Free Unforgiven by Lauren Kate Page A

opened her locker and tossed in some books. Luc rested his elbows on the locker door and stared down at her. She glared up at him, waiting for him to move so she could close it.
    “Have you ever heard of the Four Horsemen?” he asked.
    “Everyone’s heard of them.” Chloe King turned away from her admirers to face Luc. Silver eyeliner glittered against her flawless dark skin, and she wore her hair in a hundred tiny braids. She glanced down at Lilith. “Even trash like her.”
    “Since when do you listen to the Four Horsemen?” Lilith asked.
    The Four Horsemen were haunting and profound. Their rock ballads were smart and sad, and every album was different from the last, so true fans could see a real evolution in their style. Their lead singer, Ike Ligon, wrote songs that were the reason Lilith wanted to be a musician. There was no way a girl like Chloe could relate to the pain they expressed in their music.
    “It’s cruel to get her hopes up,” Chloe said to Luc, and started humming the chorus of the Four Horsemen’s latest single, “Sequins of Events.”
    Lilith shut her locker and stood. “Get my hopes up about what?”
    “If you didn’t skip school so often,” Luc said to Lilith, “you might have heard the news.”
    “What news?” Lilith asked.
    “The Four Horsemen are the closing band at prom,” Chloe said. Behind her, her three girlfriends squealed. One of them had a soft guitar case slung over her shoulder, and Lilith realized these girls were probably in Chloe’s band.
    Lilith’s blood drummed in her ears. “No way.”
    “I’m getting Ike’s name tattooed right here.” Chloe turned back to her boyfriend and his friends, undoing a button over her cleavage to show off her future ink site. “Right above my heart. See?”
    The boys definitely saw.
    “The Four Horsemen are coming to Crossroads?” Lilith said.
“Why?”
    Chloe shrugged, as if she couldn’t imagine an amazing band not wanting to visit their dismal town. “They’re helping Tarkenton judge the Battle of the Bands.”
    “Wait. You mean the Four Horsemen are going to watch bands from this school perform?” Lilith asked quietly. “At prom?”
    Luc nodded as if he understood how world-altering this news was. “I pitched the idea to Ike myself.”
    “You know Ike Ligon?” Lilith blinked at Luc.
    “We were texting last night,” Luc said. “I hope this doesn’t embarrass you, but your performance at the open mic got me thinking about how amazing it would be for the Four Horsemen to perform a song written by a Trumbull student.”
    Luc had been there last night? Lilith was about to ask why, but all that came out of her mouth was, “Whoa.” It had finally hit her: The Four Horsemen were going to be
here,
in Crossroads. At Trumbull. This was the closest she’d ever come to fangirling in public.
    “Ike loved the idea,” Luc said. “Starting today, we’re accepting lyrics, even MP3s of student-written material, and Ike will sing the winning song to close out the prom.”
    “Daddy thinks it’s a way to make prom more inclusive,” Chloe added. “Except for freaks like you.”
    But Lilith was barely listening to Chloe. In her mind, she imagined Ike Ligon’s scruffy face lighting up at her lyrics. For a split second she even imagined meeting him, and soon her fantasy had flown her to a real recording studio, with Ike producing her first album.
    Chloe squinted at Lilith. “I’m sorry. Are you, like, imagining one of
your
songs getting picked?” Chloe turned back to her friends and laughed.
    Lilith felt herself flush. “I don’t—”
    “You don’t even have a
band,
” Chloe said. “Whereas mine already has three singles Ike is going to love.” She slammed her locker. “It will be so amazing to be prom queen
and
win the battle
and
have the Four Horsemen cover one of my songs.”
    “Don’t you mean one of
our
songs?” the girl with the guitar asked Chloe.
    “Sure,” Chloe said with a snort. “Whatever.