Her Destiny (Reverie #2)(3)

His voice is loud and drawing other people’s attention. The party goes quiet. I swear even the music fades and I’m left standing there staring at him, Tally watching everything go down, her mouth hanging open. She’s not rushing to my defense or telling Justice to shut up. No one is.

I’m all alone but what else is new?

“Did your daddy buy you this necklace with stolen money?” He strides toward me, reaching out to grab hold of the delicate chain that’s around my neck. A necklace with a simple gold locket that Mother gave me a long time ago, that once belonged to my grandma. Justice’s fingers curl around the fragile gold and I try to jerk out of his touch.

Instead I rear back so quickly the necklace breaks and I gasp, watching as the old locket falls to the floor. I dip down to grab it but Justice is faster, bending over and sweeping the locket into his palm.

“Give that back,” I say, my voice shaky, holding out my hand. My fingers tremble and I curl them inward, hating the sign of weakness. “It’s mine.”

“You want it?” He dangles it from his fingers, the smirk on his face ugly. Mocking. “Come and get it.”

I stare at him, contemplating what I should do, what I should say. Tally is gone. It’s like the going got tough and she took off. I have no idea where Rachel is. She’s the loosest of my two new friends. She’s probably naked in a stranger’s bed somewhere upstairs.

“It was my grandmother’s,” I tell him, trying one last time to gain…what? Sympathy? We’ve drawn a crowd. Glancing around, I see the anger on all their faces. I don’t know any of them. I’m at some random party that’s far from where I usually hang out. I go to private school and when I first arrived for my senior year, I shunned my old friends. Found new ones that I thought would fit better with my new lifestyle.

Now I wished for those old friends. At least they’re loyal. I wouldn’t even be at this stupid party with people I didn’t know if I’d stayed with them. Vanessa and Valerie. We were silly together. We called ourselves the “V” girls because we all have Vs in our names and we were virgins. Stupid.

I’m not a virgin anymore. I don’t even belong with the “V” girls.

I don’t know who I belong with.

“You’re a liar,” Justice practically snarls, throwing the locket at my face. It bounces off my cheek and I reach up, hold my hand against my face as I bend down and grab the locket from where it landed by my feet. “Get the f**k out of here.”

I scurry out of the house without another word, not once looking back as the tears stream down my cheeks, the locket still clutched in my hand. I walk blindly down the street and grab my cell phone out of the back pocket of my jeans, hitting speed dial and hoping like crazy Evan answers. It’s late and he’s probably with a girl.

He’s always with a girl.

“It’s midnight,” he growls when he answers. I swear I hear a female’s voice in the background. I’m sure I do. My brother has gone hog wild lately.

So have I so I guess we’re just rebelling against the crap that’s been thrown at us.

“I need you to come get me,” I say, stopping as I glance around the street. The homes are nice, the neighborhood older. I rode over with Rachel and Tally and I really don’t want to find them and ask them to take me home. I don’t even think they would. They’re too wrapped up in their own stuff and Tally ran as fast as she could when the argument started. I bet she’s mad that I blew her chance with that jerk named Justice.

Stupid name. Stupid guy. Stupid new friends.

The heavy sigh that I hear tells me Evan isn’t pleased. That makes two of us. “Where are you?” he grumbles.

“I’ll text you the address. Plug it into your GPS.” I pause, hating how vulnerable I feel, how vulnerable I sound. “Please, Evan. Hurry.”

“I’ll get there as soon as I can.” He ends the call before I can say another word and I practically collapse onto the sidewalk, sitting on the edge as I type in the address and text it to Evan.

This is my life now. It’s done a complete one-eighty from a year ago. Heck, six months ago. I started the summer innocent and hopeful. I yearned for something. A change. A chance. I found both in Nicholas Fairfield. I rebelled against my parents and did what I wanted.

And what I wanted to do was Nick.

Then he was taken away from me. I was taken away from him. I went after him, went to see him right after the cops took him away but I was told he didn’t want to see me. The finality of those words, the finality of the situation…nearly broke me.

My entire life ended up being taken away from me and now we have nothing. All of our assets are frozen, Dad can no longer tend to his flock—his words—Mother is weeping all the time and I can’t live with them anymore. Neither can Evan. It’s too stressful. Too awful.

They lost the house. Temporarily, they say, until the investigation is over. But I know the truth. Dad stole all that money and Mom knew all along. We lost the summerhouse too. We’ve lost…everything.

Somehow Dad had the foresight to pay for the entire year’s tuition at my school so I can’t get kicked out. Instead I do something worse. I go against my friends and hang with the bad girls. I move in with Evan and do whatever the hell I want because my big brother really doesn’t care. He has his own issues he’s dealing with.