“Ugh…”
Refusing to give up, I moved to the next one a few feet away. I dug my nails between the edge of the pane and the window frame and pulled with all my might. With a slight creak, it slid open.
Yes!
I opened the window as far as I possibly could, and then I shimmied through backwards, grateful for my petite frame. I dropped down onto a carpeted floor with a soft grunt and found myself in a storage room.
I headed past the shelves and filing cabinets until I found the door. Then I slipped down the hall, heading for the teachers’ offices.
The note referred to the teacher as a ‘he’, so that ruled out at least half of them, making my task slightly easier.
I checked the first door I came across that had a male name on the brass plate, only to find it locked. Not a keycard lock, like the rest of the school buildings, but a regular old metal lock.
“Of course,” I muttered to myself. The Princes wouldn’t have given me an easy break-in task. No, they wanted me to fail as epically as possible.
Too bad they’d forgotten to account for my old school. Good old Silvercreek High.
As disreputable, unsafe and grimy as it was, it had some benefits… and one of those benefits was the free lock-picking tutorial I received from Danny Stewart, back in the day when I still had friends in Silvercreek.
Danny came from a family of petty criminals—something he was very proud of for some reason—and he was always bragging to the girls about the tips and tricks he’d picked up from them, clearly hoping to impress us.
“Thanks, Danny,” I whispered, smiling widely. “Maybe you weren’t so bad after all.”
I reached into my hair and pulled out a bobby pin. After yanking the two ends apart, I poked one piece into the lock to act as a pick and used the other as a makeshift wrench to control it.
Danny had taught me that the key—no pun intended—to picking a lock like this was to apply the right amount of tension to the outside wrench to make the lock plug rotate slightly while the pick lifted the pins inside the lock. When all of them were in the right position, the plug would rotate properly, unlocking the door.
Chewing on my bottom lip, I worked at the lock, and within a couple of minutes I had it open.
Luckily, Mr. Johnson didn’t have any locks on his desk drawers or filing cabinets, so it was smooth sailing from there. Using the moonlight streaming through the windows to guide me, I rifled through his stuff and found nothing but books, papers and stationery.
Onto the next.
I picked the locks on seven more offices, finding nothing, and then I finally hit the jackpot in Professor Fox’s office. My laptop, phone, and keys were all sitting in the top drawer of his filing cabinet.
“Yes!”
The light suddenly switched on, and I whirled around, eyes wide with horror.
Headmaster Sanders was standing in the doorway, along with Professor Fox and two security guards.
“So that little tipoff call we received was accurate,” Sanders said, eyes narrowing as he folded his arms.
Shit.
I held up my palms. “I know this is a total cliché, but this really isn’t what it looks like.”
Sanders stalked toward me and reached into the open drawer that I’d just grabbed my stuff from. He fished out a piece of paper and held it up, eyes glimmering triumphantly. “This is the answer key for the senior class chemistry test tomorrow. Isn’t that right, Professor Fox?”
Fox shuffled over and squinted at the paper. “Yes, it is.”
My throat felt like it was closing up. Tonight’s whole ‘game’ was another setup, and once again, I’d fallen prey to a combination of the Princes’ deviousness and my own foolishness.
I used to think I was smart because of my good grades, but these guys were destroying me at every turn. I’d never felt so stupid and inadequate in my life.
Then again, there was no possible way for me to win tonight, no matter what choice I made. If I didn’t break into Royal Hall to get my laptop back—and get caught by the tipped-off Sanders in the process—I’d still lose a huge portion of my economics grade when I failed to send my assignment in by the deadline. Not to mention the trouble I’d be in when Professor Fox found my stuff amongst his.
The Princes had obviously considered all of that, and they’d rigged the game so I’d lose no matter what.
Sanders gave me a withering look. “A few hours ago we received a call from a student claiming to have overheard you and a friend discussing a plan to break in and steal the answer key sometime tonight, so we stayed up to see if it was true,” he said. “I didn’t want to believe you could actually do such a thing, Laney, but here you are.”
“I didn’t break in to take the test. I swear.”
“Then why are you here?” He cocked his head to one side.
“Someone got into my dorm again. They stole my laptop, phone and car keys, and they left a note saying I had to get them from one of the offices, or else they’d lie and say they saw me in here earlier today, going through everything.”
“You expect us to believe that?”
I nodded vigorously. “It’s true! I have no reason to steal the test. I already took it!”
Sanders frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I have a Model UN event tomorrow, and it clashes with the period when the chem test is supposed to happen. Professor Fox said we could take the test early if we wanted to avoid that clash. So that’s what I did. I took the test yesterday during my free period.”
Sanders looked at Fox. “Is that true?”
Fox yawned and rubbed his eyes. “Yes. She already took it.” He looked at me. “Sorry, Laney. I completely forgot until you mentioned it.”
“See?” I said, focusing on Sanders again. “I had no reason to steal the test.”
“So you really broke in here to retrieve your stolen possessions?” Sanders said, eyes narrowing again.
I gestured to my laptop. “Yes.”
“I don’t understand why someone would steal something from you and dump it in here.”
“To mess with me.” I let out a frustrated groan and rubbed my forehead. “It’s the same guys who broke into my dorm last Friday night. They’re trying to get me kicked out of school.”
He frowned. “Why would they do that?”
“Because they hate me. They’ve blacklisted me.”
Professor Fox swallowed audibly, and Sanders arranged his lips into a thin line. “Blacklisted?”
I let out a tired sigh. “I know you know what it means, sir.”
He straightened his shoulders. “No, I don’t. You’ll have to elaborate.”
“The whole school is bullying me on the Princes’ orders,” I said, even though I knew he was lying about not knowing what the blacklist was. “They stalk me. Say horrible things to me. Send nasty messages. They even got someone to put a hole in my boat today, just before the race.”
Sanders raised a brow. “Okay. I’m not saying I’m aware of this ‘blacklist’, or whatever you call it, but if I was, I’d assume it only applied to students who…” He trailed off for a second, rubbing his chin. “Students who earned their place on the list, so to speak.”
“I don’t deserve to be on it, sir. I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Then what makes you think you’re on it?”
I gaped at him. “I just told you! The bullying. The guys breaking into my dorm. All of that!”
“Can you prove any of it?”
“I have some screenshots,” I said. “I showed them to Ms. Flores the other day, and she suspended the students. But that was just a few of them, and they aren’t the ringleaders.”
He muttered under his breath to Fox, something about ‘that silly woman not giving up on her bleeding-heart crusade’, which was obviously a dig at Flores. Then he looked back at me. “Aside from those screenshots—which, as you’ve said, only incriminate a handful of students—do you have any evidence that the whole school is bull
ying you?”
My shoulders slumped. “Not really. But I’m working on it.”
He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Laney, I understand that you’ve had some… issues in the past. Issues which may have affected your emotional state. Perhaps that’s why you’ve managed to convince yourself that you’re being targeted by all these bullies.” He sighed and shook his head. “Perhaps you don’t even realize you’re doing it.”
Professor Fox looked on sympathetically as he spoke, and my eyes widened.
They didn’t believe me. They thought I was just crazy or attention-seeking. As if I broke in here earlier, dumped my stuff, wrote myself the note telling me to break back in here to get it all back, and then made the call to Sanders to tip him off. All so I could ‘prove’ I was being blacklisted by the Princes.
If that wasn’t the case, and they actually did believe me, then they were clearly trying to invalidate my story in order to sweep everything under the rug, which would keep the other students out of trouble. Students whose money they depended on for their livelihoods.
Either way, I lost.
“So what happens now?” I asked in a low mutter.
“We’ll let you off with a warning over tonight’s incident,” Sanders said. “I don’t see why it has to go any further than that.”
There it is. They know I’m innocent.
If they genuinely thought I was losing my mind and hallucinating all of my bullying, they’d force me to seek psychiatric help.
I gritted my teeth. “Thank you,” I murmured, figuring there was no point arguing. I’d only get myself into more trouble.
“The security guards will escort you back to your dorm,” Sanders said before striding out of the room.
Before I could go, Professor Fox lay a hand on my shoulder. “Be careful, Laney,” he muttered.
“Careful?” My eyes widened again. “With what?”
“Just try to…” He trailed off abruptly, eyes darting to the security guards and then back to me. He lowered his voice to a whisper so the guards wouldn’t hear. “Stay out of trouble, or you’ll regret it.”
Before I could ask him to elaborate, he scurried out of the room, leaving me standing there with my mouth hanging open like a fish out of water. His words echoed in my mind, sounding increasingly sinister every time they repeated.
Stay out of trouble, or you’ll regret it…
16
Laney
“I can’t believe they did that.”
Trina tightened her hands around her steaming mug of coffee, eyes narrowing.
I lifted one shoulder in a dejected shrug. “I can.”
Adam’s jaw clenched. “I wish the assholes hadn’t taken your phone. Then we could’ve come and helped.”
“That was the whole point of them taking it. They wanted me alone and vulnerable.”
“Fucking creeps,” Trina said, knuckles turning white around her mug.
“They aren’t just creeps,” Adam replied, shaking his head. “Seriously, Hunter is a complete psychopath. I can’t believe I’m actually related to him.”
“Me neither.” I pressed my lips into a thin line. “Anyway, you want to hear the worst part?”
“What is it?”
“I went to visit the boarding admin office and the security office yesterday morning to ask for a second lock on my door, and they said no. They don’t think it’s necessary.”
Adam’s eyes widened. “Even after everything that’s happened to you?”
I nodded grimly. “It doesn’t help that Sanders is trying to cover everything up to protect your brother and his cronies. He’s basically telling anyone who’ll listen that I’m just a nutty attention seeker.”
“So Hunter can still get in your room anytime he wants?” Trina asked.
“Uh-huh. So now I barricade the door at night with my desk. When I’m out, I hide my laptop and any other valuables in a ceiling vent.”
“You shouldn’t have to live like that!” Trina said. “It’s a school, not a prison!”
“I know,” I said with a soft sigh. “But it is what it is, I guess.”
“Do you want to come and stay with me instead?” she asked.
Adam gave me a sympathetic smile. “I’d offer the same thing, but I live with Hunter, so you’d be stepping right into the belly of the beast if you came to stay.”
I gnawed on my bottom lip as I thought about it. “Thanks for the offer, but I think I’ll be okay,” I finally said.
Trina lifted her brows. “You sure? My parents won’t mind.”
“I know, but you’re already putting a target on your back by hanging out with me. If the Princes find out I’m staying with you, they might do something to hurt you. They might even do something to your parents.”
She patted my arm. “Well, I’m not too worried about that, so if you change your mind, just let me know, and I’ll get the housekeeper to make up a room for you,” she said.
“Thanks. You’re the best.”
She smiled, withdrew her hand, and opened the Café Seven menu in front of her. “On a lighter note… do you guys want to share a giant stack of pancakes with me? Extra toppings?”
“Sure,” Adam and I said in unison.
When Trina returned from ordering at the counter, she sat down and leaned forward, brows lifted high. “Are you totally sure you’ll be okay at Blair Hall by yourself?” she asked. “I can’t stop picturing those assholes breaking in and attacking you.”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine.” I let out a sigh. “I just wish I could get them to leave me alone.”
Adam cocked his head to one side. “Didn’t you tell us last week that the Medusas said they could make it all stop?”
“As long as you joined them, right?” Trina added.
“Yes.”
“I still don’t get why you turned them down.”
“You know why,” I said. “I didn’t want to ditch you guys and keep secrets from you.”
“Laney, that’s super sweet, and I love you for it, but if they can get the Princes—and the rest of the school—to leave you alone, I’d jump right on their offer. Just for your own safety.”
I leaned back in my seat, brows knitting. “I don’t know. They gave me a bit of a weird vibe. I think I’d only be willing to join them if I literally felt like I had no other choice.”
Trina nodded slowly. “Fair enough. But if the bullying keeps getting worse, and we can’t find any way to stop it, I give you full permission to ditch us and join them.”
“Ditto,” Adam said.
“Thanks.” I smiled and took a sip of my coffee.
Trina let out a long, heavy sigh.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Honestly… I kinda blame myself for what happened to you on Friday,” she said, shaking her head. “And the Friday before that, too.”
“Why?”
“Because of my shitty advice in the first week,” she said, throwing her hands up. “I gave you that clichéd bullshit: Just ignore the bullies and they’ll eventually leave you alone. It’s obviously a load of crap. Hasn’t worked at all.”
“It’s not your fault,” I said. “You were just trying to make me feel better.”
“Well, I was wrong, and I think it’s time to do the opposite now,” she said, eyes narrowing.
“You mean we should stop trying to ignore them?” Adam asked.
Trina nodded emphatically. “Yup. We should fight back.”
“I already tried. I showed Ms. Flores those screenshots and got a few kids suspended, remember?” I said.
She snorted. “I don’t mean it like that. I mean really fight back.”
“Won’t that just make it worse?”
“How? You tried ignoring it, and look what happened last week. Hunter broke into your room and terrorized you in your own bed,” she said. “It doesn’t get much worse than that, does it?”
I sighed. “I guess not.”
“Honestly, after the last few weeks, I’ve starte
d thinking that the only real way to stop bullies is to hit them back. Hard.”
“I hate to say it, but you might be right,” Adam said. “Back in middle school, I knew this guy who used to get bullied by these older kids all the time. He tried to ignore it, but it kept happening. Then one day he finally snapped and took a swing at the worst one. Knocked four of his teeth out. After that, they all left him alone.”
I twisted my lips. “I can’t just walk up and hit the Princes. Or anyone else, for that matter.”
“I know. When I said to hit them back, I meant it metaphorically,” Trina said.
My brows furrowed. “So what do you think I should do?”
“I don’t know yet. But we’ll think of something that’ll hit ‘em where it hurts.”
“Can I just get a Taser and aim it at their balls whenever they come near me?” I said, eyes crinkling around the corners.
“I wish. But no. We need something more… cunning. Something that isn’t visible to anyone else, so you can’t get in any trouble and lose your scholarship,” she said. She leaned back in her seat, a sly smile playing on her lips. “Hmm… we could secretly date all of the Princes and make them fall for us. And then when they finally declare their love for us, we just laugh in their faces. Destroy them emotionally.”
“Um….”
“Don’t worry, I’m not being serious,” she said with a grin. “Can you imagine me dating a Prince? Let alone three or four of them?”
“Hey, why not?” Adam cut in. “You totally could if you wanted. You’re gorgeous. So are you, Laney.”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, come on. Even if we were somehow capable of getting all of the Princes to date us at the same time, I don’t think either of us could stomach it.”
“No shit,” Trina said. “They’re nothing but aggressive assholes who think they’re masters of the universe. I’d probably vomit in my mouth if I had to kiss one of them.”
I nodded. “Me too.”
“God, imagine actually being with a guy like that,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “I bet they’re all porn-sick losers. You’d never get any satisfaction from them at all.”
Adam arched a brow. “Porn-sick?”
Savage Prince: A Dark High School Bully Romance (Royal Falls Elite Book 1) Page 20