Page 24 of Vicious Desire (Fallen Royals 4)

No one except Eli.

Even Margo. Like the saint she is, she didn’t pry when I refused to answer basic questions. She came over my house last year, but Noah was already gone. His room was so bare, it was hard to even tell that I had a brother at all.

“The bell is going to ring,” she says, eyes on her watch.

A second later, it reverberates the air around us.

I nod. “We have five minutes to get to homeroom. I’ll show you.”

The courtyard is already pretty much empty by the time we pass through it. Down the hall and up the stairs to the second floor, and I point to a room on the left. “That’s where you’re going for first period.”

She nods, hurrying behind me.

“And this is homeroom.”

I follow her in.

Her mouth parts. “You’re in here, too?”

“And five out of seven of your classes,” I admit.

“Wow. Wonder if—”

“It was done on purpose? If you mentioned you knew me, it probably was.” I drop into a chair in the back of the room.

The guidance counselor has been trying to get me to make new friends for years. She was temporarily satiated last year when I made it clear I had made one: Margo Wolfe. It was only after the explosion between Amelie’s cheer cult and me—and getting kicked off the cheerleading team—that caused concern. She didn’t believe that Eli and I were friends.

But we were.

The rest of the morning passes surprisingly fast. Parker and I catch up as best we can between classes, but we have different lunches. I would hide in the library, but the new librarian is a stickler for following the rules…. And that leaves the cafeteria.

Every day, I’ve found a new hiding place. Today? I think I’ve run out of options.

And it’s too cold to go on the roof.

Skylar approaches, her expression wary. She was one of Amelie’s friends—a freshman, like me—and was similarly thrown off the popularity pyramid. Her fall was more recent, though. If I squint, I can still see her bruised ego.

“Where are you sitting?” she asks.

I tilt my head. “Me?”

Skylar’s lips purse, then smooth out. “We were friends once.”

Before she pulled the veil off my relationship with Eli, I suppose.

“You’re going to have to deal with me at practice, so why not make the most of it?” She balances her tray on one hand and sticks the other on her hip.

It’s absurd—but she’s right. And I’d really rather not eat alone.

“Fine,” I mutter.

I follow her to a table with other girls on the cross-country team, and they all say cheery hellos. But do they mean it?

“I saw you the other morning,” one girl, Leah, says to me. “You run in the mornings?”

I nod. “Yeah, helps get rid of enough energy so I can focus here.”

“It’s so early.” She shudders. “I live on Devonshire. You probably run past there before I’m awake most of the time!”