Defiant Princess (Boys of Oak Park Prep 2)

I took the offered lighter without hesitation, flipping it open and striking the flame. I held it up to the small black notebook, and the scent of burning paper and leather filled the air as the pages caught. I held it by a bottom corner as all five of us watched the flames flicker, and when they started to work their way downward, eating away at the little book, I tossed it into one of the bins and let it burn.

There was no taking it back. I couldn’t undo what’d been done.

But at least the source was gone.

We stood in silence, watching for a few more minutes, then Elijah tugged his phone out of his jacket pocket. “Fuck. I have seventeen missed calls from my parents.”

Finn’s face was grim as he checked his cell. “Yup. Goddamn it.”

“What can I do?”

I asked the question knowing there was no answer. There was nothing I could do to fix this. But Finn’s worried brown eyes warmed a little as he glanced over at me. “Nothing right now. We’ve gotta do some damage control first. Then we’ll deal with Adena and Preston. And that, you can help with.”

The Princes headed up to their dorms, and I walked slowly back to mine. I wasn’t sure what they would face when they went home to their families, but having seen how Jacqueline handled everything last year, I was sure it wouldn’t be good.

Anxious energy flooded my body, an impulse to spring into action. I wanted to do something now. But all I could do was wait.

From my dorm room, I caught sight of the Princes walking across the quad toward the student lot an hour later. Several other students were out on the quad, and I noticed the way heads turned to watch them pass.

Campus was already clearing out for the winter break, and when I checked my phone, I had a bunch of missed texts from Leah and some from Maggie. I texted them both back and told Leah to come over before she left Oak Park to go home.

Her eyes were wide when I met her downstairs in the common room of Prentice Hall.

“Did you see—”

“Yeah.”

“Did you do—”

“No.”

She shook her head. “Damn, girl. I thought for sure that was you.”

“It almost was.”

Her brow furrowed, and I explained about the notebook and my original revenge plan. When I finished speaking, she let out a breath.

“Holy fuck. That is… intense. I guess I’m not surprised that’s how it went down. This has Adena’s stink all over it. What the hell are they going to do?”

My stomach twisted, the helpless feeling of inaction making me shift uncomfortably. “I don’t know yet. They all left to go home already.”

She grimaced. “Yikes. I’m glad as hell I’m not any of them right now.” Then she glanced at me. “What are you doing for the break? You just going to stick around here?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“You could come back home with me,” she offered, and even as my chest warmed at her words, my mind recoiled. I didn’t think I could handle doing regular holiday things, putting on a show for her family and acting like everything was fine.

“Thanks. But I’ll be okay here. Text me though?”

“You know it.”

She pulled me into a quick hug, and I hugged her back. It was the first time we’d done that since our reconciliation, and she gave me an extra squeeze before she let go.

Maggie and Dan came downstairs a bit later on their way out, and once they left, I headed back up to my little apartment.

The next few days were torturous. I had never known time could move so fucking slow. I got occasional short, cryptic text messages from the Princes, but it wasn’t enough to give me a full picture of what was going on. What they were facing.

When my phone rang on Tuesday, I practically threw myself across the room to answer it, swiping across the screen without checking the caller ID.