Page 122 of Crew Princess
I was banking on that because I had my own thinking to do.
First: Drake.
She droned on. I never wavered from that point between her eyebrows.
Drake had found me when I was in Fallen Crest. He wasn’t using the buddy system. He hadn’t been on the crew scene. Months before that, he’d announced that he was back in town, texting us where Alex was waiting for a beatdown from me. He gifted us vengeance for what Alex did to Taz, and we took it.
But Drake had known where, he knew how, he knew when.
He could’ve rigged a video to record us.
But we had his texts gifting us his own brother.
What else did he have on us or know? He knew when District Weekend was. All those cops being there, it was an organized event. That meant they were alerted in advance. Someone told them where the party was, but it could’ve been the Academy Crusties. Was it them? They’d attacked Jordan up in the woods. Did they do that knowing the cops were coming and we wouldn’t have time for retaliation? They could’ve...
Someone burned down the Frisco school. According to Alex, it was this secret group who wanted to sell drugs.
When the Fallen Crest Academy students were caught, intending to burn our school down, they claimed it was Alex who told them to do it. That could’ve been a lie said to cover their backs. We’d never questioned them. Shit. We should’ve questioned them.
Instead, Zellman blew their cars up.
They’d tried to come to Tabatha’s party. We kicked them out. They found out who did their cars.
The next night was when they beat on Jordan.
Since then, we’d showed up at their school. They came at us, waiting for a fight. They’d been expecting a fight. We hadn’t been there for a fight, but when it presented itself, we took it.
In that same moment, Blaise saw Cross face to face. He’d acted like he didn’t know who he was. That could’ve been real or could’ve been a lie.
But since then, there’d been nothing except Drake’s visit with me in the dress store.
He was the one who’d told me about Neeon marrying Principal Broghers’ sister, who now sat across from me.
I glanced at her ring finger. There was a white line there. “Broghers—is that your maiden name?” I asked, stopping whatever she’d been saying,
Her lips parted.
I’d surprised her. She’d been expecting a different question, but I didn’t ask her if she was related to my principal.
She cleared her throat.
I noted that reaction, and at the same time the guy behind me pulled his hands out of his pockets. I caught it from the corner of my eye, but her eyes flicked up to his and he put them back in.
She gave me that smile again. “Why do you ask?”
I nodded toward her finger. “You’re married.”
Her lips didn’t part this time. They pressed together. She wasn’t happy with me.
She wasn’t going to answer. I saw the wall come down, and I tuned her out before she even started. I had my answer.
Drake had told the truth. About that part.
I remembered what Alex had said, that the group recruited Drake to come and be their person on me. If that was true, Broghers was either in that group, or she was being used by that group. And then what? Alex said the group wanted to push drugs through Roussou’s high school. How would they get that going?
The answer came at me, startlingly and fast. They had someone else in my school, someone ready to start pushing their drugs for them.
They could’ve used Drake, but according to Alex, he was kicked out of their crew. That meant Drake was out. I’d been arrested on Alex’s supposed death, so that meant Alex was out. Who then?
