Court Kept (Court High 3)

“Come here,” December said, just “Come here.” I didn’t get any more as she bowed out of the group and basketball girls continued to descend on the boys. There was a lot more head-smacking by Birdie in particular, and lost in all that, no one even noticed December and me pulling away from the scuffle.

She tugged me all the way down the hall and around a corner, Windsor Preparatory a madhouse with this video. Literally everyone was watching it as we passed them, watching something, and it was obvious what that something was. If Prinze was trying to make a statement, that was exactly what was happening. I wasn’t really sure what that objective was, and maybe I was giving him too much credit. He was being a dick, and that showed by the way he obviously so didn’t care about how his actions affected people.

And December was affected, her expression lost and almost pained as she leaned back against a set of empty lockers. No one used this wing of lockers at the school since they were older. She knew exactly where she was going, exactly where to go to be alone.

She was alone with me, my hands bracing my arms as I lounged back with her. Honestly, I had no idea how I hadn’t made the connection between her and her sister when we initially met. She looked so much like Paige it was scary, same curve to her cheeks, full and pouty lips most girls over lined the hell with their lipstick just to achieve. Paige had a lot of girlfriends my freshman year, easy to see why, and though December was more quiet, they were like mirror images of each other. It only made what happened to her sister all the more chilling. Looking at December was like staring at a ghost.

She looked less and less alive in the passing days since Christmas Eve, all of this today even worse. I wanted to go back to Luke, take his phone and everyone else’s just to make sure not a fraction of what I saw on December’s face now ever returned. She didn’t deserve it.

I dampened my lips. “You all right?” Again, I had no idea about her relationship with Prinze, but it was something. Besides this reaction now, Prinze had pretty much mutated into a fucking monster when I called him out on that. It was like a switch went off, the need for blood in his eyes. They obviously had something going on, at least at one time.

December’s swallow was hard, her breath shallow when she folded her arms. “That was him.”

Yes. Yes, that was Prinze, and yeah, he was a complete and utter dick for doing something like this full well knowing December would see it. It all enraged me, really wanting to know his end game, but since none of this was my business, this between him and her… My jaw moved. “Yeah, seems that way.”

“And the other guys too.” Her expression hardened. “Jax, Knight, LJ…”

“Probably, yeah.” I didn’t know a whole lot about them all, who they were now, I meant. But if they were in these halls and this place, they were acting just like the seniors I remembered when I went here. They were arrogant, self-centered, and threw their weight around. I supposed if I’d stayed that would have been me too. I was a piece of shit back then, and only arrogance would allow someone to do not just what those guys did, but post it somewhere for the world to see. This wasn’t a mistake, a sex tape coming out. If they recorded it, they wanted people to see it. That much was true.

But did they realize the effects of such a thing, the effect on her, December? I continued to wait, December studying her shoes and, honestly, I wanted to call it right there. This was too much, too frickin’ much to her, and maybe even cruel. Her sister had died for fuck’s sake.

And you’re using her.

I didn’t know if that’s what it was considered since December knew the truth about why I’d ultimately come back. She knew why I returned to Maywood Heights, this town and all this drama, and not only did she know, we were along for this ride together. We’d come up with a plan that Christmas Eve night, a plan we were already enacting, but this might all be too much for her. It might be too much for me to make her go through all this. We had to get inside the Court, and she’d been on board with that since holiday break ended.

That was before all this, before whatever all this with Prinze was. Since Christmas Eve, we’d little more than crossed each other’s paths, an unsaid something between us, but we kept in each other’s respective corners. I’d stayed, in his words, “on my side of the yard,” but I wouldn’t be for much longer. December and I were already putting things in motion here.

That was, if she was still on board.

I folded a hand over my eyes. “December…”

I was going to give her an out. If all of this was too much, it didn’t matter what I wanted. I considered her a friend since I’d come back home, and friends didn’t make their friends do things that caused them pain. I really wasn’t the guy I’d been when I lived here anymore.

I dropped a hand. “If you want to call this, not go through with any of this, I understand—”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

Surprised, I faced her, a determined look in her eyes I hadn’t seen. Up until this point, she’d pretty much let the talking happen to her. She was with me, but she hadn’t been “with me” if that made sense. True, she was all for what we’d planned to do, but where I’d been making those plans, she’d been sitting in the passenger’s seat.

She didn’t look that way now, her arms crossed when she stood up to me. She looked down the hallway. “We need to do this. Have you changed your mind?”

I hadn’t, so I shook my head. I swallowed. “I just wanted to give you an out if you had.”

Her tongue moved just a bit over her mouth, doing so clearly in thought. Even still, I stared for longer than I should have.

I looked away.

“I don’t want an out,” she said, causing me to find her eyes again. “I want revenge.”

Revenge… so dark in ways again she hadn’t sounded before. She’d been so broken that night on Christmas Eve by the information that had been delivered to her.

I knew because I had to pick up the pieces.

How long had we stayed in my father’s study that night, not even talking to each other? We’d just been together, silent while the fire crackled in the corner. We sat so long I’d been numb when I’d gotten up, and by the end, I’d had to help her too. She was a shell when she’d left that room.

But maybe not now.

“Revenge,” I said, and I got it. I wanted revenge too. My life had been destroyed by this place, Prinze, his Court, and what that Court meant to this town. It ruined lives, and it ruined me. My jaw clenched. “All right.”