A Rose to Keep (The Society 1)

I filled my plate with all the good stuff, paid, and took my place at the table. The guys each left, one by one to fill their plates. I took a bite, closing my eyes.

“Hungry?” Heather asked.

“Starved. I was waiting for this piece of ass to leave her bedroom, but she decided to go without us. Not cool.”

“Piece of ass?” Sian asked.

“You want to come between me and food? You’re an ass.” This wasn’t the way to win her over, but right now, I didn’t give a shit.

“You’re an asshole.”

“It would take one to know one.”

“You both sound like children,” Heather said. “You could have waited.”

“You’re taking his side?” Sian asked.

“Look, he’s a little baby that needs food.”

I rolled my eyes, but I liked that Heather was sticking to our bargain. If she didn’t, she was out of the picture, and I was glad she took us seriously.

To many people in this school, it was a high school for rich kids. A fortress to keep us all safe. To those of us who were aware, this was a battleground. The place to prove ourselves, and it wasn’t always safe. The shit I knew already would scare the shit out of everyone.

Taking another bite of food, I filled myself up as Gideon, William, and Dante returned. I wasn’t a slow eater. I liked my food inside me, not to savor every delicious mouthful.

I was guessing it stemmed from how fast meals went at home. One moment we could all be enjoying the meal as a family, the next, it was gone and I wouldn’t know when to eat next.

“You should have waited for us,” Gideon said.

“I’m not a child. I don’t need to be told what to do.”

“Do you think this works if you behave like one? There are rules to abide by.”

“I told you to find someone else.” She pressed her lips together.

“And what would your parents say?” Gideon asked.

“Dude,” Dante, William, and I each said.

The parentals were a sore subject, and with how she pushed her chair back, grabbed her bag, and stormed out, we knew he’d hit a raw nerve.

Heather got up, but I grabbed her wrist. “Work some magic, okay?”

“I can only do so much. My advice would be not to bring up her parents.”

“Do you know what went down with them?” I asked.

“No. She won’t talk about it. She only said it was important for her to do this.” Heather pulled out of my hold and took off.

With them out of the room, I glared at Gideon. “What the ever-loving fuck?”

“I’m sorry. It’s not like we can tell her the rules yet. Everything always has to be done at the right time, the right fucking moment. It would be a lot easier if she fell into line without fucking everything up.” He stabbed his fork at a piece of bacon.

His stubbornness was going to get us all in trouble.

“We’re not going to win her over like this,” Dante said. “How far are we from getting the info we need?” He looked at me.

I was the one who had the way of obtaining the stuff we needed without it getting back to anyone. It was a magical skill I acquired back when we were kids, but it wasn’t any kind of magic.

All I did was help the right kid at the right time, and well, the boy was a genius. He could find out anything I needed so long as he was given time.

“A week, maybe longer.”

“That’s too much time,” Gideon said.

“If you want this to fly under the radar, you’ve got to wait.”

“And as we do, our time gets ever closer.”

I hated the time bomb going off in my head. We were all stressed about what it meant, but there wasn’t a single thing we could do about it.

Getting to my feet, I put my hands flat on the table and leaned forward into Gideon’s face. It had been a long time since we all fought one another. I was starting to think it might be time for another round. I wanted to slam my fist into his face and knock some sense into him. Anything to make him see that this shit he was pulling wasn’t going to work.

“Why don’t you worry more about working that charming personality of yours, and less about what I can fucking do.”

I left the table, heading out toward the male dorms. I got curious looks, but when we all parted ways, people seemed to find it the most important little detail. It wasn’t. We were nowhere close to perfect.

After typing in the code to the security system, I entered the building and went to the fifth floor where my guy was.

I’d made sure through my connections to give him his own personal room. I knocked three times and I got the call to enter.