Page 37 of The Honor Society

“—your memories are back?”

“They never left, keep up.” I check my watch. “Learn anything from dear old pops other than he’s an even more shit gangster than he is a father?”

Jude wipes a hand down his face. “He’s not in as deep as I thought, mainly jewelry and bribery. He has dirt on a lot of people and made it painfully clear that with The Dean’s List he would have leverage.”

“He’s not wrong about that.” I sigh. “Sounds like he was trying to gain an upper hand, the problem with Edward is that he had to crawl to get to where he was and now that he’s had a taste he wants more, but the minute someone finds out his own secrets it can all come crumbling down around him and we’ll have no choice but to replace him, won’t we?”

“Replace? Huh?” Jude frowns down at me. “You mean⁠—”

“—I like a good family dynasty.” I sigh. “Keep him close. Keep Lilah alive. We have fifteen days until The Convocation. Fifteen days is a lot of time for him to busy himself. And every time I think I have the upper hand one of The Horsemen surprises me.”

Jenner drives the car around the block two more times. Five minutes. Ten. It should be enough. “Have Lilah stay with you tonight.”

“What? Why?”

“Are you saying no to cuddle time with your favorite person?”

He rolls his eyes. “Look man, I don’t pretend to even try to gain access into my girl’s mind, but she has it in her brain that Charlie’s in a dark place right now.”

I smirk. “She’s right, and it’s about to get darker.”

“What are you doing?”

“What. I. Must.”

10

Fourteen Days Until The Convocation

CHARLIE

It’s past midnight. I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to sleep off whatever the hell was given to me and I can’t decide if the crying from the breakup is what gave me a headache or the drugs or the trauma.

Wow, I mean, really, take your pick.

Lilah called to say she’d be staying with Jude and while I’m glad they’re safe and happy and while I know the safest place for her is probably as far away from me as possible what with The Proctor on my ass—I feel alone.

Isolated.

I feel like I did before I came to college when all I had to go off of my background was what was sent to me the day before I left, the instructions that I was important, I had purpose, and now with a cash flow—a job. To get close to Lilah.

And then everything changed. I had a friend. A best friend. Not just an adoptive mom that cooked for me and told me to get good grades, a mom that I lied and told Lilah was everything to me when really she’d been more of a paid nanny my entire life. She made sure I ate. She made sure I got to school, and every Friday she’d get drunk and dance around the house after getting her paycheck from some unknown source.

I always thought it was my dad. The Dean’s List was the key to unlocking all the weirdness around me—or so I thought, instead it led me down this path that seems impossible to get off.

Axel’s face.

God his face.

I wanted to run to him so bad, and when he said he remembered. I don’t think I’ve ever felt worse in my entire existence.

But then, it’s like something had changed, for one second, he wasn’t Axel, he’d straightened and locked me down with a glare that had me pinned in place. “You missed.”

It sounded exactly like The Proctor.

I almost laugh. Right. Axel, all banged up running around like a vigilante. God I really am losing it, what the hell was in that drug? I grab a drink of water and carry the glass into the living room when something is shoved under my door.

For a second I can’t move. I can only count each heartbeat in my throat as I look around. The static sound of silence is so loud that I want to scream.