“Just for a second,” I said. I grabbed one of the industrial-sized trash bags and gave him my most coaxing expression. There was no way he could say no to me.
Now that I’d had a few days at Crestwood, it was weird to have Eric there—a friend from another time and place. As we walked to the front of the school, he updated me on the gossip from Ridgewood, but none of it sounded real anymore. Even the stories about Wren seemed a part of a different universe.
“I need to call her,” I said, realizing I had hardly given Wren a second thought since I’d started. “God, it’s all feeling like a lot right now.”
“She gets it. She just misses you,” Eric said, shrugging.
The hallways were empty. Eric and I ambled toward my locker. Eric had only seen the broom closet in the foyer, and his eyes nearly bulged at the beauty of each hallway. “Can you imagine how much it costs to even build something like this?” he asked, his voice low, as though we might get caught.
This was funny to me since the very reason I was there at all was that we had been caught.
“I don’t know. Everyone here has more money than they know what to do with,” I said. I reached the locker and began to do the combination, flashing my eyes toward Eric.
“What is that look?” he asked in a suspicious tone.
“I just think you should really step back,” I told him. “What you’re about to see isn’t... well. It isn’t pretty.”
“What are you keeping in there? Drugs? A dead body?” Eric demanded.
I hadn’t told anyone what happened. It wasn’t embarrassing, exactly—just difficult to explain. I wasn’t the sort of person to let anyone boss me around. I was afraid the story belittled me.
But when I opened the locker, it was empty except for an envelope, hanging in exactly the same space the mice had been. I frowned, completely shocked. The envelope had my name—Kennedy Harper—stitched across it in gold, just like the first invitation to Crestwood.
“What...?” I whispered, staring at the envelope.
“Why did you bring a trash bag, Kennedy?” Eric asked, incredulously. “I mean, you’re acting a little bit...”
“Shut up!” I said, giving him a playful look. I ripped open the envelope to find a glossy invitation, finer than any wedding invitation I had ever seen.
“Give me that,” Eric said, tearing the invitation from my hands. He cleared his throat and read out loud, “You are cordially invited to the second Bluff’s Edge party, held this upcoming Friday night. Please burn this invitation after reading it.” He sniffed, glaring at me. “Burn the invitation? Who sent this?”
As he spoke, another little note fell out of the envelope. I leaped for it, then unfolded it, finding Teony’s tight scrawl.
Hey girl!
I had the janitor take care of this little issue. I hope Hailey calms down with her endless wrath or whatever—but in the meantime, I wanted to make sure you know about the party this weekend. All Crestwood students are invited—and we Chronicle writers sometimes get crazy stories about them for our ‘expose’ part of the newspaper, the one exclusively for us and not the teachers.
Okay, well, see you soon!
“Let me read that, too,” Eric demanded.
“What? No way. It’s personal,” I said, giving him a coy smile.
“You’re so different now,” Eric teased, palming the back of his neck. “All this sneaking around.”
I rolled my eyes and cut the door of my locker closed. After a long moment, I glanced down the hall, marveling at how empty the school felt just hours after the students had gone back to their various homes. Still holding the invitation, I wandered toward where I knew Headmaster Blair’s office was. For whatever reason, when Eric was around, I burned with curiosity.
And maybe I wanted to prove something to him. Something about how brave I still was—how much I was still ‘one of Ridgewood’—despite being a student at Crestwood.
“What the hell are you doing?” Eric called, as I wrapped my hand around Headmaster Blair’s door handle. “That looks... like something you shouldn’t do.”
“Come on, Eric. Don’t you want to get a better look at what Crestwood is all about?”
“I think I’ve gotten enough of it, searching through the trash of this place,” Eric said and I just ignored him.
The large wooden door was unlocked, maybe so the janitor could clean it properly after the students and teachers left. As Headmaster Blair was getting pretty old, he didn’t stick around long after-hours, and the place felt strange, hollow and spooky.
I knew from the last time I had come that Headmaster Blair’s office extended into a side room. Burning with curiosity, I marched past the enormous desk, past the gorgeous stone fireplace, and pressed open a thick wooden door on the far end of the room that blended in with the wall. One had to really look at it in order to see it was actually a door.
“What are you doing, Ken? How did you even that was there?” Eric murmured behind me. He took long strides to keep up.
The room was a private library, with three walls stacked high to the ceiling row after row of neatly lined up books with their dark leathered spines facing outward. Many of them looked to be around a hundred years old. As I wandered deeper into the room, I ran my fingers along the spines of the books that sat on one shelf. The smells of faint pipe tobacco and dust wafted around the room.
On the far wall, between two enormous windows that looked out over the ocean, hung portraits of important people of Crestwood—the elites I imagined. At mid-section was Headmaster Blair, of course—painted maybe twenty years ago, with those same beady blue eyes and that whimsical smile. Beneath the headmaster was a painting of a couple—both stunning, perhaps in their thirties at the time of the painting.
“Richard Blair and Sylvia Blair,” I read aloud, finding the gold plaques beneath. The woman wore a smirk on her pretty lips, reminding me of someone—
Hailey, of course.
And then, my eyes were drawn to the right, where a portrait of Hailey hung. In it, she was seated on top of a regal-looking black horse. She was maybe thirteen or fourteen-years-old in the painting and no less beautiful than what she looks now.
“What the hell is this? Some kind of weird family cult?” Eric asked, sidling up beside me.
That’s when I started to put the pieces of the other paintings together. Above Headmaster Blair was a portrait of his father, the previous headmaster. Above that were more headmasters who were all long dead, of course. And then there were other members of Crestwood—including the Franklins, the Winters, and the Pierces (Dante, Kieran, and Caleb’s parents).
I turned to Eric, my nostrils flared. “Do you know what this means?”
“No...” Eric said, his eyebrows stitching together.
“It means that if you’re on this wall, you’re protected. It means you’re the best of the best in Crestwood—and that means everything. It means that nobody can ever touch you.”
“So what...and how the hell would you know that?”
I blinked back at the wall, feeling little pieces of the puzzle click into place in my head. “I know I’m guessing, but it makes perfect sense. Why are they the only families on this wall? I just didn’t realize exactly what I was up against. To these people, I’m nothing.”
“Up against? What are you...”
“Don’t worry about it,” I sighed, dropping my chin against my chest. I spun and walked out of the library; my footsteps were echoing across the gleaming wooden floors.
I wasn’t sure why the wall of portraits had felt so threatening. Maybe it was just that it was easy to feel so strong when alone at Crestwood, to feel that I could stand up to the bullies like Hailey, Caleb, Kieran and Dante.
But they were the blue bloods of Crestwood. Nothing and no one could stand in their way.
OF COURSE, LIFE HAD to continue on. I couldn’t just drop out and tell Mom that I couldn’t hack it at the most prestigious school on the west coast— besides, my art classes ha
d started, both private and with other students. Mrs. Randall announced to me after our second painting session that she wanted me to go after a California-wide art competition, which was usually held in the spring, just before graduation.
“But you need a damn good idea,” she told me, her eyes sparkling. “And I’m not talking some second-rate hate graffiti like you smeared across our school. No. I need you to think far, far outside the box...”
“How far out the box is it comfortable for rich people in California to go?” I heard myself ask her, almost immediately regretting what just spilled from my mouth.
She leaned back, drawing her arms across her chest. She smirked. “I know you think you’re terribly clever. And that’s a good thing. You need that brash attitude to get through this school.”
She knew. She had to of. Hailey had made it her mission to make my life a living hell, as did the boys. It wasn’t like the teachers didn’t have eyes and ears everywhere.
It was more like they didn’t give a shit at all and guaranteed they knew they had no chance against the elite’s parents.
“I guess I’ll go as far as my attitude takes me,” I shrugged, hearing the bell and gathering up my supplies.
THURSDAY, I ALREADY had my first French test, plus I was kind of following the no-food diet plan of the Crestwood female elite. I was up against some pretty volatile egos, none of whom seemed to really like me. Namely, the three boys—Caleb, Dante, and the cruelest of them all, Kieran, followed me with their eyes wherever I went, almost as though they were hunting me. I had never been able to shake that feeling since I had first seen them in that convertible.
On Friday morning, as I walked up from the bus stop, I heard a car ease to a near-stop beside me. I continued to walk, keeping my eyes on the path. But the car continued to slip along beside me, following me.
I turned quickly to look at them, finding Caleb, Dante, and Kieran gazing back at me behind their thick black sunglasses. Caleb and Dante smirked, while Kieran offered nothing but that grisly gaze.
“You want a ride, Ridgewood?” Caleb called, his tone mocking.
“No,” I said. “Thank you.” I spat out the thank you like it was an insult.
“Come on, Ridgewood,” Dante pleaded. “You must be exhausted after all that sex work you have to do to keep your Mom and you afloat. Staying up all night and then taking the bus to work? Must be fucking hell?”
I stopped walking and turned toward them. “Are jokes about sex really the best you can do?”
“At least they’re better than your blowjobs,” Caleb retorted. “I heard you have to offer them half-off.”
Rage stirred up inside me and I couldn’t control it. I glared at them, then turned to Kieran and spat out, “Anything to keep Kieran’s dad occupied after they let the housekeeper go. Right, Kieran?”
Kieran slammed his foot on the brake. It screeched wildly and he put the car into park, propped the door open. Before I knew it, he stalked around the car and strode directly up to me, so that he towered over me, inhaling gruffly.
Again, I was reminded of that time he had beat the shit out of Michael. Someone had said he had lost a tooth. Would he do something like that to me? Would the blue bloods of Crestwood really resort to violence against a girl or someone so unlike them?
“You think you’re really something special, don’t you? Allowed into our school with the rest of us,” Kieran growled his voice gruff and volatile. “That little smart ass mouth of yours...you think you can say whatever the fuck you want. And who could blame you?”
“You think I’m scared of you?” I held my ground while my heart pounded in my chest.
The smell of his cologne drifted from his neck, his thick wrists. He was unshaven that day, a perfect, gruff five o’clock shadow crested across his sculptured jaw. He flashed a menacing smile that made me weak at the knees. His uniform was again unbuttoned and it allowed a sneak peek at his sculptured chest and a hint of his tattoo. An image grew like a flower in my mind—my hands sweeping across the perfect muscles of his chest, across dark nipples, down toward his perfect abs.
“Oh, I would be scared, Ridgewood. You should be very scared,” His voice was wicked and his grin twisted. He reached up and drew his fingers through my hair, acting like he owned me. He tucked the strands behind my ear like I was a doll. Then, he growled, “Get in the fucking car.”
“What?” I asked, confused, my voice high-pitched.
“I said get in the car,” Kieran blared. “I can’t have you walking up the path to school like some kind of fucking pilgrim. You’re embarrassing all of us. Don’t make me put you in there myself.”
My legs shook as I marched toward the convertible. Caleb knocked to the side, allowing me a seat in the back. Kieran marched around the front of the car again, jumped in, and cranked the engine. We drove up the hill, the trees whirling past us. I held my backpack tightly against my chest, trying to endure the painful silence between all of us.
When Kieran reached his parking spot, he turned to face me. Dante and Caleb seemed not to know what to do next. Suddenly, Kieran grabbed his cup of coffee and passed it over the seat, along with an empty bag, something he’d had a croissant in, maybe.
“Go ahead, boys. Give her your trash. It’s all she’s good for.”
Someone had announced to the incoming students that I was in the backseat of Kieran’s car. I knew this because a tiny crowd had formed outside the front door, anxiously awaiting what would happen next. The minute Kieran gave me his trash, the other two boys followed suit, smashing their empty cups and bags above my backpack, making a pile.
The crowd near the door began to gawk and snicker. Someone called out, “Ridgewood trash pick-up!”
I glared at Kieran, holding his half-drunk cup of coffee.
“What are you going to do, Ridgewood?” Kieran asked. “Aren’t you going to honor your people? You’re so obsessed with my old maid I thought maybe you would like to pick up where she left off. Wouldn’t it make your Mom and Dad proud?” He paused for a moment, his smile broadening. “Oh, that’s right. You don’t have a dad, do you? I always forget. What was it that happened to him, huh? Did you kill him from disappointment?”
Rage consumed me and I lifted Kieran’s coffee cup after that, acting without thought. I turned it on its head, casting steaming-hot liquid across the perfect leather seats in the back. Caleb shrieked and leaped out of the way of the stream, hobbling outside. Kieran’s smile faltered. He slipped his sunglasses off his head and gazed at me with those impenetrable, evil blue eyes.
“You fucking bitch! You have balls, Kennedy Harper. But you’re going to regret it.” His voice was a haunting whisper and all I saw was malevolent gems. There was no compassion in his blue eyes and it sent a shiver through me.
The bell rang inside. Without waiting to see what Kieran could do to me next, I knocked against the back door and rushed toward the academy. I caught the eye of Hailey Blair, who gave me a stony glare.
It didn’t matter what I did; it just seemed like I couldn’t get anything right at Crestwood. But I wasn’t going to let people like Kieran make my life a living hell without fighting back—even if my fighting was as petty as spilled coffee.
Chapter Eleven
A few hours before the party at Bluff’s Edge, I arrived at Teony’s house, or should I say mansion. She had invited me to get ready with her and her girlfriends, who had gradually begun to warm up to me over the past few days, albeit reluctantly. They knew I had a target on my back, and they were a bit afraid to pair up with me. I guess I didn’t blame them, especially after seeing Headmaster Blair’s little hall of portraits.
Teony had told me that her family wasn’t as rich or prominent as many of the other members of Crestwood. Of course, this meant that her house was still like ten times the size of mine—with a gate at the front driveway and a glittering turquoise swimming pool in the back yard.
God damn blood money.
When I walked into the foyer, a maid insis
ted that I remove my shoes immediately, then pressed a rag against the area I had already stepped on. I apologized quickly, thinking that I recognized the maid as someone from Ridgewood. Maybe I had passed her at the grocery store or knew her kid from Ridgewood High.
Before I could ask, though, Teony appeared on the staircase, waving me up. “Come on!”
Teony had already changed into a sultry party outfit. A cute little purple crop-top, cut far above the belly button, along with a sultry knee-length skirt. At school, girls didn’t overdo their makeup, but Teony had taken this opportunity to go all-out. Her lipstick was dark, almost purple, making her look maybe twenty or twenty-one, rather than seventeen.
“You aren’t going to wear your uniform, are you?” she asked, giggling as we cantered up the stairs.
“Um. I guess I didn’t think to bring anything else...” I said, half-lying. Of course, I had thought better of wearing just my uniform to the school party. But when I had peeked in my closet that morning, only my tired, Ridgewood-Esque clothes had echoed back.
“Well, that’s okay. You can find something of mine if you want,” she said, shrugging.
Upstairs, the girls were in the midst of their own preening. Evelyn swept a brush through her curls, while Jaden and Amy argued about who was allowed to wear another of Teony’s crop tops. It seemed that all the girls were showing as much skin as possible, almost competing with one another to see who was more daring.
“What about something like this?” Teony asked, rushing to her closet and drawing out a little white dress, with a cut-out at the belly. “With your long dark chestnut hair, I bet you would look stunning in white.”
“Ha. Who am I trying to impress, anyway?” I asked and then took another glance at the dress.
Jaden rolled her eyes. “Just because the blue bloods have taken it upon themselves to destroy your life, doesn’t mean you’re not hot as fuck.”
“Actually, it means you are hot as fuck and you will definitely give Hailey a run for top spot,” Amy agreed with Jaden. “It just means you have to play it up. She’ll be so jealous when she sees you.”
Wicked Blue Bloods: A Highschool Bully Romance - Crestwood Academy Book 1 Page 7