Aiden had asked if Tiago could come over because he didn’t want his boyfriend to be alone after what happened today. And with being so stressed about what might happen to Dylan, Aiden didn’t want to be alone himself. So Aiden’s parents brought Tiago over before they went to the PTA meeting.
Hours went by. Tiago tried to distract him, but even kissing couldn’t keep Aiden’s mind off the meeting. He wished he could be there, but students weren’t supposed to attend. Aiden kept checking his phone, fighting the urge to text Dylan or his parents to ask what was going on.
“It’ll be fine,” Tiago said as he watched Aiden pace. He didn’t sound very convincing.
Finally Dylan texted to say he wasn’t expelled. Aiden read the message over three times, letting relief sink in. Through several more texts, Dylan’s parents agreed to have Aiden and Tiago come over, and Aiden’s parents agreed to drive them.
Dylan’s dad ordered pizza and brought them snacks. For a while they sat in the living room as Dylan’s parents hovered around. Obviously his mom and dad were relieved and wanted to be around him, and for once Dylan didn’t complain.
Eventually they asked if Dylan wanted to go up to his room, and he quickly made a retreat with Aiden and Tiago carrying the remains of the pizza and pop with them.
Dylan flopped onto the bed. Between him and his parents, they’d shared with Aiden and Tiago what had happened at the PTA meeting, but apparently they’d left out a few details because Dylan said, “Warden Bully told everyone I sent you to the hospital.” He stared at the ceiling.
“What?”
“He must have done some snooping and looked at your hospital records.”
“What are you talking about?” Tiago interrupted, looking between them with a frown.
Uh-oh. Aiden rubbed at the spot on his chest where the scar had long since faded. Only a spot about the size of his thumbprint remained, slightly paler than the surrounding skin. Aiden probably only noticed it because he looked for it. Tiago had seen him shirtless and hadn’t mentioned anything.
Dylan sat up. “I burned Aiden freshman year.”
Tiago stared at him, eyes narrowed.
“It—it was an accident,” Aiden said. “We were training and I—I startled him. But I healed and I’m fine.” He hated lying to Tiago, but Dylan hadn’t even told his parents about letting Morgan out.
“You never mentioned this before.” Tiago’s voice was low.
“Because it’s not important,” Aiden said, heart pounding. The last thing he needed was for Tiago to be mad at Dylan.
“Then why did Dylan bring it up like it’s a big deal?”
“Because that’s private information, which means Warden Bully’s been digging around, looking for evidence against me,” Dylan said.
“Can he do that?” Aiden asked. “Take my medical records and—and share them with everybody?” The human world had rules against people looking through someone’s medical records, but things were different here.
Dylan shrugged. “He’s a warden. He can do whatever he wants.”
Aiden bit his lip. If the warden kept digging, would he find out that Dylan had released Uncle from Faery?
“What about you, Cat Boy? How you holding up?”
Tiago pulled out the computer chair and sat heavily. “You mean now that everyone at school knows I’m a murderer?”
“They don’t know that.” Aiden squeezed his shoulder. He still couldn’t believe the warden had announced that to the whole school. “They only know Warden Bradley said that. You could deny it.”
Tiago let out a long, slow breath. “I guess.”
“We could say he was trying to stir up trouble, get people to hate us,” Dylan said.
“Yeah, he just wanted people to think Dylan keeps bad company.” Aiden was still shocked by the whole thing. “He implied that I might be responsible for the murders committed by the dark fae, so he was making wild accusations.”
Tiago rubbed his hands on his pants. “Actually I…” He looked up at Aiden. “I think I’m going to admit it.”
“What?” Aiden gripped his shoulder again. He couldn’t be serious.
“I’m tired of hiding it. I don’t want to lie. The secret is out, so I’m just going to own up to it. If people hate me for it, then fine.” He sounded brave, but the tightness around his eyes and mouth revealed his nervousness.
“But what if you get in trouble?” Aiden’s heart raced. He’d just gone through this with Dylan; he couldn’t handle any more.
Tiago shrugged. “The wardens already know, and they allowed me to move here, to go to school.”
“But the rest of town doesn’t know. What about the parents? They might try to expel you like they did to me.” Dylan tensed like he wanted to fight them.
“What if I lie and they find out anyway? I’d rather be honest.”
Aiden took Tiago’s face in his hands, fear making him a little dizzy. “I don’t want to lose you.” Oh God, would the wardens change their minds and decide to make an example of Tiago? Unlike Dylan, Tiago had broken the treaty. Multiple times.
“You won’t.” He stood and kissed Aiden. “If they try to lock me up, you’ll come rescue me with that badass fae magic, right?”
Aiden hated violence and didn’t want to defy authority, but this… “Yeah.”
Tiago smiled and kissed him again, deeper this time.
Oh, those lips. Aiden wanted to melt into him. One of his hands came up to slide into Tiago’s hair.
Dylan cleared his throat. “No making out in my room.”
With his cheeks heating, Aiden stepped away. “Sorry.”
“I’ll come break you out too, Cat Boy.”
Tiago laughed. “You just want an excuse to fight wardens.”
“What can I say?” Dylan shrugged. “I have simple motivations.”
Aiden wanted to scold them for joking about this, but maybe that’s what they needed to relieve the tension.
“Well, tomorrow’s definitely going to be interesting,” Tiago said.
Dylan snorted. “Yeah, for sure.”
* * *
Dylan went to pick up Tiago before school. Aiden had argued they should stick together and not have Tiago walk alone. Cat Boy looked pale as they pulled up in the lot. If Warden Bully picked on him, or any of them, Dylan didn’t know what he would do.
“Everything will be fine,” Aiden said, hugging himself.
Tiago leaned over and put an arm around him. They were both in the back so they could sit together. “Whatever happens, we’ll deal with it.”
“I’m so tempted to skip today.” Dylan’s mood swung between fear and angry defiance. “But I gotta face this.”
“Me too.” Tiago kissed Aiden’s cheek, then turned to get out.
The three of them walked in together. Dylan tensed as he stepped through the door, expecting to find Warden Bully waiting for him. But he wasn’t there. Several kids turned to look at him with a mix of reactions. Some hurried away, one glared, a few smiled.
“Should we stay together?” Aiden asked, standing a little close.
“Well, we have class together, so yeah.” Dylan turned to him. “Oh, you mean like going to our lockers?” Their lockers were in different hallways.
“And Tiago too. I think we should walk him to class before we go to Health.”
“How romantic,” Tiago whispered, and Aiden turned bright red.
They headed for Tiago’s locker first, kids watching and whispering as they passed. Dylan grew tenser as they went.
“Just ignore them,” Aiden said.
Yeah, right. And the whole time Dylan kept looking for Warden Bully. The man couldn’t throw him out, but Dylan was sure the warden would harass him.
Tiago dropped off his coat and grabbed his books. Just as he closed the door, Mr. Johnson walked over. All three of them tensed.
What now?
“Dylan, Aiden… Tiago.” The warden nodded to each of them in turn. “I’ve agreed to temporarily replace Warden Bradley as the school liaison.”
“Temporarily—” Aiden started.
“Replace?” Could Dylan dare to hope that asshole was gone?
Mr. Johnson nodded. “Principal Nejem strongly feels that he’s a danger to student safety and well-being and refuses to let him on the premises.”
“She can do that?” Dylan asked. The principal could defy the wardens?
“Not technically, but given the current state of affairs, we thought it was best to make a compromise.”
“So the protest did do some good.” That made it worth being arrested, worth almost getting kicked out of school.
Mr. Johnson glared. “It’s causing a lot of problems.” Then he sighed. “It’s very likely Warden Bradley won’t be returning here, so until we find a replacement, I volunteered to stand in for him.”
“I thought you were too busy to be the school liaison,” Aiden said.
“The dark fae case is wrapped up. We’re still investigating the… unusual phenomenon in the sky, but I’m not the lead on that case.” Mr. Johnson looked around. The kids walking past gave them a wide berth, though Dylan couldn’t say who they were avoiding. “I thought I might be able to ease some of the tension. At the very least, I won’t be making it worse.”
Dylan didn’t trust him. Mr. Johnson was sneaky and a liar—lying to protect Dylan, sure, but he was probably lying about other things. On the other hand, Mr. Johnson would be a huge improvement over Warden Bully.
“Speaking of which—” Mr. Johnson looked at Tiago and said quietly, “I’m going to do some damage control about the… accusations yesterday.”
Tiago swallowed. “I don’t want to lie. The secret’s out, so I’d rather just deal with it.”
Mr. Johnson’s eyes widened. “That would be a very bad idea.”
“Will the wardens arrest him?” Aiden asked. His hand flexed like he wanted to touch Tiago.
“No, but it’s going to cause problems with other students, parents, teachers…” Mr. Johnson shook his head. “I kept your record confidential so you could have a quiet life here.”
Did Tiago owe him a favor too?
“Warden Bul—Bradley tried to use my past as a weapon. I want to take that weapon away from him.”
Cat Boy definitely had balls.