Crown of Thorns by E.M. Snow
10
The weekend passesme by in an anxious, sleepless blur.
Even though I don’t go to school, I work at the music store Friday evening and again on Saturday morning. After work, I sit with Nina until visiting hours end, where I spill everything because the tragic reality of my situation is that the only person I can talk to, that I trust, is comatose.
I dream of my mom.
No, scratch that. I have horrible nightmares that leave me trembling in my bed, tears streaming down my face and cold sweat clinging my sheets to my body. It’s been a couple years since I had one, but Nina was here before. Now, instead of her soothing words, there’s only the sound of my sobs punching through the silence.
I also spend my weekend trying to reach Jasper.
In fact, I call or text him at least once an hour, my panic spiking a little more every time I try. All my attempts are met with total silence, and eventually, a notification that his voicemailbox is full. There’s a part of me that’s livid with him, that loathes him for putting me through this hell. But of course, there’s the other part. The one that’s all heart and no brain and is scared half to death because of the security footage Phoenix forced me to watch. If Jasper’s bold enough to steal from people like the Townsends, what else has he done?
Murder.
That word—that two-syllable word that Phoenix triumphantly shot in my face—wreaks havoc on my mind, though none of my Google searches turn up anything. That’s supposed to make me feel better. Like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders because my brother is just a thief, nothing more, and Phoenix Townsend is a confirmed liar.
Except, I don’t feel better. A fist-sized lump clogs the back of my throat, and I don’t think it’s going away anytime soon.
I spend Sunday afternoon preparing for the upcoming school week, cleaning the house and steaming my uniforms. My favorite playlist streams from my laptop, but I can’t bring myself to enjoy the music. Not with the texts vibrating my phone every few minutes. From Phoenix. Somehow, he managed to get my number and is having a field day reminding me that, come tomorrow, my ass is his.
Maybe (Phoenix Townsend): Happy Sunday, Luna. Enjoy your freedom while it lasts.
Maybe (Phoenix Townsend):Don’t think about running away. I’ll find you. No matter where you go, I promise I’ll always find you.
Maybe (Phoenix Townsend): Make this easy on yourself and bend. If you try to fuck me over, you’ll wish you were dead.
His messages continue to bounce between threats and insults, but I don’t respond. I leave the bastard on read and turn up my playlist volume until music drowns out the rage pulsing in my ears.
Clearly, my decision to ignore him is enough to completely unravel Phoenix because he sends another text a few minutes later. This time, he’s included a link.
Maybe (Phoenix Townsend): Since I know you’re reading this … for your viewing pleasure.
Turning off the steamer, I pause the music and pace my floor. My finger hovers over the link for several beats, nausea swirling around my belly because I just know it’s going to be something awful. Sure enough, when I give in and click on it, there’s an article about a missing Angelview Academy student—Jon Eric Carr.
I’m the worst at keeping up with the lifestyles of the rich and privileged that attend the private schools in this area, but I heard about his disappearance. After he went missing, even Ravenwood amped up security, hiring two additional security officers to keep us all safe.
This article, though, says that he’s no longer missing but presumed dead. There’s a photo of a woman named Eleanor Mallory, a Ravenwood alumni, who’s in custody for his murder and others.
Holy shit. Others?
The further I scroll and read, the more insane the whole situation sounds. And the sicker I feel because no way is Phoenix sending this just because he’s got some strange, hateful obsession with Angelview and Saint Angelle, whose family had founded the place. That would be too easy, and I seriously doubt there’s anything easy about Phoenix Townsend.
At last, I reach a photo that’s not of Eleanor Mallory or Jon Eric Carr or Jameson Angelle—Saint’s dead father who was also heavily involved in all the murder and mayhem. This new picture is a grainy screenshot from security footage taken in the lobby of one of the Angelview dormitories, and my stomach pitches as I read that the unidentified male pictured is wanted for questioning in the slaying.
It’s my brother.
Clutching my phone, I sink down on my bed, my shoulders curling over my chest. “Jesus, Jasper … what the fuck have you done now?” I whisper.
A second later, another message comes through from Phoenix, and I blink through my blurred vision to read it.
Maybe (Phoenix Townsend): Asking for a friend—did Jasper hide Jon Eric under your floorboards? Can you smell the body? Heard from your thieving, murdering fuck of a brother yet? I’m dying to know.
I delete the message immediately, just like I’ve done all the ones before it, and go back to the article, the numbness dragging me down.
Phoenix, on the other hand, is on a total high and doesn’t give a shit about the effect his news has on me. For the rest of the day, he texts as frequently as I’ve messaged my brother to rub my nose in what he knows and what plans to do with that information if I’m not compliant.
He will ensure the cops know exactly who the person of interest is.
Jasper will be arrested.
I’ll be considered an accessory.
The only person my grandmother will have is her court-appointed guardian who rarely visits.
The fact Phoenix knows all this skins my nerves raw. I consider testing him, reminding him that blackmail is illegal and maybe I’ll speak to the cops, too. But I can’t bring myself to fire off the scathing message that I spend five minutes typing. He’s underage. All he’ll get is a slap on the wrist because his family can afford the most outrageously expensive attorney in this country. Money talks, and the Townsends are rich enough in this lifetime and a hundred more.
Phoenix lets me know that, too, in his next round of rapid-fire texts that leave me dizzy and with an aching chest.
By the time I shower for the night, I’m ready to chuck my phone out the window. I don’t, of course, which is a good thing. Because just as I’m getting ready to go to bed and make a useless attempt at getting some sleep, my phone buzzes. Rolling my eyes, I grab it from my nightstand and brace myself for another round of taunts from Phoenix.
Instead, I discover a text from Jasper.
Breathing hard, I open the message, my eyes drinking in the first thing my brother has said to me since this whole nightmare began.
Jasper: Just do what they say. Please, Yossy. I promise I’ll explain everything, but you have to help me like you said you would.
I stare at the words on my screen, half-expecting the letters to rearrange themselves into something useful, something that’s not so … fucked up. What is this bullshit? Almost a week of nothing after he screws everyone and everything over, and this is what he finally sends? Roll over and take one for the team?
When I try to call him to make him explain right now, it goes straight to voicemail.
This happens five times in a row before I finally give up.
I finish getting ready for bed and slide between my sheets, but sleep won’t come. Only tears. It’s a terrible feeling, realizing you’re no better than an object to people. But the last person I ever expected to treat me like a thing is Jasper.
And yet, he’s used me as collateral, as if I were a watch or car that he stole and not his sister. He’s used me because he knows I’ll do anything to save him, that I’m too afraid to go to the cops. This is what carves my heart right out of my chest.
That he knows I won’t refuse this madness because my fear of the potential fallout is too strong.
I don’t know what tomorrow holds for me. I don’t know what Phoenix is going to do with me, and the unknown is almost paralyzing. As I begin to drift into a restless sleep, my last conscious thought is that I’ll never forgive either of them. I won’t forgive Jasper for fucking me over.
And I won’t forgive Phoenix or his family for making him do this to me.
* * *
“You’ve gotto be kidding me,” I mutter as soon as I open my front door the next morning.
Alaric’s lips turn up into a smile as he regards me over the roof of his silver Porsche. “Good morning to you too, Hendrix.”
Shuffling out on the porch, I watch him in disbelief as he comes around his car. The silver Porsche looks even more wildly out of place on my street than Phoenix’s Mercedes SUV did just a few days ago. It’s almost funny. At least, it would be if I wasn’t still riding my fear and fury high from yesterday.
Hitching my bookbag further up my shoulder, I stalk down the porch steps and up the sidewalk toward him, stopping him just before he opens the gate. I cross my arms and gaze up at him expectantly. “What are you doing here, Aric?”
He carves a hand through his sun-kissed hair and jerks his head toward his fancy ass car waiting on the curb. “Giving you a ride to school.”
He unlatches our crappy gate, but I snatch it back together, not giving a damn that green flecks of paint now cover my hands. Somehow, I feel safer when there’s a barrier between us. “I take the shuttle van.”
The side of his mouth quirks upward, as if to silently say, You-stupid-bitch-this-is-a-Porsche. But instead of calling me an idiot for not wanting to ride in his car, he just corrects, “You took the shuttle. From what I’ve been told, you’ll be joining the Townsend household for the foreseeable future and Phoenix was … engaged this morning. Congratulations, Hendrix, you get me.”
In other words, Phoenix is ruining some other poor girl’s uniform and life before school, and he sent me to do his dirty work. You’re welcome and be sure to tune in for the Phoenix’s next public evisceration.
While that’s unsettling, what’s even worse is that his cousin is already taking steps to keep me in line. “So, even his family isn’t immune to his demands and threats. Is that what you’re telling me? That we’re all Phoenix Townsend’s bitch?” I flash a thumbs up with my free hand. “Thanks for the heads up.”
Honestly, I don’t mean it as an insult—he should realize that by how hysterical I sound—but something threatening whips across Alaric’s golden features. It’s the closest to angry I’ve seen him get so far. It disappears just as fast as it appeared, but his smile is tense.
“If you think this is the right time to grow a backbone,” he says in a low voice, “reevaluate your decisions, Hendrix. He’s looking forward to going full-Phoenix if you step one foot out of line.”
I picture the girl Phoenix ruined the first day of school—the one whose parents withdrew her from Thornwood—and turn my body slightly so that Alaric won’t see my shudder. “So, you do know what’s going on?”
He shakes his head. “No.”
Why don’t I believe him?
“But you’re still okay with him wanting to hurt me? Because if you are, I was even more wrong about you than I thought. Actually, I know I was wrong. You don’t give a fuck about anyone he hurts or why he does it.”
He’s quiet for a long pause, his light brown eyebrows drawn together, and his lips pressed tight. “You’re right. The only thing I give a fuck about is this being over,” he finally spits out. “Now, open the gate and get in the car, Hendrix. Please.”
Out the corner of my eye, I spot the shuttle van rounding the corner. I skewer Alaric with one final, contemptuous look, swing the gate open, and brush past him and his Porsche.
“You’re fucking up,” he calls after me.
Even though I know he’s right, I don’t look back.