Misfits Like Us (Like Us #11)(126)

“Keep teasing, Nine. We know you like my arms.”

“Not more than she does,” Akara smiles at Sulli, who’s blushing.

And then she pushes their arms. “Fucking focus, this is serious.”

Akara and Banks realize I’m watching them, and I just shrug. I want to say it’s okay. Hanging on to different banter at the table makes it feel like the world hasn’t completely overturned. The familiarity tries to ease me. Plus, I get that the three of them have been dealing with a lot of toxicity online. This might just be more of the same to them, and they seem to cope through laughter.

Still, it’s hard to speak at all.

A lump is nestled in my throat.

“We’re getting this fixed, Luna,” Akara assures me. He’s the head of SFO, so he’d know how catastrophic it’d look, but I also think Akara wishes he could solve every problem, too. So I don’t know if he’s just trying to make me feel better.

They’ve all been tracing links of the screenshotted stories and sending them to Uncle Garrison, who’s on the phone with Moffy.

My uncle is a wizard at coding and all things internet.

At the moment, everyone is just trying to do damage control. Not solve a “whodunit” mystery. Because in less than five minutes, Uncle Garrison discovered how my username was exposed.

It was me. It was my fault.

I’d been on my phone at my Biology lecture on campus. I popped up my Fictitious profile, logged into my account where my drafts were hidden—just to tweak a line I thought about in the moment—and an unknown student behind me snapped a photo, capturing my phone screen.

Capturing me.

Internet sleuths put two-and-two together.

I am galaxxygirlx. And I have no one to blame but myself. My eyes are raw, still burning from tears that threaten to well.

I’ve never felt so…ashamed. Of what I’ve done, of what I’ve written—and shame isn’t anything I’ve ever experienced to this magnitude.

It’s a suffocating, unbearable feeling. Tearing at my insides.

My eyes glass more and my face roasts. I swallow hard to fight waterworks and a breakdown at the table. I have the urge to hide in my shirt again.

“We’ve been through this,” Jane says analytically from across the table. “Your brother and I. The incest rumors. We felt like they’d change an awful lot of everything, but they blew over in time, Luna.”

“This will too,” Moffy nods, assured about this, his phone lowered from his ear. “And don’t worry about our families’ companies.” He knows this has been a big stressor. “Dad and Mom won’t care if their stocks dip or take a colossal hit, just like they didn’t care before.”

I blink back tears. “Those were rumors, though.” It still hurts to speak, my throat tender and swollen. “This is all true.”

“Glad they’re true,” Donnelly chimes in, not letting any tense silence fall. “It’d be a shame if your stories weren’t real.”

A shame.

It’d be more of a shame if they never existed at all.

I stare right into his blue eyes that rest so comfortingly on mine. He’s reaching into all of me and cradling the pieces that’ve been broken by people online. Donnelly has a way of lifting me beyond Earth’s sky, taking me to the galaxies of my dreams.

And now he’s making a heart with his hands.

And he points at me.

My lungs flood, and my lips inch up.

Akara, Banks, Thatcher, Jane, and Sulli don’t seem too suspicious of anything more happening between me and Donnelly. They know we’re good friends. The kinda friends who dirty dance and share strange inside jokes.

Farrow and Maximoff know us a bit better, and they’re right to suspect we’re more than what we were since Halloween, almost a week ago. I just haven’t confirmed to my brother that I slept with Donnelly.

I didn’t want to tell anyone we had sex. Not because I’m ashamed, but because I’m still not ready to let anyone ruin the pure things in my life.

I wasn’t ready for people to tear apart my stories with the idea that they belonged to me. It’s making me even more protective over what I have with Donnelly.

I take a breath.

“Frog,” Akara is on the phone. “Hey, no…no, frack no. You don’t need to—Frog.” He glances at me for a brief second, then down to his computer. “Stay off the internet. That’s an order. Yeah, I’m ordering you…I know you’re my cousin.”

I hope she’s not blaming herself since she’s my bodyguard. Frog was on-duty when someone snapped a photo of me in the Bio lecture.

My phone has been buzzing on the table. I peek over at the screen. Tom and Eliot are texting, asking if I’m okay. They’re vague. Likely they’re unsure if I’ve seen the news, and I realize if they know about my leaked username, if Frog knows, then this might already be on mainstream sites.

Celebrity Crush.

I can’t resist the urge to look. Not anymore. I type the site into the search engine. My pulse is racing as I read a headline on the landing page.

LUNA HALE’S TENTACLE PORN: The Royal Leak is true! Read her dirty stories!





I try not to shake. There’s now more evidence to confirm a Royal Leak. More validity to what the Rochesters posted about online. What if this causes more people to believe Thatcher cheated on Jane? Which was a Royal Leak lie.