Page 28

Delores

After my classes are over, I trudge back to the Tower via one of the ‘safe routes’ the ladies in the infirmary marked for me. There are quite a few, depending on where I’m coming from and where I’m headed, which is comforting.

I marked emergency-only routes in bright red on my Apex app—those are underground and only to be used in the most dire situations. The nurses told me if we use them and a pred sees us, it could give away the location of prey housing if someone looks hard enough. I don’t want to get a bunch of people who have been kind to me killed, so I won’t even consider using these tunnels unless I have absolutely no other choice.

The Shird is close to the Tower, but the roundabout path I’m taking doubles the time to get home. I don’t have work study with Aubrey tonight, but I have homework in nearly every class. Most of it is lengthy essays, because I’ve read so far ahead of the curriculum at this point I could probably take a final and pass.

Simply passing isn’t good enough for Lucille, so I have to buckle down and get some work done over the weekend. The twenty-page paper on the ‘Glorious Formation of the Apex Council’ is looming over me like the sword of Damocles and I have no idea how I’m going to pretend to kiss those wrinkly old farts’ asses for that many pages.

When I emerge from the tunnel just inside the walls of the Tower, it occurs to me I don’t have a damned thing to eat. I’ve run through the small order I received from Amazon last week, and I didn’t have time to place another. Sighing, I remember the vending machines in the Shird with a frown of displeasure. Tasteless health bars and bits of freeze-dried meat sounds unappetizing as fuck, but I have neither the supplies nor the space to do much else.

I can’t bother Fitz by asking him to help me, either. He’s done enough to take care of me since I arrived. It feels like I’m a kept woman and this summer I vowed to let no one ‘own’ me ever again.

Delivery it is, I suppose.

Walking out of the stairway, I head to my room, dropping my things before I look up menus. My phone buzzes, distracting me from my mission, and I curse under my breath. Having an entire student body hunting you really puts a goddamn crimp in your fucking life, let me tell you. Things would be so much easier if I could go to the damn cafeteria.

“Go for Dolly,” I mutter when I answer.

“Is that how you answer your phone for your two bestest friends in the entire world?” Rufus tsks.

I can imagine him shaking his badger-striped head as if disappointed, and it brings a small smile to my lips. “Only when I’m trying to dig up dinner. I just left you guys. What could have happened in the past thirty minutes that’s so urgent?”

“Is that her? Dolly, we miss yoooooooou!” Cori squeals in the background, and I immediately realize I’m on speaker.

If only they understood they’re my only friends, and trusting them is taking me some time. I’m having trouble accepting they only want to talk to me because they like me, not because they want something.

That sounds a bit ‘wah wah, poor little rich girl’, but it’s true.

There are people helping me, but it puts them in danger and doesn’t really protect me. The nurses and the raccoons can’t defend me if a pack of dingoes breaks down this door. My guys’ positions as staff limit them. It’s not forbidden for Fitz or any of them to be with me, but I don’t want them to lose their jobs, either. The Council instructed my parents to send me here to either fight or die, and I have no idea what they get out of that. I was a blip on their radar before, besides being the Drew heir apparent, but they’re eager to see my life end at Apex now.

I’m convinced all preds over fifty are assholes who take pleasure in routinely destroying everything good to keep their power.

It’s hard, but I finally decide to trust Rufus and Cori enough to show my underbelly. “You guys might be the only ones who give a shit—save Fitz. Everyone else wants to serve me up as stew,” I grumble. “Besides the dickhead in Shifter History, my other professors tolerate me more than anything.”

“We covered this earlier, hot sauce. You’ve got your hooks in more than the playboy and his softie boyfriend. What about Mr. Big Bad Tiger? ‘She belongs to us’ is a helluva statement, girl. Methinks Professor Felix has more than protecting your fluffy butt in mind.”

Rolling my eyes at the honey badger’s eager matchmaking, I consider his words. I’m sure it is a big deal to ‘claim’ me as under their protection, but he did that for Fitz. I mean, all Felix ever does is smirk and call me Barbie—which I hate . Lucille’s insistence on my perfect image has always limited my hair color choices, and even though I’m doing my thing now, I’ve been hesitant to step over that last line.

But nothing’s stopping me now, is it?

Sure, someone might tell Lucille, but that’s different. She’s not within arm’s reach and neither are Bruno nor Bruiser. They wouldn’t be able to take their vengeance with a wild pair of scissors. I pause for a moment, turning the idea over in my mind. They never discovered the tattoos I got over the summer, but those are covered unless I’m in the shower. This is a much bigger statement of independence—one I can’t hide under clothing.

“Dollface, you still there?”

I squeeze my hands into fists, trying to psych myself up. Rufus and Cori both have amazing hair, but if this gets fucked up, I’ll never hear the end. My enemies are already dinging on me for my supposed flaws every time they see me. But who gives a shit, right?

Okay, Dolly, woman up and ask. You can do this. Your parents can’t control you anymore.

“Well… I was thinking… Felix is such a dick to me in class—always calling me out and using weird tactics to force me to be tougher. He protected me in public, but in class, it’s like he’s… hell, it doesn’t matter.”

“Dolly, did he do anything to hurt you?” Cori’s worried voice chimes over the line, and I groan inwardly.

I didn’t mean to suggest that.

Felix has never harmed me, and something deep inside of me believes he wouldn’t. But his constant picking puts me on edge, and I feel like I don’t live up to his standards as—either as a student or as his brother’s… friend? Obviously, he’s far from perfect, because he’s here at Apex, instead of being a Raj with the other Khan psychos, but I can’t say that to his face. I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t end well.

“No Cori, he didn’t hurt me. He gave me a scare a time or two, but I think that was testing me. Maybe. But I hate when he calls me Barbie—it’s so demeaning!”

“Let’s teach him a lesson, bombshell.” I can almost hear Rufus’ smirk over the phone as he chuckles. “He’s old enough to know that pulling a girl’s pigtails isn’t how you tell her you like her. Whatever shall we do to frost his cookies?”

My lips curve up as I think about his constant focus on my hair, and how someone as controlling as Felix would get infuriated with a major change. If I have Rufus and Cori dye my hair a completely wild color, I can stick it to him and Lucille in one fell swoop. Plus, I can reclaim another piece of myself.

I decide what I want to look like, not them.

“I need to study first, but… maybe later you could come over and we could order a pizza and scheme? I think I have the perfect plan to vex him and all the people who think they can tell me who to be,” I say quietly, hoping they won’t decline.

Even if I place an order on Amazon, I don't know if I can do this on my own. I need steady hands and moral support to do something as big as this. After all, over the summer, my friend Clotilda had to hold my hand the entire time I was getting tattooed and pierced.

“Are you asking us to have… a slumber party?” Cori squeals into the receiver.

“Um, I guess I am.” I smile to myself, realizing this is the first sleepover I’ve had that didn’t involve the Heathers coming in drunk or high and spending the night trying to ‘fix’ me.

Rufus barks a laugh. “Oh, sweetheart. You have no idea what you’ve started. Tell us what we need to bring.”

Hopefully, this doesn’t get me evicted by the secret couple upstairs. I don’t know where else I would go.

“Guys? Are you sure you know how to do something this complex?”

“Pfft,” Cori replies, picking through strands of my hair to wrap another foil. “I’ve been coloring hair since I could reach the shelves. I can’t even remember what my natural hair color is at this point.”

Rufus hums his agreement, working on the opposite side of her. “Yeah, my aunt Brandine had me help at her salon when I wasn’t delivering product as a kid. I know my way around forty volume, Dolly bear. Don’t worry your cute little nose over it.”

My eyes drift to the mirror and I feel the butterflies start again. Every rebellion this summer started with those nervous buggers, and I can’t imagine it will stop soon. The last big decision I made before then ended with finding out I’m prey and being excommunicated, so it’s not surprising. I’m still working on the damage prom night did to my shaky self-esteem, but I hope this will help.

“The picture was so complicated looking, but I trust you guys know what you're doing.”

“Oh, Coco and I have been doing one another since we got to this hellhole. Our hair, of course,” he smirks, winking at me in the mirror as he uses a stinky brush full of dye to paint a section of hair carefully. “Sometimes, preds even pay us. It’s a convenient side hustle.”

I blink.

Should I be paying for this? Oh, fuck, Dolly! You didn’t even ask if they wanted money for the color or materials or anything. What a fucking idiot.

“If you want me to pay you, I’m happy to. I can pull money out of the ATM in Honeywell tomorrow...”

“Hush your mouth!” Cori comes back around to face me, her expression irritated. “We would never charge you —only the bobble headed morons. They have more money than sense, and it tickles us to get them to part with their parents’ coin, only to get in trouble for doing it.”

“I love me some drama,” Rufus coos. “It’s almost as much fun as fucking the uber-jocks with ‘I’m not gay’ complexes, although, lately, the field has been barren. Maybe you should tell us about your adventures in sausage-slapping, Dolly. Give the parched a sip.”

Oh, no.

I don’t… how am I supposed to talk with them about what Fitz and I did together? I know they won’t judge me, but I’ve never engaged in this type of ‘girl talk’ before. Will they want… details? “Um… well… I don’t know if I should…”

Cori bursts into laughter, covering her mouth with her hand. When she finally gets herself under control, she gives me a serious look. “We are a vault, Dolly. Your secrets stay with us and vice versa. If you’re too nervous to talk about whatever… sandwiches you’re dining on, we understand. But damn, girl. Your face is a dead giveaway.”

My eyes widen. I t is? Oh, shit. What if someone ever tries to interrogate me?

I cover my face with my hands, trying not to disturb them as they continue circling me with dye bowls and foil. “Guys, I have no experience with lying. I mean, I got away with little white lies occasionally, but Lucille can damned near smell deception, so I didn’t try it often. What if I need to lie to protect Fitz or one of the guys? You’re going to have to teach me.”

“Did I hear sweet little Dolly ask us to corrupt her?” Rufus crows. “I have been waiting for this! Coco, we’re going to need a soundtrack for this. Please?”

Cori skips to the counter and pairs her phone with my Bluetooth speaker before clapping her hands. “Okay, Ru-Ru. Let the corruption begin.”

I blink as Taylor Swift blares out of the speaker, and Rufus waves his dye brush at me playfully.

Sweet Hermes, what in the hell did I just agree to?