Broken Trust: A Dark High School Romance(10)

“I’m late,” I muttered, hurrying toward my class and slipping inside mere moments before Beck reached us.

I was totally unsurprised to see Evan stroll casually into the class about five minutes later, despite the fact that he was a fucking senior in the university part of Ducis. Apparently the teachers didn’t see an issue with it either as Mr. Greensmith barely batted an eyelid at Evan’s presence. Money talks, I guess.

Since the incident where I was forced to kill a man, the real world had faded away, and I’d been living in a weird suspended reality. So it was no surprise that I’d completely forgotten my class was calculus. And being in calculus meant…

“Riley!” Eddy’s familiar voice hurt almost as much as Beck’s.

I slowly lifted my eyes and met her wide, worried ones. “Yes,” I said without inflection.

She blinked at me, and my chest ached at the wounded expression on her face.

“I’ve been so worried about you,” she said softly. “Jasper wouldn’t tell me anything, you weren’t answering your phone, and you haven’t been in school for over a week.”

I shot Evan the quickest side eye ever, and he gave a brief shake of his head.

She doesn’t know.

The worst fucking shit of my life had happened in the past week, and my best friend didn’t know. Of course she didn’t. This was all about the fucking heirs of Delta. But … she was still part of them, of this world that I was determined to cut out of my life as much as possible.

She took a shaky step closer. “Did I do something?”

My eyes burned as I lurched to my feet. Pushing past her, I sprinted from the room, slamming open the door of the nearest bathroom and hauling ass inside.

My breathing was so fast that I felt light headed, and I wondered if maybe I was hyperventilating or something, because I couldn’t seem to catch my breath. Bracing myself against the sinks, I stared at my reflection. Despite my skill with makeup, I’d barely managed to hide the dark circles under my eyes. Even if I hadn’t had Beck angst keeping me awake, nightmares were a constant lately. I’d been having them ever since I found myself in this world, only now I could add a gunshot and blood spatter across walls to the fucked up visions.

The door opened again, and I knew it was Eddy without even turning my head.

“Girl, seriously. We are not leaving this fucking room until you talk to me.”

Straightening, I turned to her, relieved that my breathing had returned to normal. The tightness in my chest remained though. “There’s nothing to talk about. I can’t trust anyone involved with Delta.”

Eddy’s face fell. “I don’t understand. You were fitting in really well, all of the guys consider you one of them. The first chick, at least since they were adults, that they’ve ever truly cared about. What happened to screw it all up?”

They fucking happened!

I wanted to scream, at the top of my lungs. “They betrayed me,” I said. “I trusted them, and they let me walk right into a fucked up situation.”

Eddy threw her hands up, exasperation creasing her face. “You know that Delta controls them. They have to play the game, otherwise shit gets really messed up. You have to ignore the bad stuff and remember the times that were real … remember how they made you feel when everything was on the line.”

Anger washed away my sadness. “If I hear the word game one more goddamn time, I’m gonna lose my mind.”

Some of my anger was forced because I was trying really hard not to think about her other words. I did remember lots of times those fuckers had been there for me. Starting with the plane crash—they’d saved my life. The training. The family breakfast. How Dylan had told me to remember that moment when we were all together. Beck had said that this was the only real thing they had. Something worth more than money.

So why hadn’t they stepped up for me this time? How could they let me walk into something like murder without a fucking heads-up? How could they hurt my best and oldest friend? Threaten to kill him?

“What about me?” Eddy demanded. “I didn’t betray you. I’m your best friend and that’s not going to change, no matter what our fucked up parents and their heirs do.”

She wore her stubborn expression, arms crossed over her chest, but the hurt was still there in her eyes.

A long sigh left me. “I love you, Eddy. You’re the first chick I’ve bonded with in a really long time. But right now, I need some time. I’m angry and hurt, and I know it’s shitty of me because you don’t have a clue what actually went down, but please try and understand, right now I can’t be around you. You remind me too much of what I’ve lost.”

Needing to escape from the pain in my chest—indirectly related to the girl across from me— I pushed past her toward the door.

She stopped me with softly spoken words. “Have you even given them a chance to explain? Not everything is black and white in our world. It might have looked like betrayal from the outside, but maybe they were still working for you. For the five of you.”

I didn’t turn back or answer, but again, those words hit a soft spot inside of me. I hadn’t given them a chance to explain, even though they had tried a million times. I couldn’t imagine a single thing they could have said to justify their actions, but…

I left, unable to deal with Eddy or my thoughts a moment longer. Evan was in the hallway waiting for me, and he wasn’t alone. Clearly he’d had to call in the reinforcements to deal with me.