Page 61 of Evil Queen

“Do you think you’ll come back?” Kyle asked, dragging my attention back to our table.

Again, Avery and Alistair exchanged a look, but that time, they were referring to one another for the answer. “I don’t really know,” Avery said, and then she looked back at everyone else. “If I’m totally honest, during Christmas break, we were out of here, and we weren’t looking back. We started looking into places in New Haven, and Ali started looking for jobs there. The whole nine yards. But with everything that has happened in the past few months, I guess it changed some things for us. Now we have to figure out what we really wanna do.”

“I don’t say this out of self-blame or desire to pay you back or anything like that, but you guys know if you need anything as we move onto our next state, I’ve got you covered, right? We may not all stay here, but we’ve still gotta stick together,” Nathan said.

No one responded, but everyone gave their own forms of affirmation, and then the table went a little silent as we all ate our food in quiet bliss. It wasn’t until Alistair finished that anyone said anything, and when he cleared his throat and looked around the table with a wince, we knew it wasn’t going to be good.

“Okay, listen. I love this”—he waved around the table—“a lot, but are we just going to ignore what happened to Brayden?” He looked down at the guy. “I mean, you were missing for, like, two weeks.”

“I wasn’t missing. I just took a break for a couple of weeks,” Brayden responded.

“You took a break right after the spring break?” Colette asked.

Brayden held up his hands in frustration. “Yeah? You honestly don’t think my parents would have filed a missing person’s or something?”

Jaxon and I locked eyes for a moment. We hadn’t had a chance to explain what happened with the people we chased. Kyle got part of the story from Jaxon when Kyle met him at Brayden’s place, and Nathan had gotten a majority of the story from me before I left his house after we slept together, but no one else really knew what happened. Both Jaxon and I had kept our suspicions to ourselves for the time being. Jaxon believed that the men were after Cherri and me, specifically, but we also thought that they had something to do with Brayden’s disappearance. Why would they take him if we were their quarry, and if they had snatched Brayden, why would he be lying about it now? He made a good point. His parents didn’t seem as concerned with his disappearance as we were. We had some of the pieces of the puzzle, just not all of them, and we didn’t want to put the rest of the group on edge without knowing for sure.

Kyle seemed to take notice of Brayden’s discomfort first. “Let’s, uh, change the subject. I don’t know how many of you have looked at a calendar, but prom is next week.”

Colette choked slightly on her drink. “Oh my god! Are you serious?” She dragged out her phone and clicked through it. “You’re right! My god, are we already mid-May?”

“Yeah,” Alistair said with an exasperated breath in his voice. “That is painful to hear. I feel like it was just yesterday that we all hated each other.”

Everyone snickered, and Kyle continued. “Well, in the interest of being slightly normal, we should all go! I think the ticket deadline was last week, but…” He fished into his pocket and came back brandishing a small stack of prom tickets. “Fortunately, I’m super responsible and on top of my shit.”

“Is that ten tickets?” Jaxon asked, a rarity for him in a large group of people, but he was also the only one who would ever notice something like that. “Who are the other two for?”

He shrugged. “Cherri and Sicily. I was literally gonna just bum-rush Sicily at some point today when Cherri is nowhere in sight, throw the tickets at him, and take off.”

“Solid plan,” Avery quipped.

“Anyway,” Kyle continued, “I know we have a couple of couples.” He looked over at Alistair and Avery, then at Nathan and I, but then his gaze turned to Jaxon and Colette. “Or maybe three?”

“Let’s not go as couples,” Avery said. “Let’s just go as a group.”

Brayden slammed his hand on the table. “That’s stupid. We know who the couples are. Nathan will go with Nikita. Alistair will go with Avery.” He pointed at Jaxon and Colette. “Apparently, these two are a thing now.”

Kyle chuckled. “You’re right. I guess that means you’re stuck with me.”

Everyone looked over to Kyle, including Brayden, who looked across at him with shock. “What?”

“What do you say?” Kyle held out one of the prom tickets toward Brayden. “Do you wanna go to prom with me?”

Brayden was quiet for a long time in the wake of the question. No one said anything—hardly breathed—as Kyle sat with the ticket outstretched. At first, it seemed like he may just be kidding, but his face held stone seriousness.

Finally, Brayden looked up from the ticket at Kyle, and he seemed like he may burst from anger. “Is this supposed to be some sort of joke? I knew it! You’re fucking pitying me!”

Pity?

Kyle pulled the ticket away. “No. I swear. Everyone’s pairing up, so I thought we could go together. If you don’t want to—”

“What would make you think that I want to!” Brayden stood up. “I don’t need any more of your fucking help. Just stay away from me!” he shouted, and with that, he ran off.

Kyle and Nathan both stood up in concern since the last time Brayden ran off, we didn’t see him for two weeks, but surprisingly, Colette stood up. “I’ll go after him. Jax, come with me.”

Jaxon nodded. “Okay.”

Colette and Jaxon stood up quickly and rushed off after Brayden, and the rest of us watched as Kyle completely deflated as if he’d truly been rejected. Nathan looked at me, and I shrugged, but in looking around to see if anyone else saw Brayden’s outburst, I happened to notice that Sicily was sitting alone. Where Cherri was wasn’t a concern to me, but I didn’t want to waste the chance to talk to Sicily alone.

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