Wicked Lies

by Mae Doyle

  “It’s just not what I’m used to wearing,” I told her, giving the jacket one more final tug while she helped me to my feet. “I guess that I’ll get used to it though, right?”

  She grinned and wrapped her arm around my waist, snugging me close to her as we walked through the cafeteria. “Don’t look now,” she whispered, her mouth so close to my ear that I could feel her breath on my skin, “but you’re getting quite the look from the rogues.”

  “The rogues?” I jerked my head up and looked around, trying to see what she was talking about. My eyes came to rest on Jackie, Brett, and Kaleb, who were all staring right at me. I felt my skin start to flush hot red when Jackie raised his hand in salute. Kaleb looked disinterested, while Brett looked slightly murderous. “Why are they looking at me like that?”

  Harper joined us and the three of us walked into the hall. “Probably because you’re kinda the new news right now.” She loops her arm through mine as we walk down the hall. “It seems like you have a bit of reputation. You didn’t mention yesterday that you knew Brett. Add that to the fact that you transferred in at the junior year and everyone wants to know your story.”

  No, I didn’t mention that I had known Brett, and I would have loved it if nobody ever found out that Brett and I knew each other. He definitely seemed like he’d already taken over the role of being one of the leaders of the school, or at least of the juniors. All of the grades at Taylor Prep were kept separate from the others. This is how the school managed to keep students focused on their work without a lot of distraction, or so they said.

  In reality? It just meant that I was going to have plenty of classes with the rogues. From the looks on their faces this morning at breakfast, they all had mixed feelings about what that meant for them. Trying to ignore my feelings, I slipped into a chair between my two friends in the back of the class and watched while everyone else filed in.

  Most of the other students had already been here for a few weeks playing sports or working on their curricular activities with certain teachers, so I felt like I was catching up on all of the gossip and drama. I watched as everyone greeted each other, but when the rogues all walked in, the entire room grew silent. Not one of them looked at me as they filed through the desks, taking their seats in the back row. Every was quiet until the teacher, Mr. Staton walked in, rubbings his hands together.

  “Oh, good morning, class! Looks like everyone got a good night’s sleep, yeah?” He was obviously ignoring the face that a number of the girls in class had tried to cover up the bags under their eyes and failed. Looking around, I saw that a lot of the class looked exhausted, and I couldn’t help but wonder what they had all gotten into that I hadn’t. Before I had time to worry about that, though, the teacher continued.

  “It’s good to know that everyone here has already chosen their seats based on who they know and who they like, but that’s not how it’s going to work in my room. Everyone, stand up and take your things to the side of the room.”

  There was a collective groan as all of the students pushed back their chairs and walked to the side of the room. Harper shot me an apologetic look, and Maggie bumped my hip while we stood and waited. Luckily for me, it ended up a lot better than it could have. Even though I was separated from my two friends, I only had to sit near Jackie. He was in front of me and Amelia was next to me, but Brett was on the opposite side of the room.

  “Now.” Mr. Staton returned to his place at the front of the room. “Every morning we will have announcements from Mr. Taylor, so make sure that you’re listening. You don’t want to miss what exciting things are going on at school.”

  I perked up my ears at this. Mr. Taylor was the headmaster, of course, and part of the family who the school was named after. Even though he was definitely a big deal around here, I still hadn’t met him or even seen what he looked like. He managed to keep his photo off of the website and seemed to want to run the school from behind the curtain. Even though I had no frame of reference of what he’d look like, I wasn’t prepared for the voice that cut through the silence.

  “Students, good morning. I’m Mr. Taylor, the headmaster, and although I know that you can’t see me, you need to know that I am always watching you.” Shiver ran down my spine and I glanced around the room, looking for cameras. Instead, I made eye contact with Brett, who raised an eyebrow at me before turning away.

  The voice continued. “Now I know that you’re very excited to be starting classes, and probably even more excited to be spending time with friends, but we need to make sure that we’re all on the same page about a few things. Any student at Taylor Academy who is caught putting one toe out of line will be punished quickly and appropriately. We do not play favorites at this school, and so the punishment will be adapted as necessary.” I frowned, trying to work out exactly what he meant by that, but nobody else in the room looked surprised. “Any student cheating, not following directions, or not listening to their superiors will suffer the consequences of their actions.” He kept talking, but I managed to tune him out while I thought about what he meant.

  We’d be punished and suffer? Now, I’d never stepped foot in a public school before, but that didn’t mean that I didn’t have some idea of how they worked, or so I had thought. I’d never before heard of students being threatened with punishment like this before, but maybe I was wrong. It’s not like anyone else in the class looked particularly worried with the announcement.

  Finally, the speaker clicked off and Mr. Staton walked back to the front of the room. I’d kept an eye on him during announcements. He didn’t seem concerned about what was being said either, but he looked like the kind of guy who wasn’t bothered by anything. His shoulder-length hair was pulled back into a loose bun, and his bright blue eyes made him look like he laughed and smiled a lot. Not only that, but he was probably only a few years older than us, which explained why most of the girls in class, including Harper, were staring at him from hooded eyes.

  “Right. So. you guys heard the man. No funny business and I think that we’ll all be fine. Now, a few more ground rules about homeroom and – ” His voice cut off when he noticed that I had my hand raised. “Yes, Miss Bennett? Was something unclear?”

  I considered standing but know that I won’t be able to easily without it being obvious how much trouble it is for me. “Yes, I have a question.” Every single student turned so that they could look at me, and I swallowed hard when I noticed their eyes all locked on mine. “The headmaster mentioned being punished and suffering, and I just wondered what that meant.” There were a few smirks being thrown my way, but some of the students kinda nodded and turned about around to look at Mr. Staton.

  Before he turned back to the front of the room to listen to the teacher, Jackie rolled his eyes at me. “Don’t you worry about being punished, baby. I’ll make sure that I’m the one doling it out for you.” He winked and turned around, leaving me with a burning face. I clenched my hands into fists under my desk, my nails digging half moons into my palms while I stared at the back of his head.

  “Mrs. Bennet.” When I glanced up, I saw that Mr. Staton was staring at me. “I don’t think that you’ll have to worry about the headmaster’s…choice of words. As long as you pay attention to what needs to be done and don’t step out of line, I’m sure that you’ll be fine, okay?”

  It wasn’t okay, but I nodded my head anyway. When the rest of the class pulled out paper to write down dates that he gave us, I did the same thing, but my heart wasn’t really in it. My mom hadn’t raised me to not ask questions, and this was one of the first times in my life that I didn’t feel like I’d really gotten an honest answer. Nobody else looked concerned, but something wasn’t sitting right with me.

  The bell rang for our next class and Harper and Maggie came over to help me out of my seat and through the desks. I felt Mr. Staton’s eyes follow me as we left and headed for history. The halls were crowded with students pushing their way to their next room while still trying to find some time to spend with
their friends. I waited until we were almost to our class before bringing up the thing that had been bothering me.

  “Did you guys think that the announcements this morning were a little weird?” Harper stopped walking as soon as the words were out of my mouth, and when I turned to her, I saw that her jaw was hanging open. “What? What did I say?”

  She snapped her mouth shut and forced a smile. “I think that it’s important to remember that Taylor Prep prides itself on producing the best. That means that you better perform and produce if you want to stay.”

  I frowned at her. “If I want to stay? Of course I want to stay. I’m paying out the nose to be here, so it’s not like I’m not going to take it seriously.” Harper opened her mouth to say something else, but Maggie interrupted.

  “Listen, Rose, I think I know what Harper’s trying to say. We’re all here because our parents came here, right? And our grandparents, and our cousins, and…yeah, everyone. But you’re not, right? I mean, did your family come here?” When I shook my head, she continued. “So Mr. Taylor is just trying to make sure that our reputation remains intact. You do what you’re supposed to do while you’re here and you’ll leave with a degree that will let you walk into any college in the world, basically.” She shrugged.

  “But what if I don’t know the rules?” I felt my palms start to get sweaty and I pulled my arms from my friends so I could wipe them on my jeans. “How am I supposed to know if I’m doing something I’m not supposed to?”

  “You will.” Harper sounded really confident and flipped her hair as she turned back to face the direction we needed to go. “You’ll know, because you’ll be told.”

  “By a teacher?” As long as there was some sort of a warning system so that I wasn’t caught making stupid mistake after stupid mistake, then maybe I would be okay. I’ve always gotten along with adults, so I didn’t see why the teachers at Taylor Prep would be any different.

  “Um, no, a student. Our classmates will let you know.” Maggie twirled a bit of hair around her finger and smiled at me. “Don’t worry, Rose, you’ll be fine.”

  Oo-kay. I still wasn’t entirely sure of what system was at play here, but if my friends weren’t concerned, then maybe I could relax a little. We continued down the hall in silence. Turning the corner into history, I noticed that a lot of the kids from homeroom were in there already. I recognized some of them from sitting near me, but with a relief, I saw that Amelia wasn’t there. We were about to walk into the room and find our steps when someone shoved by us.

  I fell, bracing my hands in front of me to try to break my fall. The tile was totally unforgiving, and I felt the impact reverberate up into my arms. For a moment, I stayed on the floor, trying to catch my breath, but then I felt my friends pull me back up.

  “Are you okay?” Maggie brushed me off and turned my hands over to look at them. “You got knocked over, but will you be alright?”

  I gritted my teeth. “I’m filled with titanium, Mags. I’ll be fine.” It wasn’t a complete lie, as my pride was more injured than my body. “Who did it?” Even as I asked, I already knew the answer. I recognized his scent as the same deep and musky one that I’d smelled yesterday when he waited for me to get out of my car.

  “It was Jackie,” Harper whispered in my ear as she helped me to a seat. “He’s looking at you now, so don’t look over, okay?”

  I did the exact opposite of what she tells me and turned my head so that my eyes were locked on his. His blue eyes were unflinching and cold as he looked at me. When I first peeked into the room, I hadn’t noticed that Brett and Kaleb were here, too. Great. Was I going to have my whole day filled with the rogues?

  And what kind of name was that? It sounded like something that they called themselves when playing late-night sessions of D&D. I chuckled to myself before the teacher, Mrs. Walker, stood up behind her desk, dropping a book onto its surface to get us to pay attention.

  Taylor Prep was in full swing, and I had to learn how to try and keep up or it looked like I’d be drowning.

  Chapter 5

  “I honestly didn’t know that it was possible for teachers to give this much homework. Ever.” All of my books were stacked in front of me in the library and I had to sit up straight to be able to peek over them and see Harper. Her stack was just as high and she sighed, dropping her head down onto her arms. “I’m serious, Harper, how in the world will it all get done?”

  “It just will. Didn’t you have homework the past few years to help you prepare for this?”

  I rolled my eyes and shook my head. “Homework when you’re homeschooled isn’t really a thing,” I reminded her. “Even if it were, I don’t think that I ever could have been prepared for all of this.” I lifted half of my books down so that I could see my friends.

  “Yeah, and just wait until you have your other classes tomorrow.” Maggie pulled her schedule out from her pocket and smoothed it out on the table to look at it. “Taylor Prep firmly believes in splitting up classes so that you don’t get overwhelmed on any given day, but I’m not really buying that it works. What do you two have tomorrow?”

  The three of us compared schedules and I was relieved to find out that even though we only all had PE together, at least I wouldn’t be alone during Earth Science, which was definitely a class I was worried about, since Harper was going to be in it with me. Not only had I heard that the teacher was a bit of a hardass, but science wasn’t really my strongest suit. At least it wasn’t chemistry, which was going to be the next semester. Right now, though, I couldn’t let that become a concern. I had a mountain of homework to do first, and we all wanted to get dinner at a decent hour before the cafeteria closed.

  “Why don’t we start with our history report and then we can plan out how we’re going to tackle working on our English presentations?” Maggie tapped her pencil against the table. “I can’t believe that she made us all pick authors we have to do such a huge report on in the first class we had together.”

  It had been surprising to me, as well, but I was just glad that I was able to get one of my favorite authors – Sir Authur Conon Doyle. Not only was he a great writer, but he was also Scottish, and Scotland was high on my list of places to visit.

  “It’s gonna be intense,” Harper agreed, “but we can get through this. Just keep your eyes on the prize, ladies.” The prize was graduating and walking into any university in the world without a problem, but it felt kinda sad to have something so far away be what we were looking forward to.

  “I think we need a prize that’s a bit closer to work towards. What about if we make fun plans for the weekend? That way, if we make it through the first week without all dying, we have something to do?”

  The girls agreed and argued among themselves what we would be doing. Finally, Harper announced, “I’m going to have my dad send a car for us. We can spend Friday and Saturday night at my house if you two want. There’s swimming, horseback riding, and the chef will make us anything we want.”

  I raised an eyebrow. I knew that my friends were rich, but I had no idea that they had enough money to have a pool, and horses…and a chef. “Sounds great,” Amelia chirped, and then they both looked at me.

  “I love it,” I agreed. In all honesty, I had thought about maybe the three of us curling up with popcorn and a movie as a reward, but I was in a new world now. The kids at Taylor Prep were born with silver spoons in their mouths, and I wasn’t. It was hard for me to believe that my friends were so sweet even though they had so much money.

  “Great.” Harper pulled out her phone and fired off a quick text. “I know my parents won’t care. They’re always busy with work anyway, so it won’t really matter to them if I bring people home or not.” There was a twinge of sadness in her voice, but Maggie didn’t seem to notice it, so I didn’t say anything. She slid the phone back in her pocket. “What do you guys say about us tearing through this? I heard that they were having burgers for dinner.”

  “Burgers?” Maggie perked up. “Like…beef and
melty cheese with tons of ketchup, because I am so in!”

  “Sorry,” Harper said, reaching out to pat her shoulder. “Burgers like…black bean, corn, and quinoa burgers with a miso ginger sauce and gluten free buns.”

  I laughed when Maggie’s face fell. “Hey, it’s all good,” I said, when they looked at me. “Let’s just get through this and then I’ll show you some of the candy I snuck into the school in my backpack.”

  “They didn’t check it?” Maggie sounded surprised, and I grin and shook my head.

  “Nope. Jackie was carrying it in. They checked my suitcase, I think, but not my backpack, so they didn’t find the Snickers. Or M&Ms. Or the Twix bars.” By now, my friends were practically drooling. “I’m happy to share the loot with you guys!”

  They both agreed and we set to our work. I knew that if we just powered through it then we could get to the cafeteria and then hang out. Not only did I want to spend some time with my friends, but I wanted to get out of the library as soon as possible.

  Harper and Maggie were sitting with their backs to the table at the far side of the room. It was directly underneath a huge stained glass window and the colored light coming through it fell in beautiful waves and shades on the table, the books, and the boys sitting there.

  On the rogues. Who, by the way, hadn’t stopped looking at me from the moment we can into the library. I had a feeling that I knew why Brett would stare at me like that, but unless he told Jackie and Kaleb what happened when we were younger, there was no reason for them to stare.

  Shivering, I ignore them and flipped open my book. The promise of chocolate could always light a fire under my ass, and right now was no different.

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