“I know. You being loyal to Graven wasn’t even a question in my mind. At all.”
“I would never,” she rushes out. “Ever.”
I nod. “I know, but I was there on purpose, right?”
“Yes.” She eyes me a moment before continuing. “I got you to the party knowing Collins would spot you. I knew he needed to see you, speak to you for his obsession to fully take over.”
“The boys showing up?”
“I tipped them off, made it known a Graven was snooping that night.”
“How’d you get the Graven girl to their party?”
“The guy I was ‘dating?’ He worked for them. He was only a mouse in a lion’s den compared, but still. I casually let it slip that the Brays had a new girl they were locked on and how they were showing her off at their party. I knew they’d send someone. The last thing Collins expected was for you to walk in his house that night. He was sidetracked, pretending not to watch you when his eyes never left you, and forgot to call the girl off. Then the boys showed up.”
“And I made a scene.”
“No.” She shakes her head with a frown. “You paved your way. You showed loyalty to them without hesitation, without knowing they were yours.” She sits again, shifting forward, eyes strong. “You stood for who you saw as the weaker in that moment because you felt it was right. You showed everyone before anyone even knew who you were that you’d stand for people who couldn’t stand for themselves. I hated you before that night, but I hated you even more after it.”
My brows lower. “Why?”
“Because it finally all made sense. Why you were worth more, why your life was different than mine. I knew then I could never be more than you are, and that night you made me realize, for the first time, that I wanted to be.” She looks down. “That that was the real reason I came here, unbeknownst to me. I wanted the safety this world didn’t show me when it should have, but I was here for two years and they never saw me.”
“How could they when you hid yourself from them?” I ask her, and her eyes come back to mine. “They see you now, we all do. You’re as strong as I am, Vee. You have the scars to prove it.”
“You know nothing about my scars,” she snaps.
“I don’t need to know how they got there to know they aren’t just on the outside of your body.”
She glares.
“Stop acting like you’re less than I am.” I glower. “I’m just a fucking girl trying to save people she loves anyway she can. You can help me.”
“Maybe I don’t want to!” She jumps up again.
“Bullshit you don’t.” I jump with her, shoving her into the small table. “I get it, you lied to me, acted like you didn’t know I was Brayshaw when I told you I was. I don’t care. Wanna know why?” My brows raise. “Because you brought me to them the night I was jumped, helped me in the bathroom when Collins attacked me. You were there with me when I broke down after Donley and the doctor fucked with me. You can handle my boys, you push me, fight me, demand from me—”
“Who cares!”
“I do!” I yell back. “Fuck everything before now. I don’t care what you’ve hidden.”
“That’s because you don’t know the half of it,” she snaps.
“You’re clearly mad enough at yourself, what right do I have to be mad at you, too? You owe me nothing, Victoria, nothing.” My shoulders fall. “But I’m asking you to be my fucking friend anyway. Stand with me. Take this fucking town with me. I need you in my corner.”
Her eyes fly to mine, tension and unease filling hers. “You’ll regret this.”
“Then that’s on me.”
With a shake of her head, she shoulders past, and down the hall.
“Where you going?”
“I need some fucking air.”
“And I need you, Vee.”
She pauses a moment before glancing at me over her shoulder. “You’re gonna need me more than you realize, Raven.”
I turn to Bass after she rounds the corner.
“What do you think she means by that?”
“I have no fucking idea.”
A few hours pass before Bass plants his ass beside me.
He frowns. “What’s your plan, Raven?”
“That’s just it, Bishop. I don’t have one. I have no plan, no fucking idea what happens from here. Nothing. I never do. That’s what nobody understands. You all think I can rock this shit out, but I literally fly by my fucking pants. I think, I do, and deal with what happens after.”
“And it works for you.”
“Yeah, and for how long, huh?” My brows jump mockingly. “And how well did it work this last time?”
He eyes me. “What did Donley say to you?”
I scoff, looking away. “Nothing, but the maid had a lot to say—” I cut myself off, my brows drawing in as my eyes snap back to Bishop.