by J Bree
“You're such a slut, Harlow. Make sure he pays you well.”
The girl just laughs, like she enjoys this pompous dick speaking about her like she's nothing.
“Maybe I'll do him right after I do you, just to see who fucks better.”
The group laughs again and they start a terrible game of comparing their conquests, loudly and in detail. I chew faster to get out of the room, I don't want to attract their attention. I can’t help but listen to them though.
“I want to fuck Morrison, just to say I've had him. Joey, get your sister to get me in with him, I've heard she's the gatekeeper to all three of those boys.”
Joey, who is the older Beaumont sibling, scoffs.
“She's a little cunt, just like Mom was. You have no chance there, I've always assumed she's fucking them all. I'm expecting her to get knocked up by Ash and them to have a three headed incestuous baby. Father would be so proud.”
They cackle again and I get up with my plate, too sick to keep eating. What a great guy to have as a brother. I mean, the twins didn't exactly seem like upstanding human beings but no one deserves a sibling who speaks so badly of them and in such a public way.
I leave the dining hall to walk to my next class and I try to ignore the looks and whispers.
The girls dorms don't have individual private bathrooms so you have to use a giant communal bathroom.
It’s worse than being in the group home.
I manage to get in and out of the shower before any of the other girls come in to the bathroom and I tuck my toiletries bag under my arm as I walk back to my room. I'm dressed in old boxer shorts and an old band tee that I love.
Every girl in my dorm stops and watches me walk past.
I don't get what their problems are with me. Surely being on a scholarship doesn't mean I'm the enemy and yet I haven't had a single student try and talk nicely to me. It's exhausting.
As I open my door I hear Avery's voice and I pause for a second.
“Fucking pathetic.”
I whip my head around to stare at her. She’s leaning against her own door frame across the hall from my room. I can see her room is at least four times bigger than mine and furnished luxuriously. I can't help but feel jealous even as her eyes are fixed on my shirt. I glance down but there no holes or stains in it. What does she have against band tees?
“If you think that will get his attention, you're an even more stupid Mounty slut than I thought.”
“Whose attention? These are my pajamas, I don't want to show them to a guy.”
She stares at me for a second before smirking. She is strikingly beautiful but with her lips twisted into a sneer I think she looks older than fifteen.
“You're totally clueless, even better.”
I see a flash and blink owlishly. She's taken a photo of me on her phone and then retreated into her room, locking the door behind her.
These rich kids are going to do me in.
After I'm safely behind my own locked door I collapse onto my bed and groan. I had better end up with an amazing career for putting up with this school.
I check my phone and see Matteo has texted me again.
Are you raising hell yet?
I bite my lip. While I've always been academically driven, and always the top of my classes, I had a reputation for being a bitch at my last school. Not that I was a bully, I just had a lot of anger because of my home life.
My mom was addicted to drugs and, because of that, neglected me.
It's hard to admit that out loud, it makes me feel like she mustn't have loved me very much if she was willing to spend all our food money on heroin, coke, meth, pills, whatever she could get her hands on really. I didn't ever want to admit how much easier my life had become after she died. I must be the worst child in the world to think that and yet it's true. In foster care I never had to worry about if there was going to be food on the table at night.
Granted the food was shit and never quite enough.
My mom told me that my dad had been sent to prison in a different state for drug trafficking which meant I had basically been left to raise myself. I think I'd done a great job of not turning into a hopeless asshole and someday I would be a doctor or an engineer or some other career that paid ridiculous money. Then I would never have to worry about food ever again.
So I was known for having a smart mouth and being angry all the time. It had worked out in my favor with Matteo.
I'm definitely not in Kansas anymore, toto.
I smile as I hit send. Matteo had sent the same message to me the day after he had moved out of the group care home. Back then I'd wished so hard that I could move out of there with him. He was like a security blanket to me in the group home. Something safe to go home to. He'd told me when I'd accepted the scholarship that I would have to go back to him when I was done with school, that I wasn't allowed to grow apart from him. It made me feel wanted, in a dark, twisted way.
I’ve never felt that before.
Come home then, kid. I'll take good care of you.
I smiled and rubbed my thumb over the screen. How I wished life was that simple. How I wished he hadn’t become a monster.
I have to make a life for myself, we can’t all be the Jackal.
The Jackal. His name on the streets. I knew he was involved in all sorts of trouble and I tried not to think too hard about it.
This Jackal just wants his Wolf safe and by his side. Don’t forget that while you’re at this big posh school.
A shudder ran down my spine. Why did that always sound more like a threat than a promise?
Chapter Three
The first time I get a real break from Avery and Harley is during study hall. It is the one required unit that’s flexible about the location and I choose to go to the library.
The library is huge and looks vaguely Victorian. The fiction section is a third of the size of the non-fiction and referencing sections and the librarians are all matronly women with tight gray buns perched on their heads. I feel most out of place at this school in this room. It makes me feel like a grubby child to walk through the doors and I still cringe after weeks of doing it.
I don't have a laptop to use quietly in my room, and the library has a selection of computers to use, the only modern luxury. I get there early and choose a desk towards the back of the room. One of the librarians nod at me in acknowledgment but doesn’t offer any help as I struggle with the technology. My last school only had one computer in the library and it was a glorified typewriter. Internet access was limited and students generally didn’t bother using it. The computers here were high tech, complicated, and, in my opinion, high maintenance. I guess they fit in well with the student population.
The bell tolls and the room begins to fill with students. A girl I recognize from my biology class approaches my desk and smiles sweetly before taking a seat across from me. Once the rest of the seats are taken by students a group of freshmen reluctantly fill the remaining seats at my table. I don’t even spare them a glance and instead focus on my assignment.
I’m focussing on my research at the computer when piece of paper slides towards me.
I saw your argument with Harley in History. You shouldn't piss Avery and the boys off . The rest of us learnt that lesson in middle school.
I look up at her and then at the rest of the table but no one is paying us any attention. I scribble a reply and slide it back.
If I always did what I was supposed to do I wouldn't be at this school.
She smiles and scrabbles back. The library isn’t exactly quiet students are talking all around us so I'm not sure why we're doing this with notes but I'll play along for now.
My name is Lauren. If they hadn't put a ban on the rest of us speaking to you I would've already approached you. I know what it's like to be the new girl at school.
How the hell do they ban other students from talking to people? Who the hell do they think they are? I'm angry enough that I grip my pencil so hard my hand shakes.
>
What happens to you if you speak to me?
She bites her lip before sliding the paper back.
Then they add me to the list and they will do to me what they going to do to you. I'm sorry, I’m terrified of Avery.
The list? Was that metaphorical or did that psycho Avery actually organize her reign of terror that methodically? I let out a deep sigh and nod my head at Lauren. I guess I didn’t blame her, or any of the others in our class, I’d seen what Joseph had done to the other freshmen. I was fine on my own but sometimes it was hard to see the other students walking around, chatting and laughing together, and not wish I had someone to talk to.
I give her a nod and scrunch the note up in my hand, a clear sign of conversation over. She gives me a sad smile and gets back to work on her own homework.
I try to focus back on my own work but I'm all hot and cranky. I hate this sort of bullying, I'd rather they just come at me with fists so I could fight back properly. Whispers and intrigue are annoying but then I think about life back home and Matteo. Maybe learning this political shit isn't such a terrible idea.
It might help me survive the Jackal someday.
As the first few weeks pass I learn something very important.
Harley and Avery are in every single one of my classes except choir and they, along with Ash, have a lot of influence on our classmates.
News had spread quickly of my argument with Harley and it has made me even more of a pariah than my scholarship status ever has. No one tries to speak to me, not during classes or meals. I think they are trying to make me feel shitty enough to leave but little do they know I am enjoying the quiet.
At the beginning of the year I had signed up for a bunch of extracurricular duties to get class credits and plump up my applications for college. The one I am looking forward to the least is tutoring especially now I’ve pissed off Harley. It takes three weeks before I get an email from the school’s admin to let me know I have had someone sign up and to meet the student in the library during three of my study halls. I groan but go along to it. When I see who the student is I begin to think it’s a trap.
Ash Beaumont.
Clearly I’ve pissed someone off in a past life.
He's waiting at the assigned desk in the library, his books and supplies spread out around him. He's so classically good looking, like he’s a grecian fantasy and I have to remind myself that he is a dick before I sit down with him. The sneer he gives me helps to calm my hormones down. I can admire him from a distance but the vitriol he spits at me on a daily basis proves just how badly I need to keep him at arm's length.
“Oh goody. I get to spend three hours a week with trash.” He drawls and I grit my teeth.
“If you want the help with your assignments then yeah, you’re stuck with the trash.” He grins at me and it’s not a nice thing.
I pull out my own school work and get the utter joy of his criticism on what seems like every aspect of my life. I do my best to ignore it but I’m not the most patient person.
“Your handwriting is atrocious. Why do you bite your nails, they make you look like a boy? You shouldn’t slouch, you might actually have a decent rack and no one will notice it if you’re all hunched over-“
“Can you shut the fuck up and tell me what you need help with?” I hiss at him. He smirks like he knows he’s got in a direct hit. Fuck I wish I’d met him at Mounts Bay. I’d have destroyed him with calculated calm and a grin on my face. I would have Matteo at my back and be able to end him in creative and devious ways. We could have made a real game of it. But instead I’m at Hannaford and I’ve already pissed one Avery’s boys off so far. I can’t push it until I know the lay of the land. I need to hold my cards close to my chest until I now the best way to play them.
He shows me his Math homework and then starts to work through the problems quietly. I watch him while he works and I realize straight away that something is off. I can't quite put my finger on it but the way he looks at the paper, he's not really trying to work out the answers. It's infuriating.
“Can you at least do a better job of pretending to try? If you're not going to take this seriously I'll use the time to study instead.” He gives me a look. His eyes are penetrating, like he’s trying to get a good look at what's happening under my skin. I’m used to being looked at like this but it’s disconcerting getting it from a rich kid at Hannaford. Why would he need to know anything about me, in four years I’ll cease to exist in his life and he’ll take over his families billion dollar empire. Yeah, I looked up the Beaumont’s. Billionaires. It made me queasy to think about that sort of money.
“You only get the credit if you do it properly, I’ll let the office staff know how little you care about helping other students.”
“Why should I help you if you won't try?” He leans back in his chair and folds his arms. He’s leaner than Harley but he’s still much bigger than me. I shiver. God, I’m broken.
“Because you’re Mounty trash and you need the credits. I could never work a day in my life and still I will out earn you exponentially.”
I clench my teeth. I hate him. Even if he is gorgeous.
We continue to bicker and fight our way through all of his homework, he tells me he needs help with every subject, and as the hour dwindles down, I can taste my freedom, the library door swings open and Avery walks in, making a beeline for our table.
Great.
I brace myself, assuming she’s here for me but she doesn’t even glance my way, her eyes are glued on Ash.
“What’s this about you starting fights with Joey?”
She’s softer with Ash than anyone else, like he’s some precious thing that needs to be handled with care. He doesn’t look that way to me, especially as he looks at her with a glare. It’s clearly not aimed at her. He treats her with the same unflinching care.
“Fuck Joey. He knows Harley is off limits and yet he still keeps coming for him. I’ll fucking end him, Floss.”
Her eyes flick at me when he calls her that but she doesn’t pull him up. She has her hands on her hips and she’s looking at him like he’s a naughty child she needs to discipline.
“Can you please contain yourself? It's a lot harder to minimize damage here than it was in the lower grades. I have a lot on my plate as it is.”
“He's the one being a dick. I couldn't exactly sit around with my thumb up my ass while they started in on Harley, could I? I don’t know why they seem to think that they’ll be able to beat us, we’ve been handing them their own asses since middle school.”
He goes back to his homework but if he thinks she’s going to let it go he is sorely disappointed.
“I wasn't saying you should! Next time call me.” She tucks a perfect, black curl behind her ear with long slender fingers. She makes me feel so damn unrefined and clumsy. I stop looking at her altogether.
“So I should just make you fight all our battles then? I should hide behind your skirt when our big, bad brother zeros in on us? That’s not how this works.” Some of his cool demeanor slips and I see the rage burning in his eyes.
“No, let me deal with it so I have less to do. Once you let him get to you it turns into a bigger problem and then I spend weeks cleaning it up. Do you really want to put more on my plate, Ash?” she pleads.
“Fuck him. Don’t clean it up, I’ll burn him and everyone who decides they’re on his side.” He starts packing up and I follow his lead. Family politics are not my thing and I want to get out of here before Avery remembers I’m sitting here listening to them.
“I can’t wait for Morrison to get back, I need a sane ally in this place.” Avery moans and Ash scoffs at her, stepping around the table to sling an arm over her shoulders.
“If you think he’s sane then you’re not as smart as you think you are, Floss.”
They walk out together. He doesn’t even bother to thank me for helping him.
Fucking rich dicks.
My first clue that something isn’t right is the hush that
falls all around me as I walk to my room.
I’ve just finished up with Ash in the library and I need to change out before dinner. The hallway that leads to my room is so quiet I can hear my stomach rumble. I try to ignore it, to walk in carefully measured steps like none of this is bothering me, but I just want to snarl something snarky at the lot of them.
I make it to my door and find Avery standing in her doorway smirking over at me, her entire body screaming with smugness.
The second I crack the door open I can smell it. The eye watering stench of piss.
There is urine on everything in my room.
Every. Single. Thing.
I gag as the door swings fully open and that's when I hear the laughter start. It isn't just Avery, all of the girls on our floor are laughing. They have all been in on this disgusting prank. I take a deep breath, through my mouth so I don't pass out from the stink, and then close myself inside my room.
I find gloves stashed in my first aid kit and then I get to work stripping my bedding off and piling all of the clothing I can salvage. My sneakers can be saved but the three books I brought with me are ruined. Luckily I had taken all of my text books with me to my tutoring just in case I needed them because they were easily more expensive than everything else in the room combined.
I drag all of the piss soaked linens to the small laundry room and completely ignore the gaping looks from the girls.
It's clear they thought this would rattle me, maybe even break me. No chance of that.
After all five washing machines are running I sit on the floor in the laundry room to start on my own homework. There's no way I'm going to leave my things out in the open and now I need to invest in some serious hardware for my door.
Fuck these little rich kids, throwing tantrums and acting like animals. Never in all my time in foster care did anyone play with their own piss. I try hard not to think about which diseases are transmitted through urine and try to remember these kids have access to care so they should be clean.