Chapter 36

Ruby

As I look down at the slip of paper in my hands, I’m faced with two possibilities: I can throw Cayden’s number away, giving into my fate with Atwood and becoming his mate. I can marry Atwood and become his princess. I can live in the castle until the end of my days, being abused by Alice and the Queen, loving a man who can never give all of himself to me because a woman with dark hair will forever haunt his memories.

Or… I can run away with Cayden, leaving all of this behind. We could take Tamara and run far away, so far that Atwood won’t be able to find us. We’ll change our names. I’ll dye my hair and become someone else, someone that never knew Atwood, never knew Nancy, never attended the Lycan school and never saw the inside of the castle.

Can I really run from my fate like that? Do I possess the power to change the course of my fate, just like how I changed the outcome of my vision?

“Ruby, what are you doing out here?” Nancy suddenly says from behind me. Without thinking, I hastily shove the piece of paper into my bodice and stand, turning to look at her with a fake smile plastered across my face.

“I just came out here to get some fresh air,” I say as nonchalantly as possible. I can tell that Nancy suspects something is amiss for a second, but then she smiles back and holds the door open wider for me.

“Come on inside,” she says with a grin. “They’re about to announce homecoming royalty.”

I follow my friend back into the building. She takes my hand and pulls me toward the dance floor, where the other students have gathered. The headmaster stands on the stage in front of the DJ booth and holds the DJ’s microphone in his hand. In his other hand, he holds an envelope.

“Gather ‘round, gather ‘round,” he says cheerily into the microphone. Nancy, still holding my hand, pushes her way to the front of the crowd despite my protests. I’d much rather stand at the back where no one can see me.

“Before I announce the homecoming royalty, I want to take a moment to thank you all for so many wonderful years as students at the Lycan Academy,” the headmaster says. “I can hardly believe that I’ve had the pleasure of watching many of you grow up to be such fine young men and women. And for those who have more recently joined our class-” he says, looking at me, “-I am also honored to have gotten to know you in this short amount of time. I hope that the rest of the school year is full of joy.”

The other students seem to be getting impatient, so the headmaster finally opens the envelope.

“Now, for this year’s homecoming royalty,” he says, pulling the results out of the envelope, “I’m happy to announce… Oh, what a nice surprise! For homecoming queen…”

He pauses dramatically as the students whisper excitedly. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Beck primping her hair and smoothing down her skirt, apparently excited to be crowned as homecoming queen.

“Ruby Jones!” the headmaster says. The other students gasp collectively, all looking at me in unison. The only person who seems genuinely excited is Nancy, who is jumping up and down and clapping with tears in her eyes.

The headmaster gestures for me to come up on stage, which I do hesitantly. I stand beside him awkwardly, trying not to look at Beck’s angry face as it turns red with rage. With a smile, the pulls out the next slip of paper to announce the homecoming king.

“And for homecoming king… Our very own Earl Davis!”

As if it wasn’t already bad enough, the students all go even more silent. Earl steps up onto the stage, shooting me a dark glance, before standing on the headmaster’s other side.

It all happens so fast. A female student, one of the members of the student council, approaches with our crowns and places them on our heads. Then, the headmaster announces the royalty dance and music begins playing. Earl robotically smiles and holds his hand out for me, just like he did at the student council party.

I take his hand. As we cross the stage and return to the dance floor, I look across the crowd to see Cayden staring at me from behind the bar. He glares at me for a moment before disappearing into a back room.

Earl and I begin to dance. He still has that plastic smile plastered across his face as we twirl around the dance floor, but his fingers dig into my waist like claws.

“You’re pathetic for rigging the ballots,” he says through gritted teeth as he pulls me closer to whisper in my ear.

“I didn’t rig the ballots,” I respond shakily. His fingers dig harder into my waist, causing me to wince.

“You know,” Earl says, “I knew what you were when I asked you to dance at the student council party. In fact, everything that happened that night was my plan. You didn’t seriously think that Donna would be smart enough to pull that off on her own, did you?”

I think back to that night, to when Earl joined me at the buffet and ate creme puffs with me. I think about his smile when he asked me to dance, and how he acted like something important came up when he had to walk away. As we dance now, an incredibly brief vision flashes across my mind of him slipping a pill into my drink and handing it to Donna.

Suddenly, Earl gracefully dips me as the music comes to an end. His face is close to mine, so close I can feel his hot breath on my face as he stares at me with evil in his eyes. He pulls me back up to my feet, pulling me close one last time to whisper in my ear.

“If you think that your torture is over… think again.”

With that, he walks away, leaving me alone on the dance floor. The music picks back up and the other students return to their dancing… all except for one. Beck is seated at a table near the back, glaring at me. She has makeup streaked down her face and it looks as though she’s been crying.

I wish I could just walk up to her and tell her that I don’t want Earl, that she can have him, that I’m thankful she got to kiss him during the play and not me, but I know that she’ll just be even more angry with me.

Nancy comes up to me now with a wide smile on her face. Some of her lipstick has been smeared, indicating that she’s been kissing her new boyfriend again.

“Listen,” she says happily, pulling me aside, “I’m having a sleepover at my house after the dance. All of the girls are invited. Will you come too?”

“Um…” I look out the window, imagining what Atwood might say. No, you have to come home, he’ll probably say. I can’t believe you’d even ask. Do you even care about me?

“Pretty pretty please?” Nancy says, clasping her hands and gazing up at me with her round green eyes. She sticks her lower lip out into a pout and bats her eyelashes.

“I have to ask my… guardian,” I say, to which Nancy squeals excitedly.

I step away and with a sigh, I dial Atwood. He picks up on the third ring.

“You okay?” he says, without so much as a hello.

“Uh, yeah,” I answer, swallowing hard. “I just wanted to ask…” I pause.

I can hear Atwood sigh on the other side of the phone. “What is it?” He sounds annoyed.

“My friend Nancy is having a sleepover after the dance,” I say. “Can I go? I’ll come home first thing in the morning.”

Atwood doesn’t say anything for a few moments, causing my heart to race as I imagine his potential response. But then, he says something unexpected.

“Sure. Just be careful. I’ll send someone to pick you up tomorrow.”

He hangs up, and I let out a sigh of relief. I turn back to Nancy, who’s standing off to the side and looking at me expectantly, and I nod. She gets excited and scurries away.

I take one last look at the bar to see if Cayden is there. He’s gone, replaced by a new bartender.

Turning back toward the corner where no one can see, I pull his number out of my bodice and enter it into my contacts.