He Deserved It

CHAPTER 15 – Detonation, Part Two

The back door slammed shut behind them. The night air hit like freedom.

All four girls paused just outside the gym—heels in hand, breath sharp, hearts still synced to the rhythm of the wreckage they’d just left behind.

Savannah checked the time. “We stick to the plan. Three minutes. No mistakes.”

“Two,” Imani said, already pulling the USB from her clutch. “Shock fades fast.”

Mila dropped her heels onto the grass, flexed her toes. “I’ve got thirty seconds. Tops.”

Lia looked at them all, then nodded once. “Then let’s make it count.”

No more words. They split.

Lia ran to Imani’s car—the escape route. Engine on. Doors unlocked. Savannah ducked behind the flagpole, pulled out the backpack she’d stashed hours earlier. Inside: flyers. Tape. Precision. Imani palmed QR-coded cards from her purse like a magician flipping knives. Mila knelt by the bench near the bike racks. Out came a duffel. Paint. Gloves. Vengeance.

⋆⸻⸻⋆

Savannah moved through the staff lot with surgical calm, slipping flyers under wipers like she was placing evidence. Pale pink. QR code. One line: He Deserved It. Some cars got one. The principal’s got three.

Imani walked the back lot toward a smoking knot of prom-goers behind the cafeteria. She handed cards out like favors.

“Trust me,” she said to a girl in gold heels. “You’ll want to scan that.”

Someone yelled inside. A door slammed.

She didn’t flinch. She uploaded the final file on her walk back: a payment screenshot. $500. Caption: For an uncle who doesn’t exist.

Mila stood facing the back wall. Shook the can. Hissed it to life.

White block letters bloomed like a curse: ASK ME HOW YOUR KING LIED.

She underlined it in hot pink. Added a tiny crown at the end—just because she could.

⋆⸻⸻⋆

They regrouped by the car.

Lia behind the wheel. Engine rumbling. Hands loose.

“Time?” she asked.

“Two minutes, twenty-one seconds,” Savannah said.

“Beat that,” Mila grinned, sliding in.

Imani muttered, “Overachieving even in petty crimes. Love that for you.”

They were almost laughing—Until the gym door burst open.

Jordan.

No crown. No jacket. Tie loose. Hair a mess. His eyes locked on them.

He marched forward.

“You think this is funny?” he barked.

They stepped out of the car. Four girls in dresses under streetlights.

“You lied to everyone,” Savannah said. “We just hit play.”

“You humiliated me.”

Imani crossed her arms. “Public consequences for private choices. Revolutionary, I know.”

Jordan turned, desperate now. “Mila. I told you things—real things. I trusted you.”

Mila scoffed. “You told all of us the same script. You just changed the character names.”

His voice cracked. “It wasn’t like that.”

And then he looked at Lia.

Everything in him stilled.

“You too?” he asked. “I thought… we were different.”

Lia stepped forward. Slow. Deliberate. Her heels echoed across the concrete like punctuation.

He looked smaller now. Like a boy watching his reflection break—and pretending it wasn’t his fault.

“I didn’t do this to ruin you,” she said. Her voice was soft, but not gentle. “I did it because it was the only thing left to do.”

He blinked. “You said you saw me. That night in the car—by the canal. You said you knew me.”

“I did,” she said. “And I still do. That’s what makes this worse.”

He stepped closer, like proximity could fix it. “I never lied to you.”

“No,” she said. “You just let me believe I was the exception.”

Her eyes didn’t flinch. “You let me hold your secrets like they were sacred. Told me I was the only one who really got you. And when I believed you?” She swallowed, once. “You used that belief to sleep better at night.”

His jaw flexed.

“I knew about the others,” she went on. “You didn’t hide it. But you made me feel like I was above it. Like we were different. That’s how you got away with it—because I was too busy being the understanding girl to realize I was just another version of the same game.”

He tried to speak, but she stepped in. Cut him off.

“I saw the part of you that was lonely. The part that wanted to be loved without having to earn it. And I held it. I stayed.”

“I didn’t ask you to,” he said quietly.

“But you let me,” she said. “You knew I would.”

Silence stretched between them.

“I’m not angry,” she said. “I’m just done pretending this was ever real in the way you let me think it was.”

He looked at her like he still didn’t get it. And that, maybe, was the final nail.

“You don’t get to remember me as the girl who loved you,” she said. Her voice was steady now. Clean. “You’ll remember me as the girl who saw exactly what you were doing—and made sure you never get to do it again.”

He looked like he might cry. Or break. Or say something else.

Then—shouting.

Chaperones. The principal. Someone’s mom.

“HEY! STOP!”

The girls ran.

Heels in hand. Hair flying. Dresses catching wind.

Lia hit the gas. The tires shrieked.

They didn’t speak for a full minute.

The streetlights slid past the windshield like gold veins. Music played low from Mila’s phone—static and bass.

No one said We did it.

No one said He had it coming.

They just breathed.

Lia gripped the wheel, eyes steady on the road. Savannah leaned her head back, eyes closed. Imani took off her earrings and rubbed the bruises from her heels. Mila rolled down her window and let the wind smear her mascara.

Finally, Imani said, “We made a mess.”

“Good,” Savannah murmured.

Mila cracked her gum. “Prom was mid anyway.”

They laughed—soft, stunned, almost real.

Not triumphant.

But free.

For the first time in months, they didn’t feel like girls orbiting someone else’s gravity. They were the axis now.

Lia glanced in the rearview mirror. The gym was gone. So was the crown. So was the version of her who waited for permission.

She didn’t feel powerful. She didn’t feel wrecked. She just felt real.

And it was enough.

For now, it was enough.