Page 322 of Knox Academy Omnibus
“Dude, they mean the same thing,” Onyx points out, smacking Kalen’s arm.
“Not when I’m being ridden by Amelie and she’s screaming my—ouch! What was that for?” Kalen whines as Onyx and Amelie both hit Kalen.
“Shut up!” Amelie cries, and I laugh.
We say goodnight, and I usher my brothers back to the twin’s room, needing to discuss a little of what we heard this evening.
“Drink?” Onyx offers as soon as we’re situated in their room. He moves to the mini fridge under the desk, takes out a can of beer, pulls the ring and takes a long drink.
“You shouldn’t really be drinking on school grounds?—”
“Chill out, you’re not a teacher anymore,” Slate reminds me.
“You can take the teacher out of the school but you can’t stop the teacher from dicking his students!” Kalen cackles. I smack him and accept the beer that Onyx is offering, laughing when Kalen opens his and is immediately sprayed in ice cold liquid. Even Onyx laughs.
“For the record, it was just one student,” I mutter. “Let’s get down to business.”
I pull out my phone and check the message. There, in black and white, is the answer to all my problems. Well, some of them at least. I smile and pocket my phone.
“Not sure we should be doing business without Amelie around,” Kalen points out before shaking off like a damn wet dog. “Andfor the record, I have killed for Amelie already.”
An incredulous snort escapes me, and my brothers laugh disbelievingly too. Kalen gets heated.
“I have! Ask Baxter if you don’t believe me! We’re blood besties now. He even got a friendship piercing with me…though I’m upset he wouldn’t get matching tattoos.”
I shake my head. I don’t even know how to reply to that. “Anyway, this business is about Amelie.”
Somehow my words make Kalen take this seriously, so there’s a first time for everything. I wait until everyone’s had a drink and then begin.
“Amelie thinks we don’t have her back.”
“She trusts Branson more than us,” Onyx adds with a mutter.
“We’ve fucked up with our attitude towards Laura. We know there are rules, but Amelie didn’t. We should have gone along with her plans,” Slate suggests.
“So you think we should be lying to her?” Kalen demands. “So that she, what? Likes us more than Branson? That’s pathetic! Have we learnt nothing?”
“No, that’s not what they’re saying at all, Kalen. Calm down,” I say placatingly. “It’s not about proving our love. Amelie just needs to know we’ve got her back, no matter what. But we have to show her that with actions, not words.”
“What are you thinking then?”
“The new board is ready. I have everyone but Baxter, but I’m going to get Amelie to rope him in. We take over the board at Amelie’s inauguration and?—”
“I know that means we’ve got her back, but won’t she see it that we could gang up on her and vote against her?” Kalen asks.
“We’d never do that,” Onyx replies.
“Yeah, she knows that,” Slate adds.
“Does she?” Kalen retorts.
“Listen,” I say. “The first thing we do as a board is vote on Bastian’s future. The right way. And then we make sure that we’re the ones who carry out the execution.”
“So we send the message loud and clear to Amelie that we’ll always protect her.”
“More than that, Slate. It says we’ve got her back, and we’ll always vote with her.”
“Yeah, O. And it’ll send a message to anyone else in The Order who thinks that they can turn against our new leader to think twice before doing so,” I finish.
