Ruthless Rival (Cruel Castaways #1)(32)

“What if he tells about the flask?” Arsène spoke directly to Riggs, ignoring my existence.

“Look at him. Does he look like he can hurt anyone? I wouldn’t trust him to kill a cockroach. He won’t tell about the flask.” Riggs waved him off. “So. Arsène. How do you feel about Gracelynn Langston? And please don’t hold back.” Riggs chuckled into his Styrofoam cup of MSG and sewer water.

“I’d murder her if she was worth wasting a bullet on,” Arsène ground out, his eyes hard on his food. “She’s the reason I’m spending Christmas with you dickheads.”

“Not this again.” Riggs yawned. “Either fess up to what happened with her, or stop bitching about her.”

“You were the one who asked.” Arsène kicked Riggs in the shins. “Hey, can this guy even talk or what?”

“I can talk,” I clipped out, stirring the noodles in my cup. I just didn’t want to. There was nothing much to say, really.

“I’ll amend—can you say anything interesting?” Arsène pinned me with a look.

“Cut him some slack. His mother stood him up,” Riggs explained.

“Bummer.” Arsène sucked his teeth. “So what’s your story, morning glory?”

“How do you mean?” I scowled.

“How’d you end up in this prison for teenagers? No one came here willingly.”

Forcing myself to look up from my food, I met his gaze. “Got caught copping a feel of a billionaire’s daughter. This is my punishment. Haven’t seen my mom in over a year. Don’t know if I ever will again.”

It was only when I said these words that I realized I genuinely didn’t know if I’d ever see her. Arsène stroked his chin, considering this. He looked like he could murder someone for real. Whereas Riggs had that scruffy, cute look girls really liked.

“Whose fault was it?” Arsène asked. “The getting-caught part.” He put his Styrofoam cup on the floor, grabbed mine, and did the same. He opened his nightstand drawer and took out vinegar chips and some popcorn. He popped both bags open, and I let out a relieved breath.

“Does it matter?” I asked.

“Does life matter?” Arsène deadpanned. “Of course it matters. Vengeance keeps a person going. If there’s someone to blame, there’s payback.”

I thought about it.

“It was her fault, then.” I helped myself to a handful of popcorn. “The more I think about it, the more it feels like a setup. Her dad walked in a second after I put my lips on hers.”

“Definitely a setup.” Riggs nodded, chewing his chips loudly, cross-legged. “Was she at least hot?”

“Um.” I rubbed my chin, willing Arya to materialize in my imagination. I didn’t need more than to think her name before I had a clear vision of her. Her swamp eyes and full mouth. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Your guess is not good enough. Show us,” Riggs demanded.

“How?”

“She must have social media.”

“Bet she does, but I don’t have a computer,” I said. It was half the truth. I did have a computer, but the ancient type. One that I could barely use Word on. Even that was because Andrew Dexter Academy demanded we have computers.

Arsène took out a brand-new laptop from his leather backpack and handed it to me. “Here. Use my MyFriends. Just type in her name.”

“You have a MyFriends?” I eyed him skeptically. All I knew about Arsène Corbin was that he was an evil genius who barely attended any classes and yet somehow ended up passing each year with honors. While Riggs spent his time trying to get himself killed by climbing trees, skipping between rooftops, and getting into brawls, Arsène was more the type to build DIY bombs and sell them online. Come to think about it, they were an odd pairing. They were probably so close only because they were forced together by loneliness.

“For research purposes.”

“You mean stalking.”

Arsène kicked my side with his socked foot. “I tolerated you better when you kept your mouth shut.”

I typed Arya’s name in the search bar, feeling my fingertips going clammy. I didn’t even know why. I had thought about Arya often—mainly bad things—but it wasn’t like I liked her anymore or anything.

Arya’s smiling face popped into the feed, and I clicked on it.

“I can’t believe her account is not private.” Arsène’s head almost knocked mine when he peeked into the screen. “Her parents must be dumb as bricks.”

“Her mom is kind of MIA. She’s always on some shopping trip. I think she hated Arya for not dying instead of her twin brother. And her dad is clueless about this shit.” I began to scroll through her pictures.

As suspected, Arya was having a ball while I was away. In the last couple of months alone, she’d posted pictures of herself attending the winter ball at her school, ice-skating in Rockefeller, having a girls’ night in with a friend called Jillian, and licking ice cream in the Bahamas. But the image my eyes kept getting stuck on was the last picture, posted only four hours ago. The location showed as Aspen, Colorado. Arya was standing on a mountain of snow, in full snowboarding gear, smiling to the camera, next to her father. The lava-hot anger that stirred in my stomach wasn’t from the sight of both these assholes having the time of their lives while I was stuck here in an asylum for troubled kids. I was used to getting screwed over by now. It was the person behind them who made my pulse skyrocket. The woman who stood behind them. She was holding their ski poles, looking like she was about to topple over, catering to their every need, as always.