There are rules. This is something I have known for a long time. There are rules, and you might be able to bend them, but they don't break. They just don't. Here are some of the rules I know: 1. Certain people just aren't supposed to be together, 2. Visiting with a mean girl is always a mistake, 3. Murphy Monroe was never supposed to be happy.
"You came!" Like usual, Heather was drunk. I was starting to understand why. After the car thing, I was starting to realize there was something really wrong with her. More than just the fact that she was an asshole. There was something twisted inside her. There was something rotten. It was the reason she drank so much. It was probably the reason she had fired so many lacrosse balls at my head. It was definitely the reason she had tried to kill Fletcher. That's what it was, attempted murder, but it was so hard to think of it that way. Murder. That word was too raw, too real. I didn't want it to be real. "You know, Murphy, I wasn't sure you would." We were alone in the room, Talia was nowhere to be seen. I wondered where she went at times like this. Did Heather banish her whenever she wanted to have a one on one intimidation session? "You're always surprising me." Heather continued. Her head lolled ever so slightly as she gesticulated, sloshing whatever was in her glass out onto the floor. "Sit, have a drink," She gestured towards her mini-bar. I ignored it, staying standing and sober. Her gaze held on me for a long moment, but then it slid away. "So surprising."
"Hey, Heather," I let all the annoyance I'd ever felt for her come out in my voice. It had turned icy and cold, almost unrecognizable even to me. "Can you get to the fucking point? Why did you ask me to come here?"
Her mouth opened in a surprised sort of smile. "God, you must really be in deep."
"What?"
"You sound just like Highguard, all that hothead machismo." Her smile thinned to something barely human. "It's cute on him, but a bad look for you." I tightened my jaw, trying to hold some part of me together. "You're fucking him, aren't you?" Her tone stayed the same brand of nonchalant, but the words hit me like a wrecking ball.
"No-" I didn't know why I was trying to protest. I mean, I wasn't doing exactly what she said, but I had made it pretty clear that I cared about Fletcher the night before.
"Murphy, it's fine" She said, cutting me off. "You can fuck whoever you want. I just think you're entitled to know certain things about him if you do."
I knew I shouldn't let on to the fact that she'd hit a nerve but something on her face, that grim I know something you don't smile, made me do it. "What are you talking about?"
"Fletcher Highguard..." She paused, milking it, or maybe she was just drunk. "Fletcher Highguard killed my brother."
The only people who can really disappoint you are the ones you believe in, and I didn't realize how much I had believed in Fletcher until that moment. He was the moral, unflinching heart of Pruitt, so good and so just. Until he wasn't.
"What are you talking about?" I asked again with a robotic repetition.
"Oh, you don't need to take my word for it." She pulled her phone from her pocket and held it towards me. "There's a video."
This is the video:
There are three boys in the common area of the Pruitt ruins, surrounding them is a group of Lords and Ladies, some of whom I recognize and others I don't. Each of the three boys stands on one foot on top of a rickety looking chair as younger boys hand them beers. I know immediately, this is a Lords challenge. Not only that, it's the lords challenge, the one that Fletcher described the day he told me about Magnus.
It struck me then that I had never seen a photo of Magnus. I had just trusted that everything Fletcher told me about him was all that I needed to know... that it was all there was to know. Had I pushed a little further, had I ever questioned his word, I might have stumbled upon an image of Magnus earlier. I would have seen it instantly, as I did when I watched him on that chair, he was so entirely a McCoy. His feathery blond hair, his icy blue eyes, all the curves and edges of his beautiful face, it was Heather. They were Heather's. He had been Heather's as much as Charlie was mine.
Magnus stood on the chair all the way to the right, blushing hard in the way that Heather sometimes did when she drank without much makeup. Of the three boys, he looked the most out of it, swaying with a stupid smile on his face but still downing the beers that the other lords were handing to him. All the way to the left, was another blond, and though his hair was longer than I had ever seen it and his face rounder, I knew Tim Watson when I saw him. He looked young, boyish and enthusiastic. The third boy stood on the chair between them. He had dark wavy hair and starry freckles I knew so well, but his eyes were clear and innocent. There was no fury in this Fletcher Highguard. Not yet. He was wild and free and smiling an unbridled Pruitt smile. He was fit to be king.
The recording was noisy, but Fletcher's laughter, a sound I had grown so used to, rang loud above the rest of the sound. Tim was stone faced, focused on the task ahead of him, sweating bullets as he took messy sips. Magnus was shaky and swaying. But Fletcher made it look easy. He loved it. It was so obvious. The competition, the craziness, he loved all of it. Or, he had.
The video continued, and Magnus only grew shakier. His hair caught the light and morphed into a shining blond halo. His thin body folded forwards as he fell, and his arms flew out behind him like the wings of a baby bird. Tim and Fletcher's eyes were elsewhere, but the camera followed Magnus as he hit the ground. The fall didn't look terrible, even onto the cold concrete, but I knew that it was. There was laughter from most of the crowd, a sharp hiss behind the camera and a whispered swear that sounded familiar, but I couldn't place it within my buzzing brain, even the two remaining boys smiled when they saw. Something rotten grew inside of me as I watched them leave a living boy to die. Even Fletcher, especially Fletcher.
The camera turned back upwards and Tim and Fletcher kept going. They drank and drank until eventually Tim fell too. His was an awkward stumble, and when he hit the ground he pushed himself back into a shaky standing position immediately, but it was too late. He had lost.
A boy stepped forward, wearing a crown. This must have been the last king, Talia's brother. Where she hid behind apathy he was all emotion and animation he moved wildly, with a manic smile that twisted my insides.
"Lords and Ladies," He boomed. That impressive volume must have been a requirement for all Pruitt Kings because he sounded just like Tim. "Let me introduce you," He gripped Fletcher's hand, pulling it up into the air, "To the new King of Pruitt!"
Fletcher's victory roar was an animalistic, awful sound. He leapt from the chair like a wild beast, landing on surprisingly steady legs. He threw two clenched fists to the air and roared again, "Fuck yeah! Fuck yeah!" Hearing his voice, that deep timberous sound, such an essential part of him, coming from a person so entirely different from the one I knew was like watching a favorite movie out of order. It was just wrong. He whirled, arms still out, slapping Tim hard on the back. Tim grimaced, and then he pulled Fletcher in for a macho hug. It was clear that they were friends from the familiarity of the gesture. When Fletcher broke away from the embrace he turned, looking for someone. When he saw the body on the floor he laughed, kneeling beside it. "Mags!" Even with the noise I could hear the excitement in his voice. He pulled at the boy's shoulder. "Come on Mags, get up and celebrate with me!" But as the body turned the red staining his temple became visible. It clotted his blond bangs and left them hanging awkwardly over his glassy, wide open, eyes. "Mags?" Fletcher's voice turned hesitant, confused. The room quieted, leaving me with gasps, and then... the video went dark.
Fletcher had been there. Fletcher had lied to me. He'd been a lord. He'd been a king. My stomach turned at the thought of him in that crown.
Heather was smiling, but she didn't look happy. She looked like a ghost, a flawed remembrance of the boy I had just watched die. Everything felt wrong. Everything inside me, everything around me. It had all turned sour.
"Now do you want that drink?" Heather asked. I looked at her for a long moment. My mind flashed through all the things I had known, that Fletcher was good, and Heather was bad, and Tim was evil. Now, I knew nothing.
"Yes, please." I said, sliding into the chair Heather had offered me when I first entered. All the righteous fight had left me, and I felt light headed and unsteady on my feet.
I sat and Heather poured something dark into a crystalline cup. She was silent, and that uncanny smile was gone. Now she just looked tired. I hadn't realized how tired she was.
"Magnus was your brother." I said as she handed me the drink. The glass was refreshingly cold. I realized my skin had turned hot and clammy. It was like I'd been set on fire.
"We were twins." Heather said, sitting back down across from me. She sat comfortably, legs thrown lazily onto her desk, head leaning against her palm. I was stock still, my back straight, my hands shaking ever so slightly. Nothing made sense anymore. "People always said we looked identical, but we were very different. He was always better, more sensitive, and quiet. He was good too, and I loved him for it. He had no business being a Lord, but Fletcher was his best friend, more than that, he was his role model. He asked Magnus to join The Lords with him our freshman year, and he did. We loved it, the six of us. Tim, Fletcher, Magnus, Talia, Maddi and I. We knew one day we would rule." That's when I realized who's voice had been coming from behind the camera, Madeline Kwan, she had been the one filming the night Magnus died. That confirmed it. Everyone I'd trusted had lied to me. "When the king competition came our junior year we all knew it would be Fletcher. It was always Fletcher. Magnus didn't even want to compete. He knew he wasn't meant for it, but Fletcher asked him. I told him not to do it, but once Fletcher asked something of you there was no saying no." It was a feeling I could understand. Heather's gaze found somewhere far off. She slid into memory.
I went for another sip of my drink and realized it was empty. So, I stood on shaky legs and poured myself another. The sound of liquid pattering against glass brought Heather back to me. She watched my hands as I poured, face inscrutable.
"I wasn't there the night he died." She said, and emotion broke into her calm tone. "We were fighting. I wanted him to quit it, the king shit. No one thought he'd get that far, the final three. It made me nervous." I stayed silent. There was nothing to say, no words clear enough in my head to escape it. "If I had been there..." She bit her lip, and she didn't need to say it for me to know what she was thinking. If she had been there she would have checked on him. He might have survived. "But it was Fletcher's fault Magnus was there in the first place." Her eyes were narrowed, full of fury. We sat in silence for another long moment, and I poured myself another drink, starting to feel very fuzzy. "That video never got out, do you know why?" Heather finally asked when I sat back down.
The direct question pulled my lips apart. "Why?" I hadn't spoken in so long that it sounded like a croak.
"Maddi sent it to me. Just me. Then she deleted every trace of it from her phone." That was another shock to my system. After everything I'd been through to get evidence of the Lords wrong doing I found out that Madeline had had something irrefutable and she had given it away.
"Why?" I asked again.
Heather laughed. "She wanted me to have it, to have a choice of what to do with it. Because she was there. Because she's guilty. Because she's sorry. I don't know..." Heather's eyes faded into a somber resignation. "Maddie and I... we were something." I remembered the way Madeline got when she talked about Heather, so strangely wistful. Only then did I realize why. They had been more than friends. They had been something. "It doesn't matter." Heather said, watching my face change. "None of it matters. It won't bring him back. Fletcher can go on his little crusade all he wants but it won't bring my brother back." There were tears in her eyes. "They're all murderers." She laughed. "All my friends are murderers." She stood, wiping at her eyes, but still laughing. "And Fletcher might be the worst of them..." Her tone turned light again. "Just thought you should know." With that she turned, grabbing the bottle of whisky I'd been drinking from and pressing it into my hand. "Take this, for the road, and get the fuck out of my room."
I stood on unsteady legs, clutching the bottle to my chest like a life vest, and made for the door. The wood was rough and unreal against my hands. I caught a glimpse of Heather's face as it shut behind me. She looked wrong, not like a real person. Everything looked wrong. It was like I'd suddenly ended up in a claymation version of my life.
The door slammed shut with a scream that echoed throughout the hallway. I jumped at the sound, but when the echoes died the silence was worse than the noise.
I stood there for a long time, trying to make my mind come back to my body. When that didn't work I took another sip, and turned. I was probably going to finish the bottle. It would be a long walk to the boys dorm.