Private School Kings

Epilogue

From the moment Fletcher Highguard was born he'd gotten everything he ever wanted. Just like his father and his father before him. Just like all his friends and their parents. He was raised in a world so divorced from most peoples that he didn't really understand how different it was. Not until he'd gone to college and seen all sorts of people from all different places. Now he realized how false it had all been. Now he was in the real world.

Fletcher thought maybe that was why he had fallen so hard for her — Murphy Monroe — she was the first real person he had ever met. Of course there was more to it than that. Murphy was so much more. Or, she had been. The Murphy he'd known, so strong and good, that Murphy had died a long time ago... with Tim Watson.

The first time Fletcher kissed her it was a lie. He'd felt her slipping away. Despite all he didn't know then there was one thing he'd always been good at. People liked him. He could make them like him. That's what he'd thought he was doing with Murphy, making her like him. Only, he hadn't planned on the feelings being mutual. Fletcher had lost so much in the last two years. He had seen so much, but he was strong. He had always been strong. Murphy, though, she ate away at him. He thought of her when he went to bed at night and when he woke up in the morning. He remembered the way her eyes had once shone with life and love and everything he'd never known. The only thing he wanted was for her to be her again.

Of course, there was nothing Fletcher could do. Nothing he knew how to do. Until the video. He didn't know who'd sent it, but he didn't really care. About halfway through his freshman year at Columbia he'd been scrolling through his school mail and found a link to an unlisted youtube video.

Fletcher had never been one for restraint. So he opened it, and even with the dim, grainy quality of the picture he could make out the stone walls of Pruitt. He had to click play. He had to.

Boys Fletcher knew as well as ones he didn't, stood in the dim courtyard dressed in identical black suits. They formed a wide circle around a smaller group of boys. This smaller group wore pajamas, and their heads were covered in dark red pillowcases.

Fletcher knew this ceremony. He'd lived it.

Another figure crossed in front of the camera. Dressed in a dark red suit with long brown hair. She was smart enough not to show her face, but Fletcher knew her. That frame, that stance, that girl... They were etched into his memory.

The crown though, that was new.

Fletcher hadn't wanted to accept it, but a part of him had known this would happen.

Kill one king, another will rise in his place. Only, he wasn't expecting them to choose Murphy Monroe.

Fletcher breathed in one sharp breath. His lungs hurt. He hurt. One day, he was going to run out of air. But not today. Today, he had work to do.

From the moment Fletcher Highguard was born he'd gotten everything he ever wanted. That's how he knew he was going to save her.