“You just broke a bet,” Tristan snaps as Lizzie starts off down the hall, dark ponytail bobbing. She turns around, her laptop and a huge hardcover textbook tucked in her arms, and purses her lips.
“Yeah, well, so did you.”
And then she spins away and disappears down the hall.
I don’t see hide nor hair of her for weeks.
“They want you dead.”
Lizzie’s words ring in my head, but I can’t seem to nail down one of the guys to get them to tell me why. Why me? What the hell have I done that’s so wrong?
“Zayd Kaiser,” I snap, putting my hands on my hips and pausing in front of him. He’s situated on the edge of the fountain in the front courtyard, lifting his shades up to look at me. We’ve got a week until Valentine’s Day, and I’m stumped on how to handle it with all five boys. Last year, Zack and I … Well, you know what Zack and I did. This year, I want to spend the day with everyone.
“Marnye Reed, long-time no see,” he says, as if he didn’t spend the night in my dorm last night. I haven’t told the guys this, but I’ve been putting their names in a hat and drawing one for every day of the week. The two remaining days I leave as a group day and a personal day. I only let the guys sleep over—or sleep over in their rooms—on the scheduled days.
It’s not a perfect system, but it’s working. That, and it manages to take the complicated real-life complexity of an alternative relationship and make it fit on paper, which I appreciate.
Zayd pats his lap like that’s the most logical place in the world for me to sit. I ignore him and sit beside him instead, trailing my fingers in the water and giving him a look. Last night, when I tried to ask about the Infinity Club, he started kissing my neck and I forgot my own name.
Today, he’s not going to be so lucky.
“You know, the boys and I were just discussing details for the tour this summer.” He lifts his phone up and wiggles it around. Ah, Saturday and the return of technology to the campus. It gets so quiet on weekends. That is, when people aren’t partying like crazy. “We sort of set it up, so that we go between here and Colorado. Keep it short, sweet, simple, and end with me sliding into your bed at Bornstead.”
I just look at him then, dressed in tight black jeans and boots, his shirt short-sleeved and covered in pins, and I try to imagine the type of life we could have together if I picked him. I’m so strait-laced, and he’s so … not. But I wonder sometimes if Tristan and I would be at each other’s throats after a time, we’re so damn similar.
Maybe Zayd could tour with his band, and I could teach seminars around the world or something … I’d spend all day working in a strict academic setting, and then he’d come back all sweaty and covered in ink and charged up from his performance and we’d—
“Marnye?” he asks, waving an inked hand in front of my face. “Whoa, beautiful, where did you go just now?”
I shake my head, and sweep my hands up to push some random loose tendrils of hair from my face.
“I want to know how Lizzie broke a bet, why she’s not like, dead or something, and why she said Tristan just did the same. I think I also deserve to know if people are trying to fucking kill me.”
“It’s … fuck, okay.” Zayd ruffles up his sea green hair with his fingers, and then glances out at the road like he’s waiting for someone. The bell towers above us ring, and birds scatter in the wind like leaves. “We tried, we really did. We … that’s all we did that week is try to fix things, so that Harper and the senior Infinity Club members would leave you alone. We failed at that, Marnye.” I remember Windsor’s face when he showed up at Dad’s house that day, all drawn and tired. “We tried. But we’re junior members, so …” He trails off and looks up at the sky, leaning back, the cluster of necklaces around his throat jangling. Absently, he reaches up with his left hand and plays with them. I notice some are badges from past concerts. One has a lipstick stain on it that makes my eyes narrow to slits. “The deal is, nobody can touch you unless they’ve attended the academy with you. Period. No hired hitmen or special police forces—”
“Are you fucking kidding?! Hired hitmen?” Zayd turns his head slightly to the side to look at me, like he can’t figure out why I’m so surprised by that.
“Uh, yeah. Does that really surprise you? Most people have a price, and for the right amount, sure, they could get some crazy ex-Black Ops guy to shoot you. It’s not even that far-fetched.”
“Even I have a price, Marnye. The only person I know who doesn't seem to … is you.”
I hear Tristan’s words echoing in my head like a warning and close my eyes.
“The Club takes real world shit, like economies or wars or political races, and turns it into something bite-sized and manageable. It’s like, aristocrats in a royal court playing at politics. The whole world runs on careful, behind-the-scenes maneuvering.” Zayd turns toward me and folds his legs on the edge of the fountain wall, putting his hands on his knees. “You’re the working class pawn, Marnye, risen up and fighting through the ranks. You’re taking out students whose families have been going to Burberry for generations.” Zayd gestures with his chin in the direction of the chapel building. “If their kids can’t take out one, lone scholarship kid, then what hope do they have for haggling with billionaires from China, or arranging trade deals with India.”
“So they’re going to kill me?” I ask, because it’s just too freaking surreal to believe.
“They haven’t made a move yet which scares me,” Zayd says, looking back out at the road. “But they will. Sometime before the end of the year, I know they will.” He turns to me again. “The deal is that they have until midnight of graduation day to kill you. That’s it. After that, we take the crown. If we win, the Infinity Club can never interfere with your life again, or the lives of those around you.”
“So you’d all be safe, too?” I ask, and Zayd smiles, almost sadly, his lip rings catching the glint of the sun.
“Whoever you pick, anyway. The lucky guy.” He spins one of his lip rings around with his tongue. “I don’t mean to sound like a total ass, but … please pick me.”
“What?” My cheeks flush as Zayd looks me in the eyes, his green ones swimming with so much color, like jade stones flecked with lime and emerald. There’s so much variation in that single color, if I were a painter, I’d want to recreate his irises on a canvas. Yep, I’m doing it. Waxing poetic again.
“Or have you already decided?” he sneers slightly, and I can see that mean boy bully coming through in him. “It’s Tristan, isn’t it? Fuck, I knew as soon as I heard you guys banged in the library. Jesus.” Zayd curls his fingers in his hair, and I reach out to grab his hand, pulling it away.
“I haven’t decided. I … I know you guys are probably desperate for me to make up my mind, but give me until graduation day. If I’m not dead by midnight, then I’ll … make a choice.” It’s meant to be dark humor, but like Charlie’s attempt, it just sort of falls flat.
“You picked me once,” Zayd whispers, and the yearning in his voice makes my heart ache. “Do it for me one more time.” He points at the Never Again tattoo on the side of his neck. “I’ll never hurt you again. You’ll be my little rock princess.” He pauses, nibbles at his lower lip. “No, you’ll be my rock goddess. We’ll travel the world together, and we’ll fuck in every country at least once.” My mouth curves into a smile, and I feel tears prick at the edges of my eyes. I’m not sure why. They’re just there, and I can’t stop them. “We have chemistry like nobody’s business. Stay friends with the other guys, I don’t care, but nobody can fuck like me and you.”
“You have a point,” I whisper as Zayd sighs and exhales, like he’s pushing aside his emotions for the time being. We both go quiet, listening to the wind whistle between the towers. “What bet did Lizzie break?”
“She wasn’t supposed to tell you about the deal. None of us were. But it’s … as long as we’re the only ones who know she broke it, and that I’m breaking it again now, it’ll be okay.”
“What’s the consequence?” I ask, and Zayd picks up a handful of pennies from the fountain, sorting through them and looking at the years before he tosses them all back in, and then goes for his wallet. Of course the rich dickhead doesn’t have pennies on him, so he gives us each a quarter to throw.
“The consequence is that the no long-range weapons clause is removed. Like, Creed climbed behind the wheel of a car and raced on a track for that. He almost flipped it and died.” Zayd looks back at me, and then squeezes his quarter, tossing it into the water with a splash. I wonder if his wish has something to do with me? “The Harpies and the Company, they can’t use guns or crossbows or anything like that on you. At all. Trust me, if they could you’d probably already be dead. Lizzie could’ve fucked us by telling you that.”
Shit.
So she really was mean girling me, wasn’t she?
On another note … guns and crossbows?! What the actual fuck?
“And Tristan?” I ask trying to stay calm here. Zayd smiles softly.
“He wasn’t supposed to sleep with you, not until we graduated. I think Lizzie was trying to give herself a fighting chance she never had. Tristan’s been in love with you since he first laid eyes on you, the very first day of first fucking year.”
“Bullshit,” I snort and Zayd lifts his head up to look at me, brows raised.
“Is it? Because he told me when he saw you, that he felt like his entire life was being rearranged inside his chest. I think it’s why he hated you so much, to combat the other emotions.” I say nothing, but my throat feels tight again, and I’m fighting back those strange tears at the corners of my eyes.