“Let’s hope it remains that way,” Knight grunted. “Because even if you were in, you’ll never be a part, not really.”
“Nah, never,” Jax finished for him. The guys all started to back away, all but Royal, that is. He remained firm in his position.
In fact, he gained on Ramses, getting in his face.
“You’ve been warned,” Royal threatened again, looking the epitome of a mob boss. He turned away.
“I thought the Court was done with hazes out on Route 80.”
The room seeped of all air, a vacuum sucking it dry to the point no one spoke. They barely even breathed, and I was amongst silence, my head shaking.
Route… 80?
“I thought you were done,” Ramses continued, watching as the other guys came back. “Done after me.”
The guys said nothing, Royal said nothing; meanwhile, I was having a mini breakdown. My sister had been out on Route 80, wandered the tracks before her ultimate death. She’d died out there.
Ramses’ look could kill. “You know there can’t be a more fucked-up way to make someone earn that little piece of metal on your fingers?” he stated, and my heart thudded into my neck. Ramses’ nostrils flared. “I didn’t do it. But did someone else?”
I bit down on my lip the same time Royal got Ramses by the shirt, the metallic taste of blood in my mouth. I shook, unable to see… unable to think. What he was saying wasn’t true. What he was insinuating was bullshit. What he was…
Ramses didn’t fight Royal, and I think that’d been the point. He wanted him to do something.
He wanted something to happen.
I shrank in the seat, seconds from throwing up right there. That’s when a hand came around Royal’s arm, LJ.
“Royal,” he gritted, yanking him back. “Don’t. Just don’t.”
Madness was in Royal Prinze’s eyes, a madness I felt on the brink of traveling myself. The sheriff had said my sister hadn’t been out there by herself, how the guys wished they could have done something.
“I’m sorry, December. I’m sorry…”
So many sorrys Royal had said to me that night, so many when they hadn’t been his fault. My sister’s death hadn’t been his fault. At least, that’s what I’d believed.
It took all I had in me not to cry out, biting down on my bloodied lip. If her being there had been because of them, because of this…
“Don’t talk about things you know nothing about,” Royal threatened again, but this time, his deep voice cracked. A clear emotion had been behind it, stuff he let go the moment he released Ramses. He pointed at him. “And you know what? You do need to stay away from December. Stay the fuck far away because if something happens to her, if you hurt her—”
“Something tells me I couldn’t do worse than someone else,” Ramses said, his swallow hard. He stood tall. “Go with your friends, Prinze. Go with your friends and leave my house.”
Commanded. Royal was commanded, and I never thought he’d leave.
But he did, he did with all the guys, leaving Ramses, and I didn’t get his response to that at all.
I fell, fell clear off the chair, and once I did, I cried my goddamn lungs out.
?
??December?” Hands came down to me, a tall boy in the room. Ramses Mallick was at my side, but the moment he got hands on my arms, I pulled back.
“Stay away. Stay the fuck away!”
“December—”
“It’s not true. Tell me it’s not fucking true.” I hit his chest, blinded through tears. “Tell me they didn’t haze my sister. Tell me they’re not the reason she’s dead!”
Ramses’ mouth shut, his look pained, and I cried out more, his long reach coming around my shaking arms.