Defiant Princess (Boys of Oak Park Prep 2)

A sick feeling twisted my stomach, and I had a sudden urge to shove the letter back in the drawer and run. In our game of truth or dare and other late-night conversations, I’d learned more about each of the Princes and had revealed more about myself. But there had always been some things I’d kept close to the vest, things I hadn’t been ready to share. My dad’s abuse, the details of my leg injuries—those were the kinds of things it would take longer to open up about.

This was one of those things too.

A secret Elijah carried around that he obviously hadn’t been ready to share.

But now I knew.

Whether he wanted me to or not. And it made me feel dirty and wrong.

But this was what I’d wanted. To dig until I found the secrets that could hurt them. And this was definitely one of those.

Swallowing thickly, I laid the letter on the desk and pulled out my phone, sneaking another glance out the window before I opened my camera app and took a picture. Then I peeled open my little black book and wrote rehab at age fourteen under Elijah’s section.

I placed the letter back in the drawer carefully, making sure it looked just like it had when I’d found it, and moved on to the rest of the room.

There was nothing else as damning as that, although I did find an entire notebook full of lyrics and loose pieces of sheet music for guitar. I took pictures of those too, and that felt even more invasive than snapping a photo of his rehab letter.

But he deserved it, didn’t he?

He’d stood by Mason that night at the award ceremony. He’d helped record the videos and pictures of me. He’d pretended to care for me after Adena jumped me.

I let those memories cycle through my head as I snapped picture after picture, stealing little pieces of Elijah’s life—of his soul—to use against him.

When I was done taking pictures, I glanced at the clock on my phone’s screen.

Fuck.

I’d already been here for almost thirty minutes. I needed to move on if I wanted to get to all the rooms. Instead of becoming more relaxed the longer I was in Elijah’s dorm, I had become more jittery, with a rising sense of urgency infecting all my movements. Every minute that passed was one minute closer to the Princes’ return, and I felt like I was trying to outrace death.

Cracking the door open, I peered out into the hall, and when I found it empty, I moved quickly to the next door over—Cole’s dorm.

Unlike Elijah’s, this large apartment was exactly what you’d expect. Sparse and empty, barely decorated, like it was a place for him to sleep and nothing else. It made me doubtful I’d find much of anything worth digging up, but I couldn’t move on without at least looking. I started in the bedroom, but there wasn’t much to go through. He did have a photo of himself and a younger girl I recognized as Penny sitting on the desk, and I took a picture of that. He had a few handwritten letters from her in his desk too, telling him she missed him and reporting on what was new at her school.

I went through the drawers in his desk, but it was getting harder to see—the light outside was fading, and I was too scared to turn any lights on in the room. It was getting harder to see across campus too, and I squinted toward the parking lot once more before turning to head into the living room. Cole’s computer was sitting on the coffee table, and I sat on the couch, flipping it open.

Might as well see if he has a password on—

The lock on the door whirred.

Clicked.

My heart lurched into my throat, and for a millisecond, every muscle in my body seized up. Then I pushed the laptop closed and dove to the floor, wedging myself under the couch. It was a tight fucking fit, and the feel of the frame pressing against my back as I expelled all the air from my lungs only made the panic in my system spike higher.

The light flicked on, bathing the room in an orange-white glow, and two pairs of footsteps walked inside.

“You left me waiting,” a deep voice said.

My brows drew together, trying to place it. It wasn’t any of the Princes. It sounded rougher, older.

“Sorry. If I’d known you were coming, I wouldn’t have.” That was Cole’s voice, and he didn’t sound sorry at all. He sounded blank, the way his voice got when he was trying to control his emotions.

“If you stayed on campus, I wouldn’t have to,” the man with the heavy voice shot back, an edge of warning in his tone. “I don’t want you causing trouble, son. Charles Prescott told me you and the other boys were reprimanded by the dean for getting into an altercation with a girl on school grounds last week.”

Altercation?

Did he mean with Adena?

He couldn’t be talking about me. I hadn’t spoken to any of the Princes since Monday.