The next night, all twenty of us meet at the main hall, everyone weighed down with supplies for decorating the lockers.
“I’m serious about not making a mess, sneaking into classrooms, or any other bullshit, got it?” Hamilton says.
“Loud and clear, Master Bates.” Heston gives a dramatic salute. His brilliant blue eyes pass between me and Hamilton when he adds, “That goes for ya’ll, too, right?”
I freeze, eyes darting to Hamilton.
“What does that mean?” Hamilton asks, coolly.
“You’re the two delinquents around here. Are we sure we can trust you not to get in more trouble? Maybe you like all that Saturday detention.”
“Fuck off,” Hamilton mutters, before adding to the rest of the group, “we get an hour, don’t waste it.”
I don’t speak—don’t even breathe—before Heston and the others have turned the corner toward the underclassmen hallways.
“What was that about?” I ask in a rush. “Do you think he—”
“No.” He runs his hand through his hair, sighing. “He’s full of shit. He just loves getting a rise out of me, he does this shit all the time.”
“Oh.” I let myself relax, falling into step beside him. “So, there’s dissension among the Devil’s ranks, huh?”
He stops in front of our first locker and sets the box on the floor. I grab the poster we made, woefully sans glitter, while he fishes out the tape. “Heston wants it both ways. He wants to be in charge yet have no accountability.”
“And you’re accountable?” I scoff. “In what way?”
He pulls off a piece of tape, dragging it across the sharp edge to cut it, then hands it to me, eyes pensive. “It’s complicated.”
“I sincerely doubt it is, but okay.”
He leans against the bank of lockers and pulls off another piece of tape, waiting for me to need it. “I know you think the Devils run wild, but trust me. Things could be a hell of a lot worse. There’s plenty of shit I put a stop to.”
I attach the poster, jaw clenching. “Like not letting Xavier date my sister?”
“I did let him date your sister.” He looks away, something cold and dark passing over his face. “Look what happened.”
I’m instantly taken by a tide of white-hot anger. He’s so blasé about it. At least Xavier had the guts to apologize, to man up and admit his faults in it. That’s more than I ever expected from any Devil. But Hamilton? It’s like he just doesn’t get it. He doesn’t understand that his actions have consequences, and that people outside his little circle of hell are worthy, too.
We both sense that this isn’t the time to go into it, so we move on to the next names on our lists. Regardless, the tension ebbing between us is a thick, palpable thing, and not the kind of strain we’ve grown used to lately. This one is filled with a much darker bitterness and the awareness that neither will budge.
The hour ticks by
, silent save for the sounds of tape and paper, the crinkle of wrappers, our footsteps in the empty hall, the clanks of lockers opening and closing.
When we get to the last locker, he hands me a candy bar to tie to the handle. Our fingers graze each other's, and he suddenly says, “I’m the one that told them to cancel you.” His voice is even—matter-of-fact. “It was a punishment for squealing about the Devils being at that party.”
“No shit,” I mutter, trying to fight down a hot prickle behind my eyelids. “Tell me something I don’t know.” The admission isn’t a surprise, but it still hurts to hear, and my hands shake as I struggle to secure the candy bar with ribbon.
He takes it from me, our fingers brushing once again. Facing the locker, he loops the string through the small hole of the handle. While he works, he says, “What you don’t know is that being canceled was a mercy. What some of the guys wanted to do…” His eyes flick over to me and I see dark rage in the steel gray. “Wiping you from the collective consciousness of the student body was the only way to keep you safe, Gwendolyn, and I used every bit of leverage I had to enforce it.”
He secures the candy and picks up the empty box, holding it like a shield between us. His expression is wary.
It should be.
“I’m sorry.” I laugh meanly. “Are you trying to be the hero in all this? Like what you did to me for the last seven months was some kind of fucking favor?”
“No,” he shouts, voice bouncing off the metal lockers, “I’m not a goddamned hero. I let shit get out of control. I let Xavier’s eye wander. I let him have his fun. I had no fucking idea that your sister—” He clamps his mouth shut.
My voice is pitched dangerously, violently low when I ask, “My sister what?”