Page 60 of Crew Princess
Broghers was pumping her hand, his smile way too eager. “No, no,” he gushed.
I fought hard not to roll my eyes, but kudos to me, I hadn’t yet yearned to pull my knife. Rehabilitation—it was real and at work.
His cheeks were filling with color. “This is perfect timing, actually. You requested a local assistant, and I have the girl right here. We were just talking about the documentary too.”
The woman’s eyes drifted toward me, and I saw a keenness in them. I also caught a flash of a few other emotions, but she masked them quickly. Her eyes narrowed, and she studied my face as Kenneth kept on talking.
Once he was done, she held out her hand. “Hello! I’m Rebecca. You can call me Becca.”
I didn’t say a word.
I also didn’t shake her hand.
An embarrassed gargle rippled up from the principal’s throat, and he took my hand, fitting it into hers manually. “This is Bren, Bren Monroe.” He laughed nervously, complete with a slight hiccup at the end. “And she is delighted to be helping, right, Bren? Right? Or…” He dropped his voice low. “You can always choose the other option.”
“Option?” Rebecca stepped farther into the office, her gaze flitting between us. She pulled her hand back. “Is everything okay?” There was a sharp edge to her tone.
“Yes. Yes! Everything is okay. Right,Bren?”
I needed to have a minute with myself.
There was a storm brewing. My bones rattled with its impending doom. The old Bren was railing against her cage, where I had stuffed her down, locked her up. I hadn’t let her out—not after stabbing Principal Neeon, not after Taz’s assault, not after seeing Cross with a gun in his hand, not after talking him out of doing something that would’ve taken him away from me.
My life had flashed in front of me in those moments, and I’d prayed. I’d bargained. I’d promised.
I did everything possible to talk Cross out of what he was going to do.
He went into that house anyway.
But he’d saved Alex’s life instead of taking it, and it had clicked with me. I’d gotten my bargain, and after that, I’d committed to changing.
It had worked.
Until now—until I was pushed into doing something I didn’t want to do. I knew, I just knew, that somehow this was going to backfire on me and hurt my crew. I knew it, but it was this or juvie.
I’d promised I’d never go to prison. And I didn’t care what the name on the facility was, juvie was prison.
Fuck Kenneth. I made my decision, but fuck him.
Glaring at him, and vowing that when I got the opportunity to hurt him, I would, I cleared my throat and forced a smile to my face.
I felt like I was breaking plaster as I shook my head. “Yes. Everything is fine. Hi. I’m Bren.”
“Hi.” Becca’s smile was easier, relieved. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Monroe’s your last name? Any relation to Channing Monroe?”
“No.” I shot my principal a glare. If he was forcing me to do this, I was forcing him to keep quiet. And it wasn’t actually that I wanted to keep Channing a secret. I just didn’t want to deal with anything else. My brother had been a rakish asshole when he was younger. If she knew him…
“Oh,” she said. “I knew a Max Monroe when I went to school in Fallen Crest.”
Oh… All the fight left me.
“You did?”
She nodded. “He’d be half-brothers with Channing. I didn’t know there were so many Monroes in this area.” Then she upped the wattage of her smile and pulled out her phone. “Okay. Well, I was told that everyone signed their waivers?”
“Yes. They did,” Mr. Bro chimed in. “Everyone. You should have a list of the students in your email. I sent that earlier this morning.”
“Great. Perfect. Can we set up in a back room? Privacy is important for these interviews. We want the students to feel comfortable.”
