Page 62 of The Demons We Hide

Gio's smile widens impossibly further as he gazes back at me from the rearview mirror. "You're a Scorpion Girl now, Juliet Donovan."

25

JULIET

To my surprise, it takes a few days back at school for the populace to realize that my situation has changed again. I don’t know who notices first or how, though I suspect it’s the fact that I show up and leave with them every day. If it’s not that, then it’s certainly the appearances I put in at their football practices as I hang out on the bleachers waiting for them to give me a ride either back to Nolan’s or to work. Either way, it’s not easy falling back into the same routine. It should be, but after everything I’ve been through—the strings of distrust that linger—it’s not. No matter how much I want it to be.

“So…” Roquel scuffs her Converse against the floor of the hallway as I grimace at the new trash that’s collected at the bottom of my locker today. Megan has really stepped up her game. It’s more than just used tampons and sandwich wrappers. I roll my eyes as one of the notes unfolds to reveal a scratchy, serial killer style script that reads.

Leave town or else.

Oh gosh, a threat, how original.

“Jules?”

“Hmmm?” I lift my head and leave the note on the ground with the rest. She glances from the note and to me.

“You’re not worried about that?” she asks.

“Not really.” Bitches like Megan and her crew are only going to enjoy it if I give them the time of day—I should know. Iwasa Megan. I was the one that decided who was in and who was out of the cliques at Silverwood Prep. I hadn’t cared about other people. I’d been focused on myself and only myself. Familiar shame curls through my gut, and I face my locker once more.

“Okay.” Roquel draws out the word. “Seems like a bad idea, but you’re you. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that you wouldn’t care about threats.”

“I don’t,” I agree. “Threats aren’t actions.”

She seems to grow quiet at that and remains that way for several long moments as I rummage around in my locker for the books I’ll need for the rest of the day.

“What about them?” she finally pipes up, and I don’t have to ask who “them” is. “Are you officially back with them now? Are you staying with Nolan Pierce?”

I don’t answer her, not right away. Shoving textbooks and a pen case into my backpack—the old one that I left at Nolan’s—I contemplate what to say. Nothing has come to mind by the next warning bell, and when she doesn’t get a response, Roquel huffs out a breath.

“I thought you were smarter than this,” she snaps. “I thought you were gonna find a new place.”

The sound of metal ricocheting against metal as I slap my locker shut echoes into the hallway as I turn to face her with a frown. “Why does it matter to you?” I ask, hitching my bag up further on my shoulder. I start walking, and she follows.

“It—you’re my friend,” she says.

“Miss Lee, your shirt needs to be all the way down,” one of the female teachers says as we bypass an open classroom door.

Roquel groans and reaches back to untie the hairband she used to tighten the fabric of her shirt up around her waistline. She then holds it up for the teacher to see as her shirt falls back down to cover her flat stomach. “Keep it that way,” the woman says.

We continue down the hall, marching towards our next class, and just as I expect, the moment we turn a corner, she reties her shirt the way she likes. “As your friend,” Roquel says. “I can’t help but be worried that you’re going to get taken advantage of again. There was a reason you stayed with me for so long. They did something to you.”

They’d made me trust them and then broken that trust, or so I thought. But all of the evidence is piling up and I can’t ignore it anymore. Did they have a motive to burn down my building? Yes. To keep me in their grip after I refused to go back to them. This time, though, it’s my choice. They hadn’t forced me.

“You told me I needed to make friends,” I remind her.

Roquel shoves a hand through her short choppy black hair, a sign of her frustration. “Yeah, I know I did, but these are the Scorpion Kings. How do you know they’re not just trying to use you to fuck you?”

I don’t know that, but I hate hearing it nonetheless. “I know how to take care of myself,” I say. “Been doing it for months. There’s nothing the Scorpion Kings can’t throw at me that I can’t handle.”

The look she sends me isn’t pleasant. If anything, Roquel looks half ready to throttle me. As we reach our classroom door and the final bell rings, though, she exhales a slow breath and grazes my arm with her fingertips as she slips past me.

“Just, promise me,” she says, lowering her voice as her eyes dart to the man sitting at the back of the room. Lex arches an eyebrow our way but otherwise doesn’t move. “If you need to get away from them, you’ll come to me.”

Something inside me softens. When was the last time someone ever cared about me this way? Not because they wanted to get in my pants or because they saw me as a ticket to get what they wanted, but… as a friend. Roquel and Mads are the only real friends I have, and even if she’s flighty on occasion, Roquel is the one that got me a job when I needed one. She gave me a place to stay. She’s in my corner and it’s nice to have someone there again.

“I promise,” I say. “Thanks.”

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