Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
GEMMA
The Horsemen left my room, but their shadows frosted the glass on my double door. I was trapped in my own fucking room. It didn’t make any sense. I stared at their three unmoving shadows, trying to put pieces of the puzzle together, but there are too many gaps in the board.
I don’t remember falling asleep. I woke up in the same position, a crick in my neck from having slept sitting up all night. The shadows at the door were gone. Rubbing my neck, I went out to my living room—
“There you are, sweetie.” My mom stood in the living room, arms folded.
Sweetie?
Normally, my mother’s kindness would elicit a bone-chilling dread. Today, I barely registered it past the fear screaming in my bones that she would see the Horsemen. She would know what I was hiding.
She would know.
I looked around my living room.
It was empty, no sign of the Horsemen.
Maybe it was a fluke. Just another Horseman scare tactic, but nervous tension still slid through me, wired and jittery.
Satisfied there were no illicit men in my room, I was able to fully focus on my mother. She was still in her pajamas despite it being light out. I rubbed my lips together. Tansy Crowne didn’t stay in her pajamas past 5:00 a.m., even if the entire goddamn globe was on fire.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Not leaving her perch on the wall, my mom tossed something on my couch—tossed—the woman who believed walking too quickly was tantamount to spitting on the pope.
I leaned forward to see what it was: a magazine.
I snatched the glossy thing up. There was a photo of me in a tiara from my last birthday, when my hair was still long, before Abby took scissors to it. I was smiling at someone off camera. A bold, black serif headline overlay the photo.
AMERICA’S CRIME PRINCESS
The Crowne family is no stranger to scandal. With the most recent unearthing of Beryl Crowne’s illegal practices, the world thought the Crowne family had turned over a new leaf. But could America’s Princess also be tied into something criminal?
I hadn’t had a panic attack in a few years, not since I’d started chewing benzos like Tums, but I felt one coming on.
I quickly flipped to the story, trying not to think of the three bodies that had shadowed my room all night. They had a photo of me smiling next to some Wall Street guy that, I guess, was arrested for fraud. I didn’t remember him, like I didn’t remember the hundreds of people I shook hands with.
Nothing about Grim or the Horsemen.
My heart calmed—a little.
This wasn’t the first lie someone had told about me. Secretly a Scientologist. Member of the Illuminati. Married to this prince or that heir in some secret wedding.
It was just the first time they were almost right.
“It’s not true," I said. “You know this kind of story blows over.”
“There’s more.”
Frowning, I kept reading. On the last page was a horrible candid photo of me beside a red wooden cottage with white trim.
My stomach dropped. I knew that building.
There were things my mother and I didn’t talk about, things we pretended never happened. The year her perfect, eldest daughter overdosed and was sent to a chic rehab in Sweden? Definitely one of those things.
Gemma Crowne is known for perfection. The perfect nude lip. The perfect pink mani. But if America’s Princess hides a pill addiction—what else is she hiding?
I set the magazine down, winded. “How did they get this?”
My mother said nothing. She should be angry. My pristine crown was tarnished, so she should be giving me a smile while saying something diabolical. Instead, she just…leaned against the wall.
Her eyes were glassy, her posture soft.
Oh.
She came over, stroked my hair, and then left without another word. That was so much worse than if she’d called me a failure. It was like she was giving up.
Guilt tore shreds into my stomach.
Maybe that was why I went, to prove to my mother I could be what she needed.
Prove I wasn’t an addict.
Prove I wasn’t slowly sinking into shadow.
I was America’s Princess.
Hours later, the bags under my eyes expertly color corrected, I stared at the orange-and-gold door of the teahouse, trying to tell myself to go inside.
The people within were probably foaming at their expertly filled mouths.
For the first time, Gemma Crowne’s shiny, spotless persona had a crack in it.
Stalling, I took out my phone. My notifications had blown up.
She’s pathetic.
Honestly, it’s not even the drugs—addiction is a disease, right? It’s the fact that she’s been lying and pretending to be so fucking perfect.
The whole Crowne family is fucked up. You saw what they did to their grandfather—
“Hey, princess.”
I startled at the voice, quickly shoving my phone back in my clutch.
He can’t be here.
None of them can. This was the most exclusive tearoom in Crowne Point. As if to defy my inner voice, a heavy, muscled, and leather-clad arm landed on my shoulder.
“You can’t be here,” I whispered.
Lock spun me to face him and grabbed my chin, dragging my eyes to his icy-blue ones—a mean, deceptive blue, the color of thin ice right before you fell through and drowned.
“People will see you,” I said.
See me, see all the dark secrets I’d managed to hide, the soul-deep bruises I’d covered.
Lock leaned forward, his head shadowing us. “Aw, afraid your friends won’t like me?”
His inky-black hair fell haphazard over sharp brows and sharper blue eyes. The stenciled bloody hemlock on his neck flexed with his muscles and veins.
I swallowed, refusing to let him see my uncertainty and fear. “They wouldn’t even let you in the fucking bathroom.”
“Why don’t you let me handle that?” Lock grinned slow, easy, and leonine, then stepped back. “After you, princess.”