Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 44009 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 220(@200wpm)___ 176(@250wpm)___ 147(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 44009 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 220(@200wpm)___ 176(@250wpm)___ 147(@300wpm)
“He put up a fight and fled the school. Who knows where he’s at?” Arvo muttered bitterly. “Should’ve fucking had him.”
I didn’t say anything at first. This wasn’t a good situation for either of us because a planned assassination of a King had failed. We were now under the scope, and Sol probably knew that it was us. We’d betrayed our own, and that was strictly looked down upon.
However, I couldn’t help but feel relieved that Sol was alive. His death would’ve haunted me, and I wasn’t going to act like I was completely cold and heartless. There was a time when I saw Sol as a friend, as someone who I could trust. Maybe that wasn’t the case any longer, but he was still one of us, and there weren’t many Kings left.
My father would’ve acted more like Arvo, acting on his strong taste for violence that I didn’t share. If I could avoid violence to get something done, I tried that first. Too much pointless bloodshed had already taken place at Stormcloud, and I didn’t want to add to that.
Perhaps, dead men spilled no secrets and caused no harm, but killing someone was my last resort. If it was for the right reason, I could still sleep at night. Arvo, on the other hand, wouldn’t be bothered whether it was someone guilty or innocent. He only cared about how he was affected because it was his form of self-preservation.
“We need to watch our backs,” I told Arvo. I didn’t know if Sol was the type for revenge, but I wasn’t going to let my guard down. I didn’t plan on going down any time soon.
“I’ll kill him if he steps foot back on campus,” Arvo scoffed. “He got lucky.”
Sol was stronger than Arvo took him for. Even I knew that. I didn’t expect the mission to be easy, but Arvo also wasn’t the type to fail. What Sol had over both of us was his element of surprise and mystery. No one knew what to expect from Sol, and that was what made him so dangerous and hard to pin down.
“Well, luck helped him escape. We don’t need to let anyone find out what happened. If news gets out that we turned on him, people will think the Kings are splintering apart. It makes us look weak,” I told him firmly. He didn’t need to be running his mouth to anyone. We were already in a bad position because of our botched plan.
“No one will know,” Arvo assured me. “It doesn’t matter anyway. Everyone knows what happens if they try to cross us.”
There was that thirst for violence. Arvo was so desperate to prove his strength and dominance. I liked demonstrating my own, but I didn’t feel the need to beat up everyone who looked at me funny. That was why I was the leader. I could control my anger. Mostly.
“Just stay low until I get back. Let me know if anything else happens.” I sighed as I looked around my suite. I wouldn’t have been able to relax if Sol got killed or not. So much for a getaway.
Being away from campus relaxed me and stressed me out at the same time. I didn’t like being out of the loop, but it was nice to take a breath and be away from the craziness. I could briefly act like my life wasn’t so complicated. I could even pretend like it was normal.
“Yeah, I will,” Arvo muttered before hanging up the phone.
I dropped my phone down next to me before flopping down on my back, staring up at the ceiling. This school year kept getting more and more complicated. Things were so different from how they were at the beginning of the year. Loyalties had changed. Relationships had shattered.
I was wary about what was going to happen next. Who else was I going to lose?
CHAPTER 20
THEO
A vibrant fire crackled in front of my eyes, filling the entire base of the small fireplace. A light, smoky smell took hold of the cabin’s interior, along with a sensation of pure warmth. Why didn’t it warm me up? I still felt so cold, frozen.
I pulled my knees closer to my chest as I sat in front of the fireplace, staring into it with dead eyes. I couldn’t stop thinking about that bullet hole in the back of Simone’s—my mother’s—head. I didn’t even know that she was my mother until right before she was shot and killed.
How was that fair? I didn’t even get a chance to get to know her. I saw her as a completely different person before that moment. She was just school staff before then, she wasn’t important. At that moment, she encompassed my whole world, only to be taken right out of it.
Bile rose in my throat as I tried to erase the bloody memory from my mind. If only it would go away. There wasn’t much to do out here in the middle of unknown woods but think, and I had done plenty of that since fleeing from Stormcloud weeks ago. I just couldn’t bring myself to go back there after what happened. After everything that happened.