Rue’s POV

The silence in the room stretched for a while. Veronica’s words had made everyone go speechless.

“You must be very useful to her.”

I didn’t look at Percy immediately. Part of me didn’t want to. Because even though I knew what Veronica was doing, knew she was trying to fracture something between us, the accusation still made me uneasy.

Was I using him? Had I leaned on him too easily?

The questions surfaced before I could stop them. And the worst part was that the entire ...