The Shadow Court

Chapter 7 - Dirty secrets

"Ruby, you ok?" Joel pushed the Stone sisters' bedroom door open lightly. "You've been in here for hours."

Ruby was sitting on her bed with her phone, tapping away at something that was evidently important. She barely looked up when Joel entered the room.

"Huh? Sorry, I was just texting." She placed the phone done next to her.

Joel noticed her hastiness and slowly crossed the room to sit down on her other side. "Who were you texting?"

"No one." Ruby said, a little too quickly. "Just an old friend."

Joel creased his eyebrows. "You sure?"

Ruby cast her gaze to the dark window. If there was any doubt that she was hiding something, it had now been diminished. Joel wrapped one of his long arms around both her shoulders, secretly enjoying the height difference. "What's up? You look like something's bothering you."

Ruby rested her head on her boyfriend's shoulder. "Ok, there's something I should tell you." She opened the top drawer of her dresser and produced a black ring from underneath a pile of underwear. Joel guessed that it was made from obsidian. "This was given to me by Shadow Knight, back when we were dating. I've been texting him because he helped us back at the factory, and he might be able to help us again."

A few seconds of complete silence floated around the room, followed by a small choking noise from Joel's throat. "H-what?"

Next, Ruby slipped a piece of art paper from beneath a few pairs of socks and showed it to Joel. He nearly fainted.

Drawn on it in perfect detail were the three members of The Samurai.

"How did-?" Joel was lost for words. Of course, he knew when he'd signed up to be Ruby's boyfriend that there would be a lot of secrets between them, given their lifestyles. But, he'd honestly expected himself to be the more mysterious one.

Ruby traced a line around Callum's shadowy axe on the page with her fingertip. "It was a while ago, probably a year now. A few months at least before we started dating. At first, I didn't know who he was. Well, who he really was." She added, noticing the irritated look from Joel. "I met the other two only once in that period, and it wasn't a pleasant experience. Callum defended me; they obviously weren't too happy with me being there. He treated me like I was stronger than everyone else. But then he got jealous, I think. He knew our relationship would be tough once Estella found out, so I suppose he decided to end it before things got out of hand. He gave me this ring though, as a promise that I would love him forever."

Joel stared at the ring like it was a huge spider, waiting to launch at his face at any second. "And do you? Still love him?"

"Does it look like I've worn the thing recently?" Indeed, she had a point. The black metal had been coated with dust from neglect, and Joel had never noticed her wearing it in the past.

Ruby popped the ring and the drawing back into her drawer and closed it, hands shaking like a leaf. "You're not mad, are you?"

Joel closed his eyes and collapsed back across Ruby's bed. "No, I guess not. I'm still a little shocked, though."

He felt Ruby lie down beside him and moved his arm so that it rested under her neck. "I'm sorry." She said, twisting sideways so that she faced him. "I should've told you sooner."