Page 9 of The Prince of Broken Crowns

I curse under my breath as my gaze sweeps the front area of the apartment complex. As I suspected, more people are hanging around in the parking lot beside an old, beat-up red car—two more guys and a girl to be exact. All of them are wearing hoodies, and they’re causally glancing in this direction.

They have to be the same people who tried to jump me earlier.

This is so bad.

I move away from the window and duck down, even though there’s no way they can see me with the curtain closed. But the anxiety of them being just outside has me wanting to hide.

I crawl back to my room and quietly shut the door as Drew knocks again, this time with more force.

“Mads!” he calls out. “Just come out, and let’s get this over with, okay?”

“Yeah, Scar Man, I’ll get right on that,” I mumble under my breath as I sink onto my bed.

Another loud knock.

And another.

And my hope that I’ll be able to stop my mother from spending all of my money dwindles with each one.

Eventually, my eyelids grow too heavy to stay awake anymore, and I surrender into the darkness of sleep, a tiny part of me wishing I never had to wake up again, because I’d take the hellish nightmares over the hell of the reality that is my life.

River

Do you ever get the feeling that your life is one big joke? Only the punchline is never delivered, so you never get to laugh about it?

That’s how I feel all the damn time, like I’m living in a joke, just waiting for the laugh, but it never arrives.

“Stop stressing,” my twin brother Finn says as we’re let out of the jail cell. “Dad won’t find out about this.”

“Doubtful,” I mutter as we follow the officer toward the exit door. “A hundred bucks says when we exit this building, paparazzi will be outside.”

He wavers before saying, “Maybe there’s a back exit.” He looks at the officer as he’s opening the door. “Hey man, is there another way out of this place? Like maybe a more lowkey way out?”

The officer gives him an annoyed look. “No.” He yanks open the door, muttering, “Damn rich brats thinking they can always get what they want.”

I internally sigh as I follow Finn through the doorway and into the check-out area. This isn’t our first time in jail, but we’ve never been arrested for anything I’ve done. I’m the good one, my father is always telling me. The obedient one.

And perhaps I am, but only because my future is headed to a pointless abyss. Finn constantly tells me that I’m depressed, and he might be right. But I don’t know how to fix myself when I’ve got nothing to look forward to.

“What an asshole,” Finn says as he collects his wallet from off the counter.

“Careful,” I warn. “They can still throw you back in jail.”

He makes a big show of rolling his eyes as he stuffs his wallet into the back pocket of his pants.

I sigh again. It’s kind of my thing when I’m around my brother.

As I collect my belongings from the counter, Finn wanders to the waiting room area that’s buzzing with chatter. For some reason, my mind drifts to that girl we saw while we were behind bars. She looked so upset when she was making the phone call, like her whole world was breaking apart, but she was fighting to keep it together.

It almost felt like looking in a mirror. Although, I’m sure our problems are much different.

Still, I can’t stop thinking about her, her big eyes so full of sadness, her long, flowing hair, and the tough demeanor she was throwing at Finn.

Then I think about how worried she looked when the phone call ended. Clearly, she was concerned her mother wouldn’t come bail her out.

“Hey… um… I have a question,” I say to the middle-aged woman with blonde hair sitting behind the desk.

The phone is ringing in the background and she looks irritated as she looks at me. “What is it?”

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