Page 50 of Cruel Abandon (Fallen Royals 5)

I hope.

My phone buzzes again, then stops. Again.

I draw it out, confused.

“Mom?”

“Oh my god,” she answers. “Honey, Jake is on his way up there. Missing girls? You two were keeping this from me?”

I roll my eyes. “Unrelated, I’m sure. Everyone is freaking out over nothing.”

She huffs. “I’m not the one with a track record for lying, so I’m going to go ahead and not take your word for it.”

Jake is a junior in college—the same as Sky—and unlike me, he actually did get a full-ride scholarship—purely on academics. I never aspired to be as smart as him, but maybe that was my issue.

He got the short straw: public school, all my hand-me-down shit, the stuff my parents could barely afford to fix let alone buy new. He drove around my crappy, breakdown-prone car his senior year of high school and never complained.

We were always fixing that stupid thing.

I relied more on my friends for rides, and for the first time, I have to consider what Jake did. His best friend lived right next door, but she went to Emery-Rose Elite with me.

Talking to my mother brings out a certain stress that only she seems to be able to create. My neck gets stiff, my cheeks hot. I am calm and smooth under pressure… until I hold a conversation with Mom.

“Can we not do this?” I beg. “Did you tell Jake to leave school? He has classes.”

“He has a bucket of concern for his brother,” she growls. “You will call or text me every day, okay? Obviously we had to do something drastic.”

“Fine,” I snap. “Love you, but I’ve got to go.”

I understand her worry: Sky is the daughter she never had. And missing girls gets on everyone’s nerves.

I stow away my phone and go back to sulking. And then something miraculous happens: Sky flies out of the apartment. Her coat isn’t even on, her eyes wild.

If a person could have hackles, mine would rise.

Norton follows close behind, yelling for her to stop. She hesitates.

I cross the street, my anger spiking.

Itching for a fight—I didn’t realize I needed this.

He reaches for her arm, but then I’m there, stepping into the space between them. I tuck Sky behind me and grab him by the throat.

His eyes go wide. I don’t have a hard grip, but his fingers scramble against my wrist. It’s everyone’s gut reaction, but it rarely works. He could pry one of my fingers back until it broke—or until I let go from the pain. He could go for my eyes, which may or may not work since I’ve got at least two inches on him.

But really, it’s the hysterics that threaten to bubble out of him that irritate me the most.

I squeeze, just to silence his quiet blubbering.

“Listen to me.” My voice is low. It’s a trick Mom used on Jake as a baby, speaking softly to lower their own volume. It works on Mitchel now. “You do not touch her. You don’t fucking look at her. She better not so much as cross your goddamn mind, or I’ll be back, and it won’t be as friendly a visit as this. Got it?”

“Yes,” he rasps.

I shove him away. He stumbles but keeps to his feet, then turns and flees back into his apartment building.

I whirl around and grip Sky’s shoulders. “And you,” I growl, shaking her slightly.

Tears fill her eyes.