Page 78 of Suspicions on the Stage
For a second, I panic, wondering where Lucas, the dragon, and Iggy are. I don’t want Morgana and Liam to spirit me away to safety if they’re not coming as well.
“Don’t fret, Slade. Kaspar is with Iggy and Lucas to ensure they make it home to us without being abducted or anything.” Morgana smiles down at me, and the fact that she knew why I tensed again without asking warms me a bit. She’s softer than the image she projects, and I enjoy both that side of herandthe dominant side.
Her ex is a fucking dumbass for not seeing it.
Liam doesn’t peel out from the Beauregard Centre to head to the Dean’s lodgings in admin row. He drives with the same precisionhe does everything else—shifting gears so that you notice only by how smoothly you’re pressed into the back of your seat. His anger is the silent, foreboding kind, not the clatter and bang of my parents in front of their audience of minions. It’s not at me, obviously, but at the forces conspiring to attack the people in our family and the corruption surrounding us at every turn.
We make it three blocks before anyone says anything.
“Jackson will contact us when he knows more,” says Morgana as she stares into the darkness. Her hand is around my wrist, thumb circling, like if she stops I might snap. “He said not to talk anymore, and that Channing will handle notifying the entire arts department tomorrow.”
I almost laugh, but I snort instead. “Channing’s probably already drafting that email as we speak. Controlling the narrative is important, and it will be a cold day in Hell before she lets people draw their own conclusions.”
The tension in the car drops two degrees, and I feel Morgana relax a bit against me. She sighs as she shakes her head. “You’re probably right. Her night will be filled with caffeine and furious planning, even if I didn’t tell her to do that.”
“She’s probably meeting Thorne’s team at their HQ,” Liam says casually. “It would be the best way to coordinate and, well…”
That makes everyone quiet as we consider our introverted, tiny friend commanding that group of mercenaries and wealthy assholes. It’s kind of funny, and my chuckle is echoed by the other two for a few moments until the car goes quiet again.
It’s only when we pass the Arby’s right before campus, that I realize that going home means to Morgana’s now. It was the cute apartment I share with Ignatius and his fussy rich dude decor,but that doesn’t feel right now. Since we got back from Bay City I haven’t slept anywhere but her place, and I don’t really want to. That’s going to change things, and it will bring up stuff I’m not quite ready to face.
I can’t face the thing with Iggy until he and Morgana figure their relationship out. Not that I think it will come to anything, obviously, but I need to make him understand that he can’t go on like he was. I have to stand up for myself, even if he wasn’t intentionally trying to bait or hurt me.
We all have to come to terms with our shit if this family is going to work, including me.
“Are we all headed to Morgana’s?” I ask as if I don’t know the answer.
Liam glances up at the mirror, meeting my eyes, and his voice goes quieter. “Lucas, Kaspar, and Iggy are right behind us. They’ll stay, too, I’m sure.”
I want to ask if that’s for their safety or mine. Instead, I stare out at the stop lights blurring into strings of white and red, and wonder if Rialto’s body is still on the stage, or if they bagged him up already. I don’t want to think about how many times I cursed him since this play was cast or how many times I internally told him to drop dead.
It feels weirdly prophetic and that’s not my gift.
Morgana must sense the spiral coming, because she shifts in her seat, leaning in so her shoulder presses against mine. She doesn’t say anything, but her presence is an anchor. She gets me in ways I never thought someone would, and we haven’t even known each other that long. It’s frighteningly comfortable, and I can’t imagine being without her now.
As we turn onto River Road, the houses grow farther apart. It’s still technically the city, but here the dark is almost rural, full of deer and foxes. The prince took us off campus and around a back way to get where we’re going. It was smart, and no one even told him to do so. He could have cut straight across the campus and been there sooner, but it would have revealed our trajectory.
I bet the dragon told him how to do this; it seems like something Kaspar would plan out while we waited.
Liam parks and kills the engine, but nobody moves at first. Then Morgana puts her hand on my knee and looks at both of us.
“We can’t do anything proactive tonight,” she says. “Tomorrow is going to be a circus. Let’s just get inside and breathe for a bit, okay?”
Liam nods, and something about the way he does it makes me realize he’s probably as shaken as I am. He cares about Lucasa lot, and he had to watch him stand there like a criminal without losing his shit on the cops. It was probably an exercise in control that cost him immense energy and drained the fuck out of his reserves to stay calm.
Morgana climbs out once Liam comes over to open the door for her, and I follow. The prince jogs up the steps, looking around the yard as he deactivates the security. Once the door is open, he gestures for us to enter as his eyes flick to the street to watch for the rest of our group. I walk in with my new mate, noticing the foyer smells like coffee grounds and vanilla, not the musty scent it used to.
Thank fuck for the group cleaning effort before we left for Bay City.
The entrance is half-lit, cluttered by Morgana’s sky-high heels and the coat Lucas left this morning when he decided it was too warm for it. Those things make this feel even more homey, and as Morgana kicks off another pair of the expensive red-bottom spikes, I chuckle.
Liam is still watching out the open door, staying put until Iggy’s car pulls into the drive. Once it does, he holds the door open for Lucas, Kaspar and my best friend, waiting until they are inside before he re-engages the alarm system. “I prefernotto have any unexpected visitors show up while we unwind and try to make sense of today.”
Kaspar nods, huge and silent as a glacier, while Lucas says with a grimace, “Slade and I should probably go change, considering we shared space with a fucking corpse forhourswhile the cops dicked around.”
Iggy is focused on his laptop, muttering something about triple-checking the university servers as he bustles into the dining room. I don’t know if that’s because he’s having control issues or if he’s just stuck in processing the earlier events, so I let him go. Turning to Lucas, I nod. “You’re probably right. I definitely feel disgusting.”
Liam stands on the threshold as we talk, his posture tight. “I thought after the damn club and Bay City, we might have time to work on shit before something else insane happened.”
