Page 6 of All These Beautiful Strangers

“Speaking of which,” Crosby said, and he nodded across the clearing toward Harper Cartwright, who was talking with Darcy Flemming. “Dalton’s latest victim keeps giving us the stink eye. Has anyone noticed?”

I glanced over at Harper and saw her glaring at us.

“That’s just the way her face looks,” Dalton said. “What is it they call it? Resting Bitch Face? I assure you we had an amicable breakup.”

“Sure, because what high school breakup isn’t amicable?” Crosby asked.

“Yeah, Harper looks like she wants to amicably murder you right now,” I said. “Or me.”

We drank our beers and laughed and talked about things that didn’t matter. No one talked about what was happening as Ren returned with one junior recruit and wandered off with another into the darkness. No one spoke about what they had done when they returned.

When Ren came back with a sullen-looking Meryl, she called my name. Only, she didn’t call just my name.

“Leo,” she said. “You too.”

Leo handed his beer to Brighton Maverick and laughed at whatever Brighton had just said, as if this whole thing were no big deal, as if this were just another Monday night. Leo had always been like that. Arrogantly fearless.

We followed Ren close at her heels as we made our way through the pitch-black woods until we reached a clearing that led out to the empty county road. There was a car parked along the side of the road—an Audi A8. Ren pressed a button on her remote and then held the back door open for us.

“Step into my office,” she said, gesturing toward the backseat.

I slid in first and Leo followed, closing the door behind him. Ren climbed in the front seat and turned on the ceiling light. I blinked and threw up a hand to shield my eyes. After the dark woods, it was blindingly bright.

Ren took out her camera and looked through the lens at Leo and then me.

“You two are close, aren’t you?” Ren asked, putting down the camera.

“Thick as thieves,” I said, glancing sideways at Leo.

“I thought so,” Ren said. “How nice to actually like somebody in your family. Everybody in my family is an asshole. I mean, I’m kind of an asshole too, but I’m a likeable asshole. At least, I like to think so.”

She brought the camera to her face again and adjusted the lens.

“Charlie, scoot to your right a little, you’re not in the frame.”

I did as she said, until my bare arm was flush against Leo’s.

“Great. Leo, put your arm around her. Uh-huh. Perfect. Now, Charlie, tilt your head a little. Good. Now lean in, closer, closer . . .”

“Uh,” I said, “lean in to what exactly?”

“Why, those lush Calloway lips,” Ren said with a smirk.

I could feel my heart hammering in my chest. I glanced at Leo, who narrowed his eyes at Ren and gave her a wry smile.

“I always knew you had a dark side, Montgomery,” he said.

Ren smiled back at him. “Oh, you don’t know the half of it, Calloway.” She raised the camera to her eye again. “Now, you just told me you liked each other. Show me how much.”

Something sour slid into the pit of my stomach.

I was many things. I was a Calloway. I was the girl whose mother . . . well . . . Poor thing. Those things meant something to most people, but none of those were things I’d earned. I’d inherited them or they had been thrust upon me. But this—being part of the A’s—this was something I was determined to do on my own. I may have gotten a bid based on my name, but I would earn being there. I would become someone who wasn’t afraid of anything, someone powerful, who could bend others to her will. I would become someone who made the dean of arts flee the state when he so much as made me wake up early on a Saturday morning. Maybe no one else outside the A’s would ever know about the things I did, but I would know, and that was all that mattered.

I turned to Leo and for one cold, emotionless minute, pressed my lips to his. Then I pulled back and leveled a stare at Ren.

“Satisfied?” I asked.

“Cute,” Ren said. “But cute isn’t exactly what we’re going for here.”