Bloody Princess by Helen Scott

32

Lyric

When I leave the bathroom, I keep my gaze scanning the crowd so I can watch as Melody leaves. She definitely makes a scene, acting shit-faced and stumbling everywhere before turning on the tears and walking out. People are staring, and I know they think it's me, and I should be a little concerned, but I'm not. I'll be able to play this off without any issues.

I meander through the crowd and look for the guys, wondering how they'll react to seeing whoever they think I am again. It would be stupid to push and try to figure out what Mel had asked them or talked to them about, and yet, that's all I'm curious about. Why wouldn't she tell me?

The first one of them I see is Jude. I can mainly pick him out because of the hair and the way Miriam is hanging off his arm, shoulder, or any part of his body she can reach, really. As I look at the group around him, I see who I suspect is Thayer, but Atlas is off by himself and Keats is nowhere to be seen right now.

As I watch them, I see Jude looking across the room, and when I follow the direction of his gaze, I see the blond head of hair that can only belong to Atlas. I try to fight the temptation to go over and see why he's all alone, but I lose. Without making it too obvious, I move to the other side of the room and edge closer to the table Atlas is sitting at.

I don't know who he's sitting with, all I know is that it's not Keats, mainly because there are no tattoos.

"I just don't know why he feels like he has to control everything," Atlas says to his friend, his words slurred. "I mean it was one kiss, but he's acting like I fucked his girlfriend behind his back. He doesn't even like her! If I want to kiss her, fuck her, or whatever, then that's my business, you know? But he's all worried about the Regents and what will happen if they take an interest in her, and blah, blah, blah. Fucking asshole." He has to be talking about Jude, there's no one else who would get under his skin this much.

"The Regents?" his friend asks.

Atlas waves him off, clearly drunk. "Just a country club thing." That's a lie. I may not know Atlas all that well, but that was definitely not the truth.

"Which club?" the friend pesters.

At that moment Keats plops down into a seat next to Atlas' friend. "Guess what I got."

"What?" Atlas asks, his eyes half-lidded and the hand holding his beer propping his chin up.

"An STD?" the friend jokes.

"Fucking nasty, bro. Go get me a beer," Keats says.

The friend must be one of the pledges because he does exactly as Keats asks. Without skipping a beat, Keats slides into the now vacated seat and reaches into his pocket. At first I don't understand what he pulls out, but then, when I do, I'm frozen. I'm not sure whether to be embarrassed or angry as he dangles my thong in front of Atlas' face.

"I win," Keats says smugly.

"Bullshit. Those could belong to anyone."

"Swear on my family's name." Keats shoves two fingers under Atlas' nose. Those were the fingers that had been inside me, even if only for a few moments. "She's so sweet, like a fucking peach, and so tight and wet. She's the stuff dreams are made of, man."

To my surprise, Atlas doesn't move away. "I can't believe you fucked Lyric here. What did you do, take her into the bathroom?"

"Nah, just the hallway over there."

Keats doesn't correct Atlas on the assumption that he fucked me.

My heart hammers in my chest. Of course this was all a game. See who could get to Lyric first. I'm so used to things being black and white, being told what and who to do by my father and Sampson, that I forgot some people play in the gray.

"I thought she was into me, fuck. So what panties am I going to have to wear?" Atlas asks.

"I think Lyric's would be fitting, don't you?" Keats' asks with a snort.

"A lacy thong? I'm going to get fucking arrested if I wear that."

"We'll make sure it covers, but yeah, as the winner of the bet I choose Lyric's panties, provided they fit. If they don't, I'm sure I can find something else."

"Lucky fucker," Atlas says.

I walk away. I don't need to hear anymore. They bet on who could fuck me first, and apparently my panties were required as proof. They are just as fucked up as I am, only in different ways.

As I cross the room trying to put distance between me, Atlas, and Keats, I see that Jude is alone for once, just leaning against a pillar and sipping on his drink. I'm not one to let an opportunity go to waste. I channel the outrage I'm feeling toward Atlas and Keats, the two guys I thought were actually my friends, and direct it toward Jude. He is the one that Lyssa was scared of in her journal. He's the most likely culprit.

I circle behind him, and in a disturbingly cheerful voice, I ask, "So did you know when you spiked Alyssa's drink that she'd die? Is that what you wanted?"

He spins to face me, the drink in his glass sloshing out over his hand, and I duck behind the pillar so he can only see a little of me. "What the fuck are you talking about? Who the fuck are you?" His rage is almost instantaneous.

"I'm just someone who knows how she really died. She was scared of you. I wonder why that is. Were you the one who drugged her?"

"Why the fuck would I drug and kill my friend?"

I keep circling away from him as he tries to storm toward me. Round and round the pillar we go, where we stop nobody knows.

I bring a hand up and tap on the chin of my mask as though I'm thinking aloud, then I say, "Maybe you were scared of what she knew? Maybe you wanted to silence her permanently?"

"She was my sister. I loved her."

Now I'm the one that's raging angry. "She wasn't your sister, she was a Sterling," I leave all emotion out of my voice, even though I want to scream at him. She was my sister, not his.

"Looks like you didn't know her as well as you thought," he replies with a smirk, as though he's just won.

Before I have a chance to respond, the music cuts out and someone's voice starts talking. At first, I don't recognize who it is, then I realize it's Carter, Atlas' dad. "I don't care how it looks. We're going to have to ask someone for help, Thalia. We're broke. We can't even afford to send Atlas to school, but you won't let me pull him out."

"Because this is all your fault!" Thalia screeches.

"My fault? I did this for you! You're the one who's obsessed with keeping up appearances. Maybe if you gave up the Gucci and Louboutins, you could actually help, or, I don't know, if you sold some of your fucking art, maybe we wouldn't be going bankrupt."

"You embezzled the money!"

I glance over at Atlas, seeing everyone in the crowd do the same thing, and my heart breaks for him. Yes, I want to hurt the four of them and make them pay for the pain they caused my family, but I never expected to feel guilty when I did. Public humiliation has never been my thing. I'd rather be tortured, and have in fact, chosen that over the other before.

Suddenly, I can't stay in the room any longer. I stumble away from Jude, and though Atlas' parents are still going for each other's throats in the recording, I'm not hearing any more. All I can hear is what Jude said.

She was my sister.

You didn't know her as well as you thought.

What does that mean? He has no reason to lie to me since he has no idea who I am. Plus, why would that be the lie? It makes my head hurt. And my heart. Had I been so wrong about this?

I can't believe it. Not after her journal. Whatever relationship they'd had, it certainly didn't seem like brother and sister from the outside. My stomach rolls with nausea, and I have to pause at a random trash can to puke.

He has to be lying.

They can't actually be brother and sister, can they?

My feet carry me toward campus and through the now familiar bushes and trees, along walkways and up stairs until I'm back in my room. I rip the mask from my face and pull the dress off so I'm standing there buck naked.

Which is when I see another note on my bed.

I can't take much more right now, so I'm hoping it's from Evie, telling me that she's out with Cliff or something. It's only when I pick the note up that I see what it was resting on. It isn't just my bed like I thought. There's a beautiful black rose with white markings on it. Before I look at the note, I pick the rose up so I can see it more clearly.

Each petal of the outer few rounds, and the leaves at the base, have a skull drawn on them in white paint. I carefully look at some of the other petals and don't see anything until I get to what's almost the center, where I think I see a number five or six. I have no idea what it means.

I carefully set the rose down on my bed and look at the note itself. All it says on the outside is my name. Not just Lyric, though, but my full name.

Lyric Elizabeth Florence Sterling.

I'm not sure how long it's been since I've seen it written out like that but it has to be years, at least. The paper is folded in a way that there's a center portion along, with two smaller portions, one on the top and one on the bottom, the two of which are sealed together with, no joke, dripped wax. Embedded in the wax is a skull wearing a crown.

Right in the center of the paper is a shiny, gold crown, underneath which are the only words on the page, which ask, "Are you worthy?"

I run my fingers over the hand-written text and can feel the indentation of the pen. Underneath that, I can see a vague dip in the paper, as though someone almost wrote something, or wrote something while this paper was under whatever they were writing on, and when I tilt it in the light, the marks in the paper become more noticeable, and I can see a time, date, and location.

This has to be the Regents. The crown almost guarantees it. To my understanding, they don't invite freshmen, so why is there an invitation here, on my bed, with my full name on it?

As much as I want to know what's going on with that, the bigger question that's on my mind right now is who was my sister? Who was Alyssa Sterling?