Illusions That May (Court High 2)

“I don’t know, December,” he said, rocking with me. “I don’t know, but I suspected. That’s why I asked Prinze. To see if I could get a reaction out of him.”

And he gave him exactly what Ramses wanted. They all did.

“It’s not true,” I cried. “It’s not. It can’t be.”

Ramses gripped me tight. “I hoped it wasn’t. I knew what my haze was, and what happened to your sister was just too close. I didn’t even put two and two together until I met you and started thinking about it. Once I found out who you were and your relation to your sister and hers to Prinze? It all just made sense.”

“But why would they do that? Why? They loved my sister. He loved my sister—”

“I don’t know.” He looked at me, his face serious. “Maybe it was something else. Maybe your sister wanted to join the Court so bad she was willing to do something like that for acceptance. That was the one haze even our senior members directly forbade against because of me. There was so much of an uproar about it. I raised hell about it, and the Court wasn’t allowed to do it again.”

She wanted Court intervention…

Royal’s words flooded back to me the night I found out about my sister, what she wanted that night and why she called him. Maybe that was what the Court intervention was, a haze.

A haze gone wrong.

I thought I’d be sick again, and standing, I attempted to leave.

“What are you doing?” Ramses was up with me, following me. He grabbed my arm. “Where are you going?”

“The police,” I challenged. “There’s not one word about this out there, about a haze or the Court being involved. They’re saying my sister was drunk and wandered train tracks—”

“And maybe that’s what happened.” He grabbed me again, my arms. “Maybe your sister lost her nerve and she was leaving. The haze is they make you lie on the tracks. You make it through the night without leaving, you get a ring. Maybe she left. Like I said, lost her nerve—”

“But shouldn’t the world know about that?” I asked, ripping my arms away.

Ramses frowned. “Why do you think they don’t? Why do you think none of this is already out there? The Court and everything they do own this town. They control everything. Even the sheriff is in their pockets.”

Chills, my body covered in them. The sickness rose again, and I placed hands on the desk to steady myself. I faced Ramses. “You think they covered this up? The Court?”

His swallow was hard. “I have no facts.”

But I noticed he didn’t say no. I sat in the chair, and lowering before me, Ramses got on his knees.

“I don’t know what happened exactly out there that night, December,” he admitted. “There’s a lot of blanks, a lot of holes, but I think they need to be filled. That’s why I came back.”

I panned, finding his eyes. “What?”

He nodded. “What happened to me shouldn’t have happened to anyone else. The Court has too much power, and they need to be stopped.”

“And you’re going to stop them?” I asked, shaking my head. “You lied to me, Ramses. Lied about why you were really here. You said you wanted them to see you.”

“They will, and they’ll see you too. They’ll see anyone they’ve screwed over. Your sister deserves justice, December. You do too and me.”

“How?” I cried again, a serious terror in my veins. I was so scared, so scared of the power and this town and even Ramses a little. I was scared of what he wanted to do.

And I was even more scared I wanted to join him.

“We get on their level,” he explained. “Get in their house, and, December, I think with your help… We both just may be able to do it.”