Chapter 11
The next morning, I wake up before my phone does.
That alone feels suspicious.
For one long second, I lie perfectly still in the pale silence of my room, staring at the ceiling and listening to the White House breathe around me. Somewhere down the hall, a door closes softly. Somewhere farther away, footsteps pass and disappear. The house is awake. So am I. Unfortunately.
Then my phone lights up.
I reach for it already irritated, which is becoming less an emotion and more a lifestyle.
The group chat is alive.
terrible decisions committee
Aaliyah: if any of you reply with "good morning" i'm blocking you on principle
Charles: good morning
Aaliyah: die
Madison: You're both exhausting.
Charles: and yet you stay
Madison: Against my better judgment.
I stare at the screen for half a second before typing.
Me: I am beginning to think none of you were raised properly.
Three dots appear almost immediately.
Charles: there she is
I hate how much that warms something in my chest. I hate this country.
Another message comes through before I can answer.
Aaliyah: any new psycho messages?
My thumb stills.
No. Not since last night. Which somehow feels worse.
Me: Not yet.
Madison: That probably means they're waiting.
Charles: comforting. thanks.
Aaliyah: i'm serious. eyes open today.
I lock the phone and sit up slowly. Eyes open. As if I slept with them closed in the first place.
There is a knock at my door. Not the First Lady this time. Not staff. Charles. I know it instantly now, which feels like a personal failure.
"Come in," I call.
He opens the door and leans against the frame, already dressed for school. Tie straight. Hair impossible. Expression careful. Too careful.
"Well," he says, "you look… awake."
I narrow my eyes. "You say that like it is disappointing."
"A little," he admits. "You're less violent before coffee than I was hoping."
I rise from the bed and reach for my brush. "Maybe do not rely on caffeine deprivation for your personality."
He grins. Then it fades. Not completely. Just enough.
"Did you sleep?" he asks.
"No," I say.
"Same."
For some reason, that makes me look at him. Really look. There are shadows under his eyes he hasn't joked away yet. A tension in his shoulders that no expensive blazer can hide.
"Did you tell anyone?" I ask quietly.
He shakes his head. "You?"
"No."
He exhales once, slow. "Okay."
That should not feel intimate. It does.
We head downstairs in silence a few minutes later, and breakfast feels too normal to trust. The President is on another call. The First Lady is reading something on a tablet with the kind of composed expression adults wear when they are deciding whether to worry privately or publicly. I am beginning to suspect America runs entirely on composed expressions and internal damage.
The ride to school is sharper than usual. No one says much. Even Charles seems to understand that jokes, this morning, would break strangely.
When the car pulls up outside Lincoln, the air already feels wrong.
Not loud. That would be normal.
Wrong.
Students are gathered near the steps in tighter clusters than usual, heads bent together, phones out. A teacher stands near the doors pretending to supervise while very clearly trying to overhear something. And the second I step out of the car, the energy shifts.
"Oh, absolutely not," Aaliyah mutters, appearing at my side like she has materialized from pure irritation.
"That bad?" Charles asks.
She gives him a look. "Worse. Somebody posted again."
My stomach drops.
"Of course they did," I say.
Aaliyah holds up her phone. "It's not a photo this time."
I take it.
It's a poll.
A literal poll. On Capitol Crown.
WHO BETRAYS WHO FIRST?
The PrincessThe First SonThe QueenThe Rebel
Below it: Place your bets. This alliance won't last the week.
For one second, I simply stare. Then I hand the phone back.
"I hope," I say very calmly, "that whoever runs this account develops a rash in a highly inconvenient location."
Aaliyah chokes on a laugh. Charles mutters, "That's fair."
But my pulse is hammering. Not because of the poll. Because of what it means. Whoever is behind this does not just know what happened. They understand the shape of us now. They know enough to turn it into a game.
Which means they are close. Closer than ever.
In advisory, no one even pretends to be subtle. People glance at me. At Charles. At Madison when she walks in three minutes late and perfectly composed, like chaos politely waited for her arrival. She takes her seat without looking at any of us. Which means, of course, she has already noticed everything.
Mr. Lopez starts talking about volunteer hours. No one cares. Least of all me.
Halfway through, my phone buzzes in my blazer pocket. I freeze. So does Aaliyah beside me, because apparently she can sense panic now.
I slide the phone out under the desk. One new message. Unknown number.
No image this time. Just text.
Check the east hallway. Third floor. Before lunch. Come alone.
I go cold all over.
Aaliyah sees my face and mouths, What? I lock the phone instantly. Too late. Across the room, Madison's eyes flick to me. Then to my pocket. Then away.
She noticed. Of course she did.
The rest of advisory crawls. By the time the bell rings, I am wound so tightly I feel brittle.
Charles catches up with me in the hallway. "You okay?"
"No," I reply.
Aaliyah folds her arms. "Tell us now."
I glance around. Too many people. Too many ears. "Not here."
Madison appears beside us so silently I nearly hate her for it. "What happened?" she asks.
Charles gives her a look. "Do you always just emerge from nowhere like a Victorian ghost?"
"Yes," she says. Then, to me: "What happened?"
I should resent how quickly the question becomes practical in her mouth. Instead, I take out my phone and show them the message.
Aaliyah's face darkens instantly. "No."
Charles reads it and says, "Absolutely not."
Madison, however, goes still in a different way. Thinking still. Dangerous still.
"They want movement," she says.
I turn to her. "What?"
"They want to see who you tell. Who follows you. Who panics." She looks up from the screen. "This is bait."
"That," Aaliyah says, "is somehow the least comforting and most useful thing you've ever said."
Charles hands my phone back. "You're not going alone."
"I was not planning to."
He raises an eyebrow. "Really?"
I pause. "...I was considering going alone."
Aaliyah presses her fingers to her forehead. "You are all giving me a stress condition."
Madison glances down the hall, calculating. "If we all go together, they'll know we're onto them."
"We are onto them," Charles says.
"Yes, but they don't need to know how much."
I hate this. I hate that she is useful. I hate that she is probably right.
"So?" I ask.
Madison looks at me. "You don't go alone. But you make it look like you did."
Aaliyah slowly lowers her hand. "Okay. I hate that plan less."
Charles still looks unconvinced. "And how exactly?"
Madison's eyes flick toward the stairwell. "We stagger. Monique goes where she was told. We take different routes and stay out of sight."
"That sounds like the beginning of an abduction documentary," Aaliyah mutters.
"It sounds," I say, "like a trap set for a trap."
Madison's mouth curves faintly. "Exactly."
Charles looks at me. There is a very specific kind of fear in his expression now. Not dramatic. Not loud. Just there. Heavy. Human.
"Monique."
I know what he means without him saying it. Be careful. Don't be reckless. Don't vanish around a corner where I can't reach you.
"I know," I say softly.
His jaw tightens. Then he nods once. "Fine. But if anything feels wrong, you walk away. Immediately."
"I am not addicted to danger," I reply.
Aaliyah snorts. "That is a lie so bold it deserves funding."
By late morning, the whole school feels like a stage waiting for the curtain to rise. I sit through English without hearing half of it. In history, I write the date three times and absorb none of the lecture. Even the whispers sound sharper. Everything narrows toward one thing: east hallway. third floor. before lunch.
At eleven forty-two, I stand. Mrs. Carter is still talking about symbolism in some American novel that could probably be improved with better dialogue and fewer fields. I murmur something about the restroom and leave before she can ask questions.
The hallway outside is nearly empty. Classes still in session. Doors closed. Light pouring through the high windows in long pale strips. My shoes sound too loud.
I do not look back. Even though I know, somehow, that I am not alone.
I take the stairs to the third floor. The east hallway is quieter than the rest of the building. Fewer classrooms. A disused trophy case. A row of tall windows overlooking the side lawn. It smells faintly of dust and floor polish.
No one is there.
I stop. Wait. Count my breathing.
Nothing.
Then I see it. Something tucked beneath the trophy case. A folded envelope. Cream-colored. My name written across the front in black ink.
Not Monique. Not Princess.
de Beaumont
My skin prickles.
I crouch and pick it up. No sound behind me. No movement. Still nothing.
I open it carefully. Inside is a single printed photo.
Not from the party. Not from school. Not from the White House hallway.
From France.
I know it before my mind catches up. The terrace outside my family's home. Evening light. My mother turned half away. A man beside her in a dark coat, face partly hidden. And in the corner of the frame—small, almost missed—me. Watching from a doorway.
My breath leaves me.
Because I remember that night. I remember the argument afterward. The closed doors. My father furious. My mother silent in that dangerous way she gets when she is swallowing grief instead of speaking it.
This was before America. Before school. Before Charles. Before all of this.
Which means—
This didn't start here.
My fingers go cold around the photo. On the back, in the same black ink, are five words:
Ask your mother about Lyon.
I stare. Once. Twice. Three times. As if the words might rearrange themselves into something less catastrophic. They do not.
Footsteps sound behind me. I spin so fast the photo nearly slips from my hand.
Charles is there first, coming from the stairwell, face tight. Aaliyah just behind him. Madison from the other end of the hall like she has stepped out of the building itself.
None of them speak at first. They only look at my face. Then at the envelope in my hand.
And whatever they see there wipes the last traces of argument from all of them.
"What is it?" Charles asks quietly.
I don't answer. Not because I won't. Because for one terrible second, I can't.
Aaliyah steps closer. "Monique?"
I hand Charles the photo. He looks down. Frowns. Turns it over. Reads the words on the back. His expression changes instantly.
Madison takes it next. Then Aaliyah.
There is a silence after that that feels nothing like the others. This one is not suspense. It is impact.
"Lyon?" Aaliyah says slowly. "That's in France, right?"
"Yes," I say. My voice sounds strange. Too even. Too far away.
Charles looks at me carefully. "Do you know what it means?"
I swallow. "Yes."
Madison lifts her eyes to mine. "And?"
I force myself to breathe before answering.
"And it means," I say, each word precise enough to cut, "that whoever is doing this did not start watching me in America."
No one speaks.
Because now they understand it too. The scope. The reach. The fact that this thing has roots.
Aaliyah is the first to recover. "Okay," she says, voice low and furious. "No. Absolutely not. We are officially past gossip and into criminally weird."
"For once," Madison says quietly, "that is not an exaggeration."
Charles is still staring at the photo like he wants to burn it and protect me from it at the same time. A deeply inconvenient expression.
"You need to tell your parents," he says.
"My mother," I correct automatically.
He looks up. "What?"
I take the photo back from him. Look at the back again. At those five words. At the name of a city I have not wanted to think about in years.
"Not my father," I say softly. "My mother."
Madison studies me. "Because she'll know what this is about."
"Yes."
A beat. Then Charles says, "Then we tell her today."
I lift my eyes to his. And there it is again—that impossible, steady thing in him when the jokes fall away. Not performance. Not charm. Just resolve.
Aaliyah folds her arms. "I'm coming."
I blink. "To my family crisis?"
"Yes."
"You cannot just come to international emotional disasters uninvited."
"Watch me."
Under any other circumstances, I might laugh. Instead I look at Madison. She is already thinking three moves ahead. Of course she is.
"If this connects back to France," she says, "then the account may only be the surface. Whoever's behind it might be getting information from somewhere much older. Much more deliberate."
"Why are you making this sound like a conspiracy podcast?" Aaliyah asks.
"Because unfortunately," Madison replies, "it's starting to deserve one."
Charles drags a hand through his hair. "We're not solving international espionage between chemistry and lunch."
"No," I say quietly.
They all look at me.
I close the envelope and slide it carefully into my bag. Then straighten my shoulders. Because if this thing reaches back before America, before school, before every choice I thought began here—then I have been behind in my own story longer than I knew. And I do not enjoy that feeling.
"No," I repeat. "We are done guessing."
My pulse is still too fast. My mind is already moving. My fear has changed shape again. Less helpless now. More focused.
"I am going home after school," I say.
Charles opens his mouth. I know he is about to say you are home. I stop him with one look.
"To the White House," I say. "And I am calling my mother."
Aaliyah nods once. Madison says nothing, but her expression sharpens with interest. Charles only watches me.
I can feel it already. The next turn. The next fracture in the glass.
Because if Lyon is part of this, then the secret is older than scandal. Older than Madison. Older than Charles. Older, perhaps, than whatever version of myself I have been trying to preserve since I arrived.
And if my mother has been keeping pieces of it from me?
Then by tonight, one way or another, that ends.
As the lunch bell rings somewhere below us—distant, shrill, absurdly normal—I look out the east hallway window at the bright American sky and feel the story shift under my feet again.
Not toward romance. Not toward school politics. Not even toward simple betrayal.
Toward family. Toward history. Toward the kind of truth that waits until you are already unstable before it introduces itself.
Fine.
Let it.
If America wants drama so badly, it is about to choke on France.