Stonestown Galleria is not the biggest or the best of San Francisco’s shopping malls. It’s swarmed with college students killing time between classes and drinking overpriced juices. There’s a movie theater on one end and a gym on the other, but I’ve never known anyone to go to either. In short, it’s not much.
But tonight, Stonestown is everything.
I’m bundled in my best coat, the glossy waves of my hair rising and falling with the wind. It feels strange to be so dressed up after days of wearing nothing but black sweats and workout gear, but I’m glad I am. Waiting here in the cold, I feel more like myself—more Valerie, less Valentine—than I have in weeks.
And after a week of not being allowed to leave Holloway, I’m just happy to be anywhere but there.
Kate has her arm looped through mine. We huddle together outside the Peet’s Coffee by the parking lot.
“He’s cute,” she whispers.
“What?”
“Matthew Weston,” she says. “Jax had me scout him soon after I joined. I guess I was scouting you, too. I remember he was hot.” Then she makes a face. “Don’t tell Jax I said that. You just look so excited.” Kate nudges my side. “You think he is, too, yeah?”
“Matthew’s the best.” And he is.
Kate’s phone buzzes. She unhooks her arm from mine and I catch the time on its glowing screen: 6:44 P.M. One minute before the appointed rendezvous.
“It’s Jax.” She types a reply and slips the phone back in her pocket. “Damn, I should have brought gloves.”
“Oh, I’ve got you.” I reach into my bag and hand her a pair. “Figured you might want some.”
“Seriously? You’re a goddess.” She claps her now gloved hands together. “Much better.”
A gaggle of girls pass by. One of them bumps me and mutters a quick sorry.
“It’s fine,” I say. Almost immediately, another shoulder bumps into mine, this time moving in the opposite direction. I’m peeved until I catch a wave of cologne. Sexy, boyish, and expensive. Summer days and starlight.
Matthew pulls me with him. Kate yells my name as three enormous guys surround her, the Heron emblem on their jacket lapels.
“Matthew?” I say. “What the hell?”
“Don’t talk. Not yet.” He loosens his grip enough for me to turn and walk properly.
We go inside, hustling past the stores and shoppers. He turns into a hallway toward the bathrooms. A side door opens, and there’s another Heron waiting.
“Followed?” the girl asks Matthew.
“No.” Matthew puts his hand at the small of my back, pushing me forward into the dark. “Go on. Follow Aure.”
I repeat the sound of her name in my head—R-E, like the letters—and trail behind her through the concrete maze. Aurelia. Aurelia Saint-Helene. I remember her from the binders … and from before. She looks so different now. Only her gray eyes are as I remember them—bright and determined. She glances at me once then focuses on moving us forward, winging us into the dark.
We pass doors labeled as storage units and pipelines. Matthew keeps close behind me.
“You’re safe,” he says again, as if I don’t believe him. But I do. I believe him in a way I’ll never believe Jax or even Micah.
A set of double doors opens. Night air rushes in. Orange light illuminates an alley and a trio of limos parked all in a line, their engines already on.
“Val?” says Matthew. I turn.
My stalwart trust fades as fast as a falling star. It only takes me a moment to see the regret in his eyes as he presses a damp cloth over my nose and face.
Last thing I remember is Matthew telling me he’s sorry.
He’s sorry, and I’m safe.
When I come to, I’m lying on a soft couch and covered with a blanket. Goddammit, how many times am I going to be knocked out? Whatever it is that I’m breathing in, it can’t be good for me.
I sit up and cough repeatedly, lungs wheezing. My windpipe and lungs are paper-dry, and my mind flashes back to when I woke up at Holloway for the first time. The rooms couldn’t be more different.
The air here has the light perfume of fresh flowers, courtesy of a bouquet just behind my head. The fabric of the couch is uncomfortably soft, the blanket heavy velvet. Light fills the room from dimmed chandeliers overhead.
Across the room, Matthew, Aure, and three other Herons are seated around a table, eating. Aure and another girl look as if they could be cousins, the latter having shorter, curly hair but the same stern expression. The others have their backs to me.
I listen for a moment as silverware clinks against plates. Low ripples of laughter carry from Aure to the three others then to Matthew. She must have told a joke.
Camille isn’t there, but that doesn’t mean she’s not watching. I check the corners of the room for cameras.
I choke-cough a few more times, and the group turns. Aure tucks her brown hair behind her ear, frowning. I don’t know why I looked at her and not at Matthew.
“Val.” Matthew sets his fork down, and the whole group stands as he walks over to me. “Feel okay?”
“Yes.”
“Check her,” Aure says.
When Matthew doesn’t move, another Heron—an African American guy with muscles that could rip off limbs—steps forward. Heat rises to my cheeks as he takes his time patting me down. I stare at Matthew and blink carefully to keep the tears from slipping out.
How many times has Matthew himself flipped me upside-down as a prank, or poked my sides because he knows how ticklish I am? We’ve known each other our whole lives. Seen each other naked, for Christ’s sake. We’re us. Does he really think I’d come here armed?
Matthew frowns at me, apologetic but unmoving.
“Clean,” the guy says.
“Of course I am,” I snap back.
Aure folds her arms across her chest. As she does, I see the bold feathers of the Heron emblem on the inside of her wrist. One wing curls around and extends farther to encircle her left ring finger, like a wedding band.
It strikes me suddenly that she looks a lot like me, only more polished. Same hair, same build, but with more refinement. She stands straighter and exhales grace. Like Valerie 2.0, the expensive version.
But there is something sad about her, too. She must be around my age, but her cheeks are etched with frown lines—as if she’s seen too much, borne too much.
I’m too caught up in my thoughts to realize that the group of us have been standing in a tense, shivery—not to mention awkward—silence.
“Can I talk to her alone?” Matthew asks Aure.
“Camille said five minutes,” she says. “No more.”
“No more.”
She leads the rest of the Herons out a side door, her hand brushing Matthew’s shoulder as he goes. The door swings shut, and it’s just me and Matthew, Matthew and me. The last time we saw each other, we said I love you. Now he’s with the Herons, and I’m a Stag. I say the first thing that comes to mind.
“Where did you get your tattoo?”
Wordlessly, Matthew unbuttons his shirt, tugging down the powder-blue fabric and scrunching up an undershirt until I can see his arm: an arm that’s wrapped me in a thousand hugs, reached for me across the hallways at school, pulled me close …
The heron takes up most of his shoulder. Its wings nearly touch his collarbone then wrap around to where I cannot see.
“You?” he asks.
I sweep my hair off my neck and turn around. After a few moments, I let my hair fall and face him. Heron. Stag. Matthew. Me.
We break.
Matthew rushes forward and pulls me into a hug. I press my face into his chest, almost struggling to breathe for how tightly he’s holding me. My lips find the smooth skin of his neck, his cheek. He kisses me back, and the earthquake between us shakes the room. How could I ever have forgotten this? How have I not wanted it every moment of every day since our birthday? We part and lean our foreheads together.
“Are you okay?” he whispers.
“I’m fine, I’m fine.” I put my hand on his arm, feeling the warmth of his skin beneath his shirt.
“I wanted to come for you right away,” he says. “That night. You left for the airport. The Herons were at my house when I got back.” Another nod. “You’re okay, though? You sure?”
“Yes.”
“Have you been cutting?”
I think for a moment. “No, actually. I haven’t. Not a lot.” His eyebrows rise in surprise—but it’s as shocking to me as it is to him. “What about you? Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I’m bored, mostly. I’ve been cooped up here for weeks. I’ve only gone outside twice since I was recruited.”
“Twice?” And I thought my cabin fever was bad.
“Twice.”
“Why don’t they let you out?”
“I don’t know. Because they can, I guess. Camille says it’s for my own protection. A lot of people hated Alex.” He sits down on the sofa and puts his face in his hands. “The Wars isn’t what I expected. I thought I’d know because of Alex and Aaron but … damn. Some of these people.” He lowers his voice. “They don’t care about anyone but themselves. I’m just pretending to go along with everything, at this point.”
“Matthew,” I say. “Why am I here? Like, didn’t it get you in trouble?”
He runs his hand across his lips. “Camille knows Alex well enough. I kind of took advantage of that. I had to see if you were okay.”
“That’s all?”
“More or less.”
“What’s the more?”
Matthew fidgets and shakes his head. “Val, why did you say yes? When Jax recruited you—why did you say yes?” He shakes his head. “I thought since it wasn’t the Herons, you’d say no.”
“I had to accept,” I reply. “For Leo.”
“But I wanted you to be safe.”
“I wouldn’t have been safe even if the Herons did recruit me.”
“No. But you would have been if you hadn’t joined the Wars at all.” He steps back from me. “I told you I’d take care of it, remember?”
I do remember. It was back at the end of spring, beginning of summer. Matthew and I were walking down on the Embarcadero by Cupid’s Span, an enormous statue of a bow and arrow. It should have been a dream of an outing, but the air between us was jagged. That was the day I told Matthew I wanted to join the Wars.
“It’s a bad idea,” he had said. “I know how you feel … with Leo … but come on. Joining the Wars won’t fix anything.”
“I knew you’d be upset.” Both of us had our arms folded across our chests. It’s a funny mirroring thing I’d noticed we did early on. It didn’t feel fun or cute that time.
“You could die,” he said.
“Most people live through it. Alex did.”
“Still.” He stopped walking and I did, too. The yellow lights of the streetlamps looked like fidgety torches on the bay. “What if I do it for you?”
“What, join the Wars? I mean, I kind of assumed…”
“Yeah, well. I meant what if I find the guy? I can ask Alex to look into it. We can find him and you won’t have to join.”
Back in the present, I shake my head slowly as it dawns on me. I can imagine the moment that the idea sparked in his mind. Matthew’s always been the kind of guy who’d do the right thing, and keeping me out of the Wars counts. So he did what he could to stop me …
“You told the Herons not to recruit me,” I whisper. “Didn’t you?”
Matthew keeps his eyes on the ground, which is all the answer I need.
“You told the Herons not to recruit me,” I repeat. “But you didn’t think to keep the Stags from doing it. We could have done our year together.”
“I didn’t want you here at all! I thought maybe if we weren’t dating … if I could put distance between you and me, and you and the Wars, that you wouldn’t join. I was trying to protect you, Val.”
“You swore you didn’t know anything,” I say. Double pinky promise. “You lied to me.”
“I just wanted you safe and out of the Wars. If you weren’t recruited I thought … I thought maybe you’d realize it’s okay to move on.”
“You joined,” I fire back defensively.
“I had to,” he says. “This is all my parents have cared about my whole life. All the trophies, all the titles I held at school—it never mattered. They would brush it off, like I hadn’t worked for any of it. All they cared about was my maintaining our family’s honor by getting revenge for what happened to Aaron.”
I interrupt. “It’s true, then.”
He pauses. “What did they tell you?”
“That Annie died, and Ty Boreas’s brother went berserk. Aaron soon after. That’s why he never comes home, isn’t it?”
Matthew nods solemnly. “Aaron doesn’t just live in Tahoe. My parents sent him there. He’s not … all there, anymore.He’s under psychiatric care twenty-four/seven.”
I lift my hands like, What? “How come you never told me any of this? You should have been honest with me.”
“Yeah,” he says. “I see that now.”
“So we’re both here for our brothers,” I say. “And the protests, the beatings, the murder—started over one poor dead girl, and now it’s totally out of control? That’s all this is?”
“Yes.” He exhales heavily. “And that’s the real reason why I joined. That’s why I asked to see you.” Matthew gets up and starts pacing like the walls are made of fire. “Alex is already out. Camille and Aure and the others are in too deep. But you … I need you to do something for me.”
“What is it?” Two minutes ago, I would have agreed to anything, but right now I’m still so confused. I wonder what Matthew sees when he looks at me—his friend, the girl he says he loves, or an enemy. Maybe all three.
My curiosity ends with seven sharp words:
“I need you to leave the Stags.”