Savannah bares her teeth as she says the word. She puts a falsely sweet smile on her face and turns to me. “What do you want to talk about?”

  “I’ve just got a couple questions for you,” I say, ignoring her little temper tantrum. She’s doing what we want, and that’s all that matters. Besides, the bell will ring in about ten minutes, so we don’t have any time to waste. “But not here. Come with me.”

  I grab her arm, and she yelps angrily as I tug her down the hall toward the girls’ bathroom. Low voices rise up from behind us, but I don’t turn back to see what the guys are saying to Trent. I have to trust that they’ll be smart and keep their cool enough not to get busted, and right now, my sole focus is Savannah.

  Pushing the bathroom door open, I pull her inside, then release her to peer under the doors of each of the stalls. There’s no one in any of them, and the freshman girl washing her hands at the sink takes one look at us and scampers out, her hands still dripping.

  As soon as the door closes, I turn to Savannah, only to find her eyes narrowed into slits.

  “So I was right.” She takes a step toward me, cocking her head. “God, you really are the biggest skank to ever walk these halls. You are fucking all four of them.”

  I’m not, actually. Or at least, I haven’t yet.

  But I do want to. And I probably will.

  I’ll be damned if I let someone like Savannah make me feel bad about that though. What I have with the kings of Linwood feels more solid than any other relationship I’ve had with a guy in my life, and although an intense attraction simmers between all of us, it’s about a hell of a lot more than that.

  I like them.

  I’m friends with them.

  I’m falling in love with them.

  My non-reaction doesn’t seem to be what Savannah was hoping for, so she tries again.

  “You know, having four boyfriends doesn’t make you cool or anything.” She tosses her hair over her shoulder, glaring at me. “It just makes you a filthy slut.”

  Anger twists in my stomach, and I lift a mocking eyebrow. “Says the girl with one boyfriend. If you can even call him that. I dunno.” I scrunch my nose up, pretending to think about it. “When the guy you’re fucking has a dick that small, what do you call him? Half a boyfriend?”

  “You fucking bitch!”

  Savannah’s enraged squawk is the only warning I get before she launches herself at me.

  Oops. Must’ve hit a nerve.

  I dodge out of the way of her claw-like fingernails and grab one of her backpack straps, yanking her off balance and then shoving her away from me.

  “
Watch. It.”

  My tone is hard as I level a warning finger at her. I’m done taking her shit, and I didn’t bring her in here to get into a stupid catfight.

  Savannah grips the edge of the sink counter to steady herself, then slowly turns around to face me. I can tell by her expression that she’s tallying up everything I know about her, weighing it against the satisfaction of trying to kick my ass. My blackmail material wins—this time.

  She holds up her hands in a sullen, placating gesture and huffs a breath. “Fine. What do you want to know?”

  “You told me that Iris was seeing an older guy. Someone she called her gray fox. Remember?”

  “Of course I remember, you idiot. I’m the one who told you.”

  “Did she say anything else about him?”

  Savannah scowls at me. “Why the hell do you want to know?”

  I grit my teeth. “Because I’m collecting boyfriends, and I want to raise the average age of my harem.”

  Her brows bunch up in confusion, and I roll my eyes. Should’ve known math jokes would go over her fucking head.

  “I just want to know if she said anything else about him, all right? You mentioned that she met him through someone they both knew. Who was that?”

  She still looks suspicious. “Why do you keep asking me about Iris?”

  “Savannah!” I swear to God, I can feel my blood simmering in my veins. “Just fucking tell me.”

  She throws up her hands, glaring right back at me. “I don’t know who it was, okay? Some girl she knew from another school. Waverly Prep, I think. I don’t know anything about her, except that she apparently had some amaaazing tattoo that Iris wouldn’t stop talking about. Iris kept saying she was gonna get one too. Like she ever would’ve had the guts.”

  Savannah rolls her eyes, then bites her lip. I think she might feel a little bad for speaking ill of the dead.

  Fuck. A girl from Waverly Prep with a tattoo. That’s all we have to go on?

  “Iris never even mentioned her name? Never told you anything else about her?” I ask desperately.

  “No!” she glares at me. “We didn’t tell each other every fucking thing. This girl was like her ‘rebel friend’ or whatever. She never told me much about her, but she obviously fucking worshipped her. And Iris told me that’s how she met the older guy she was seeing on the side—through this girl.”

  “Are you—”

  The bell blares loudly, cutting me off, and Savannah shoves away from the sink, tugging on the hem of her shirt. It got twisted and bunched up when I spun her around.

  “I told you everything I know. Are you happy now?”

  “Not really,” I say honestly.

  She laughs hollowly, then steps toward me, lowering her voice a little. “Good. I know you think you’ve got all this fucking power over me now, and that I’ll just be your little bitch for the rest of the semester. But don’t think I’ll come running every time you call. And don’t think I won’t find some way to get you back.”

  Before I say anything, she whirls and stalks toward the door, yanking it open and disappearing from sight.

  Great.

  7

  None of the guys have any idea which girl Savannah was talking about. Waverly Prep is a rival school, so they don’t know a lot of kids who go there. But they start putting out feelers, asking around Linwood. Someone here has to have an idea who this mystery girl is, or at least have an in with the Waverly crowd so we could ask someone there.

  I hold on to hope for the first few days, but by Thursday, I’m starting to get antsy when we still haven’t turned up any useful information. This is the best lead we have, so I refuse to let it die, but it’s taking too damn long—and we don’t have that kind of time.

  There are other things we can try, other avenues we can pursue, but they’re more risky. They involve getting closer to Judge Hollowell, which increases the chances of him finding us snooping around, so the guys are adamantly opposed to trying any of those options until we know we’re out of better ones.

  I get what they’re saying, but by Friday, I’m about ready to crawl out of my damn skin.

  It’s a struggle to keep up with classwork. I managed to get all my homework done just before the winter break ended, but I’m already falling behind again. I don’t want to flunk out of school, mostly for Mom’s sake, but I can’t focus on homework at all right now.

  It doesn’t help that my birthday is on Saturday.

  It’s a day I usually spend with my mom, eating too much ice cream and doing something fun and silly just to celebrate being alive.

  But this year, we can’t do any of that.

  She wanted me to come visit her at the prison, but her visitation hours are getting low, and I told her it’s more important for her to meet with Scott than me, so she can get him on board with her defense strategy. It’s true, but I’m also just not sure I’d be able to keep from breaking down and sobbing if I go see her on my birthday, and I don’t want to make her feel sad.

  I wake up early on Saturday morning and stare up at the ceiling, listening to the quiet sound of my breath.

  I’m in the guest room down the hall from Dax and Chase in the Lauders’ house. When River and Linc delivered my bags the day after Christmas, the twins set me up in an actual room of my own. I’ve slept in Dax’s room a couple more times, curled up between the two boys, but the rest of the time, I’ve been in the massive guest bedroom.

  Part of me is champing at the bit to take things further with them, but just like it did with River, something is holding me back. I’m learning to trust my gut on this, to let things happen at their own pace with these boys and believe that they’ll work out just like they’re supposed to.

  I don’t doubt the bond between all of us. It may have been created by Iris’s death, but it’s been solidified by so much more than that since then. Still, there’s something fragile and delicate about this five-way relationship we’re building. It’s all new to me, and I’d rather take things slow than rush into it too fast and wreck it somehow.

  It means too much to me.

  I do sort of regret sleeping alone last night though. My birthday has put me in a weird funk, and I thought I needed to be by myself to get through the day, but maybe I was wrong about that.

  Yesterday, I told the guys I didn’t want to do anything for my birthday, because I worry that no matter what I do, I’ll just spend the whole time thinking about Mom and missing her. And if I do manage to have fun, that’ll only make me feel worse, in a way.

  The clock on the nightstand reads 6:47 a.m. It’s gonna be a long fucking twenty-four hours, so even though I’m not really tired, I close my eyes and try to doze for a while longer.

  A knock on the door wakes me from a half-sleep at around nine, and I roll over onto my side as I call out, “Come in.”

  I’m sure it’s the twins. There’s no one else it could be. I’ve learned to treat Mr. and Mrs. Lauder like the wildlife on a safari. Don’t bother them, and they won’t bother you. They know I’m staying here, and unlike River’s parents, I see them around the house all the time. But they just smile politely and ignore me.

  It’s so fucking weird.

  “Hey.” Chase’s copper hair appears as he pokes his head inside the room. “You gonna sleep all day?”

  I shrug, the motion hampered by the covers that are pulled up around my ears. It hasn’t snowed since Christmas, but it’s still too fucking cold. “Was thinking about it.”

  He pulls a face, sympathy overtaking his features. Then he opens the door wider, and both he and Dax step inside. They cross to the bed and sit down, Dax’s hand finding my hip through the covers. The warm weight of his palm is comforting.

  “You can’t, Low. Sorry.” Chase grimaces, and I prop myself up onto one elbow, wondering if something’s happened.

  “Why? Did you find out something about the Waverly girl?”

  “No.” Dax shakes his head. “Still working on that. But… well, River had an idea, and
we all thought it was a good one. We know you said you didn’t want to do anything for your birthday, but you never said you didn’t want to do anything on your birthday. So we sort of made plans.”

  I scowl, but I can’t make the sour expression stay on my face. I did say I didn’t want to do anything, but with the entire day looming empty before me, I was just starting to regret that.

  “What plans?” I ask.

  “You’ll see when we get there,” Chase says, his grimace disappearing as a smile takes its place. Then he gives my ass a little slap. “Get up and get dressed. We’ll have breakfast ready downstairs.”

  I lift my eyebrows, sort of liking this pampered feeling.

  “Okay.” I put on a faux aristocratic voice. “I prefer my Eggs Benedict lightly poached.”

  Dax chuckles. “I can give ’em to you scrambled and rubbery. How do you feel about that?”

  “I guess I’ll take it.” I laugh and slip out of bed to head to the attached bathroom. Even the guest bedroom has one, and it’s fancy as fuck.

  The promised breakfast is waiting downstairs when I’m done, and despite Dax’s big words, the eggs are actually cooked perfectly. They made coffee too, and Chase hands me a cup as I settle into a seat at the marble island overlooking the backyard through floor-to-ceiling windows.

  I try a couple more times as we eat to get an answer out of them about where on earth we’re going, but they remain tightlipped. Maybe it should make me nervous, considering our history together—the first time they ever took me somewhere without telling me where we were going, it was to a strip club so they could gather blackmail material on Trent.

  But so much has changed since then that instead of nervousness, I just feel curiosity and a little bubble of excitement. If nothing else, guessing what they have planned is taking my mind off the acute pain of missing my mom today.

  Mr. Lauder comes downstairs on his way out to play golf and says hi to all of us before he leaves. We leave only a few minutes after him, piling into Dax’s car and heading out to pick up the other two boys.