Young Royals Season 3 (Version 3)

25. Fallout

August moved as fast as he could across the courtyard, glancing behind him only once. He headed toward Forest Ridge, avoiding the stares of students who were slowly making their way to breakfast.

"There he is..."

August heard them talking about him as he passed. He looked up quickly and saw the two choir girls holding their phones and staring at him with a mix of shock and disgust. He looked away again and kept moving as quickly as possible without breaking into a run.

He turned the corner finally reaching the door to Forest Ridge and stopped as he reached out to grab the handle.

He realised that the first place they would look for him would be his room and he couldn't face them.

He pulled back and hesitated as he scanned the area around him, then made up his mind and hurried down the trail through the woods and away from Forest Ridge House.

____________

The dining room had turned into chaos in that moment. All of the students were now loudly discussing and nervously laughing about what had just happened.

They were trying to decide if it was really true by putting the pieces together and hypothesizing about why August would have done it.

Walter, Henry, and the other first-year boys were debating it at their table.

"The end of term party for the third years?" Walter asked.

"I know! 'You will call me the Crown Prince'." Henry's eyes got wide as he imitated Wilhelm and remembered the confrontation.

"He knew..." Walter said it secretively as if he were asking and confirming at the same time.

They all scanned around the group without knowing how to react.

"And the next day at lunch..." Henry reminded them.

"But they're family...Erik was August's best friend..." Walter replied.

The group of boys was silent for a moment. Alexander sat back, crossing his arms over his chest and chewing his lips nervously as he avoided eye contact with the others at the table.

At the next table, Simon and Wilhelm held hands tightly as they looked around the room and felt the eyes on them.

"Can we get out of here?" Sara asked Simon quietly. Wilhelm and Felice overheard her.

They looked around at each other and understood that they all preferred to be away from this room and crowd as soon as possible.

The headmistress went straight back to the staff table to speak with Boris. The staff started milling around and Boris nodded at Anette then hurried out the door a few moments behind August.

Their classmates vascillated between silent shock and loud debate of what was going on and Anette decided she should dismiss them quickly, but first she needed to try to mitigate the situation.

She asked all of them not to share anything on social media or outside of the school before the staff could determine what exactly was going on.

"We need to avoid jumping to conclusions or making false accusations that could damage anyone's reputation or future. Please keep that in mind."

Several students gave sideways glances around the room, confused by the need for secrecy now when it seemed quite clear what had gone on.

Wilhelm noticed and scoffed and Simon gave Anette a sideways glance that made Wilhelm smirk.

She dismissed the students and they filed out of the dining room but some lingered around outside still discussing the shocking revelation that a member of the Royal Family had apparently leaked the Crown Prince's sex tape.