Page 43 of Feed Your Fiends

A twang of something I’ve been trying to stifle pangs in my chest at the sight of her because the girlish attachment we’d formed keeps rearing its ugly head in betrayal and…longing. Missing? Because I miss her.

Stassi’s a breath of fresh bubbly air, but Aria’s a grey cloud that can brighten or darken, depending on the mood. She’s more neutral, unafraid and unapologetic to be blunt. I could use that now. Not the bubbly positivity of Stassi, or the sheer bitch mode of Rin who's undoubtedly somewhere in the crowd recording for Beaussip.

Time pauses for a beat as we all gaze at each other. From the awkward looks between Aria and me to the hatred flowing between Gant and Hale. To Hale’s apparent anxiousness about a missing Stassi.

Aria. The horsemen. Everyone was having a shitty time friendship-wise.

“Is that all you think we did? Show up?” Gant asks calmly.

Hale nods. “What else would you call it?”

“I don’t think you’d want me to do more than just show up, Haley.”

Both Hale and I stiffen at the nickname.

“Fire Elle, now, or I’ll show you an example.”

“He’s not firing me,” I hiss. “I’m not just an employee but a stakeholder. It’s part of our contract.”

“Contract?” Gant hisses, tugging my hair and catching my eye. “Like what you and I have?”

Have?Had.He can’t seriously think I’d still help him find the driver that killed his mother. Of course, I’m going to, but not for his sake.

“She lent me the money for the renovations, and if I agreed to hire her over the breaks and on the weekends-”

“I don’t give a fuck what the contract says. Set it on fire. Fire her.”

I look at Hale. Can business trump friendship?

Weirdly enough, Hale’s been the only person I could rely on for the past week. I’d been fed to the wolves so many times.

Don’t feed me to him again.

Please.

But then Hale rips his baby blues away from me as the lights dim, and a familiar tune plays. The signal for the temporary workers to dance in their cages. Cages.Stassi.Or at least that seems to be Hale’s train of thinking.

“Fuck this,” he murmurs, the colour draining from his face as he jumps down from the bar and into the frozen crowd who’s watching us over their recording phones.

Beaussip is going to have a field day tomorrow.

At the same time, Gant pushes me back into my chair and lands beside me, his fingers creeping around my neck.

“Anyone who orders a drink from Elle tonight is dead,” he says coolly. “Whether you go to Beaulieu or not, I’ll make sure of it.”

No one says a peep.

“Order them from me instead,” Rie Rie says unhelpfully near the band. Her chest is sparkling, and it takes me a second to realise she’s gathered some crystals and stuffed them into her top.

If Rie pours the drinks, they’ll really be dead then, but I can already feel my flesh turning cold as Gant turns his back on the slowly reanimating crowd and gives me all of his attention.

Gant

‘Elle was there for me financially.”Hale's words dance around my brain.‘She lent me the money.’

How did she have the money?

“Diamonds are a girl’s best friend” is still strumming along in the background, and it clicks. The ring. The ring I slid onto her finger when I told her pretending is merely practice.

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