Total pages in book: 160
Estimated words: 155405 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 777(@200wpm)___ 622(@250wpm)___ 518(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 155405 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 777(@200wpm)___ 622(@250wpm)___ 518(@300wpm)
Hannah loses several shades of color. “Where did you get that?”
I crane my neck and look over at the screen. It’s a picture of Hannah on prom night junior year.
“Dare sent it to me. A parting gift from my king,” she murmurs, tracing Hannah’s collarbone again. “Cinderella wearing my dress. My necklace.” She turns her face so Hannah can feel her breath on her ear as she speaks. “Where is it?”
Hannah swallows. “I had the dress cleaned. It’s back in your closet.”
“I don’t care about the dress, Hannah,” she snaps, grabbing Hannah’s throat.
“Hey,” I say, jumping up from the table.
“I sold it,” Hannah cries. “Your mom halved my allowance while you were away. I had to sell the necklace. I needed the cash for school supplies and clothes. I could barely afford gas to get around town.”
That’s a lie. Her stepmom did cut back on her already minimal allowance, but before Anae came home, Hannah brought the necklace over to my house along with a taped-together photograph of her with her parents because she knew her valuables weren’t safe in her own home.
“Aubrey gave it to me to sell,” Hannah explains quickly. “I was never meant to keep it.”
“Why did you?” Anae asks, still touching her neck.
I’m deeply uncomfortable with Anae’s intimidation tactics. Sensing that, Hannah shoots me a pleading look to stay out of it.
I know Anae’s bullshit is nothing new and Hannah can handle herself, but I don’t want to stay out of it. The only reason I keep my mouth shut is I’m afraid I’ll only make things worse for her once I’m gone if I intervene.
Anae speaks again. “Did you keep it because Aubrey gave it to you, or because Dare bought it?”
Hannah is too afraid to speak. I understand why. She’s straddling two landmines. There is no right answer—only a wrong one and a more wrong one.
I’ve witnessed the shit Hannah has had to endure over the years, know how scared she was last year when Anae’s boyfriend pulled her into their tangled web and threatened… actually, I’m not sure what he threatened her with because she wouldn’t tell me, but I’ve surmised it was something evil to get Anae to target her.
“She hates Dare,” I state, trying to help without getting between them. “Why would she keep something because it was from him?”
“I’ve hated Dare, too,” Anae answers. “I still want the fucking necklace he bought me.” Just to Hannah, she murmurs, “She doesn’t get it, does she? She never brushed with him, doesn’t know the way he crawls beneath your skin and lingers there even when he’s not around. But you’ve brushed up against Dare, haven’t you, Hannah?” she murmurs, causing Hannah to swallow audibly. “Dare told me he paid you a visit in your bedroom one night while I was asleep. Told me he didn’t fuck you, but it turns out he lied to me quite a bit toward the end of our relationship.” Her fingers slide around Hannah’s throat with her long nails poised against her skin—not to hurt, just to threaten. “Did he?”
“No, of course not,” Hannah says nervously.
“Why did he have a picture of you in his phone?”
“To send to you, apparently,” Hannah mutters.
“Why does he want me to go after you?”
Hannah doesn’t appear to have an answer for that question. “I don’t know,” she says softly.
“Because he’s an asshole,” I state, since they’ve both lost their damned minds. “The guy was a complete psychopath. Why are we even still talking about him? He’s gone, and good riddance. This is a new year, a Dare-free year for both of you.”
They both look at me, Hannah uncertainly, Anae with a curious frown.
“We have a chance to start fresh this year. All of us. Why don’t we do it? Anae, you don’t just have a second chance at senior year, you have a second chance at freedom. If you do the same shit you did last year, you’ll end up right back where you were before—or worse. We all know you should be rotting in a cell somewhere, but here you are instead. Why?”
“Because Dare didn’t want me to rot away in prison,” she answers promptly.
I blink. “No. That’s the wrong answer.”
She shakes her head firmly. “He made sure I didn’t have to suffer for long. He convinced that awful girl to change her story to protect me.”
That is not at all how that went down.
I see her stay in the psych hospital has done wonders for her.
Ignoring her obvious instability, I point at her encouragingly. “This is your chance to reinvent yourself. You said it yourself, the evil king is gone—you don’t have to be the evil queen anymore.”
“I like being the evil queen.”
Trying to pull her along down this motivational road despite her apparent disinterest, I keep at it. “Fine, then be an independent queen, but you don’t have to be evil. You’re new to our class. Sure, people have heard stuff about you, but no one really knows you, right?”