Treachery Prequel

Luca

I was on my way to the library for the fifth night in a row. After being assigned the tort project, and then finding out my senior partner wanted nothing to do with it unless I promised him a favor in return, I spent two nights throwing a pity party for one in my dorm room, alternating like ocean waves back and forth between rage at how Ta

For one tiny second, I’d actually considered crawling back to him and making the deal he obviously wanted just so I could save my GPA and not throw away years of hard work, but that moment of weakness had been lost as soon as Everly had come back following a night out with Jase.

She had tears in her eyes and her hair was a mess, the scent of alcohol wafting from her breath when she admitted she’d caught Jase with another girl in his bed for the third time.

Comforting her had only made me hate the Inferno boys again. So, on the third day, I’d emerged from my dorm room with a plan in place to avoid every single one of them like that were the Black Plague while pulling up my big girl panties to take the project on myself.

In a way, it was a good thing. My anger focused me and the enormity of the project kept me busy enough that hiding in the library felt more like a necessity than being a coward.

Over the course of the past five days, I never took the same route, I showed up either early or late to class (which was a complete affront to my ma

It felt good to sidestep the Inferno, my head held high and my shoulders rolled back as I made it my mission in life to be the one student they couldn’t steamroll.

It felt like the universe was finally on my side for once, like nothing could touch me as I walked quickly beneath the boughs of the campus trees. But then my phone rang, my good luck, and good feelings, coming to an end almost immediately.

“Hey dad,” I answered after recognizing his number flashing across my screen.

It wasn’t unusual for my father to call me around this time of day. Both my parents were good about staying in touch, always checking on me to make sure there wasn’t something I needed.

His voice when he first spoke was ice coating my spine. Something was off, and it slowed my steps as I approached the library, my body bathed in the deep shadow of the tall building.

“Hey, baby girl. Are you busy? We need to talk.”

We need to talk never bodes well for the begi

As my father talked, my body gave out beneath me.

Thankfully, a bench was nearby that could break my fall before I melted into a puddle of pain and terror on the dirt at my feet.

He kept talking, but all I heard were a few words that drove the point home that the universe didn’t love me as much as I believed.

Your mom...

Cancer...

Recurrence...

Testing...

Nothing else that he said mattered. Not his assurances that we didn’t yet need to worry. Not the conviction of his reminder that my mother was a fighter and that she was strong. Not the awful dad jokes he told me after dropping a bomb that floored me before I’d ever seen it coming.

For two years we’d believed my mother had defeated a disease that took so many lives. But I guessed that’s what happens when you let your guard down and believe it’s safe to breathe easily again.

All the demons in your life come sneaking back.

Much like my mother’s cancer, Gabriel reappeared an hour later while I sat frozen at a library table staring at a bunch of words in a book that made little sense.

Somehow, his presence, or the fact that for whatever reason, the Inferno boys still had me in their sights, was nothing more dire than a tiny ripple in the ocean compared to the news my father had given me.

“You,” he said, bumping my shoulder with his hip before grabbing a seat, spi

My response was on auto-pilot.

“If I told you that it wouldn’t make for a good hiding spot later on.”

I wanted him to go away so I could grieve in private. My eyes had to have been bloodshot, the rims stained red.

Still, I hadn’t let one tear fall. That didn’t mean they weren’t constantly threatening to come surging back every time I allowed myself to think about that phone call.

Gabriel leaned forward, the woodsy scent of his cologne wafting beneath my nose as he tipped the chair forward and spoke quietly.

“What I’d like to know is why you’re hiding. I’ve missed trading barbs back and forth while walking you to class. You make me chuckle, Luca Bailey, and that’s saying something.”

Aggravation crept up my spine. It wasn’t Gabriel’s fault that Ta

I wanted to lay into him for the sins of his friends, but I couldn’t stomach allowing any emotion to sneak through for fear the tears I’d been fighting for the past hour would finally break free.

“Tonight’s a bad night, Gabriel. Just leave me alone, okay?”

Damn it.

My voice wavered over what I said, one traitorous tear that stung my eyes breaking free to leak down my cheek. Gabriel focused on it immediately.

“Please tell me that tear doesn’t belong to anything my dickhead of friend has done. I thought you were made of a stronger fiber than that.”

He reached out to catch it with his finger and fling it away.

He was right. Ta

I don’t know why I admitted the truth. Maybe because Gabriel was an outlier. He had nothing to do with my family, and most likely wouldn’t care much about anything going on with me.

He was simply a box where I could deposit this particular fear with the hope he’d diminish it somehow by not giving a damn how disastrous it was.

“I just found out my mom’s cancer has come back.”

Blurting the truth helped relieve some of the weight. Admitting it aloud somehow helped ease the knot choking me.

Gabriel stared at me, his hair a mess of soft brown around his head, his green eyes sparkling as usual, his easygoing expression unchanging as he paused before responding to me.

It was a relief in a way that he didn’t look at me with sympathy. I wasn’t sure why, exactly, but I appreciated that instead of frowning or immediately burying me in half-hearted condolences, he gri

“You know what I think?” he asked, making the enormity of my problem seem like nothing more than a minor a

“What?”

“I think rather than sitting here staring at books all night and feeling sorry for yourself, you should give up studying for a few hours and find something fun to do. And, you’re just lucky enough that I happen to have the means to provide you with that fun.”

The question didn’t need to be asked for me to know there was another party at the Inferno house tonight.

It was a Friday, after all, and as usual, word of it had spread across campus like wildfire.