“I wouldn’t go that way if I were you.”
I whirled around. Quinn leaned against the wall, watching me with an amused expression. He stepped toward me. The light in the hallway backlit his silhouette, highlighting his muscled shoulders and the curve of his ass. Damn, that boy made dress slacks look fine—
I lifted an eyebrow. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. That’s the gym. It’s off limits because of contamination. Didn’t you read your rulebook?”
“That thing’s a Tolstoy novel – long and boring and filled with communist plots. How do you mean, contaminated?”
“It started a few years ago – this horrible smell like rotting meat wafting up from under the gymnasium. It seeps out of the vents in that wing. It got so bad that students were fainting. They had experts in to perform tests to try and figure out what was causing it.”
“My mom couldn’t even get a HVAC repair person to come to our second-floor apartment. You rich bastards managed to get someone to drive up that demented road just because some idiot left his sandwich in a vent?”
“It was a whole team of guys in hazmat suits,” Quinn beamed. His smile sent a burst of flame through my chest. “But they couldn’t figure out what was making the smell. The best they could come up with was that there’s a pocket of gas under there that’s been disturbed. Parents were complaining.” Quinn put on a faux high voice. “‘My little Sissy won’t be attending school in a toxic waste dump.’ That kind of thing. So the faculty had to close that wing until they could fumigate it. Now we have gym outside in all weather. It’s interesting in winter with four inches of snow on the ground.”
“Something to look forward to.”
“It makes all the girls’ nipples hard, so no complaints from me.” Quinn’s eyes traveled over my body, stopping at my chest. His gaze made me feel naked, like he could somehow see my nipples through my blazer and shirt. I hated that I liked it, but I liked it. “That uniform is working for you.”
“My fist will be working for your face if you don’t quit eye-fucking me,” I growled.
“You have a mouth from the gutter, that’s for sure.” Quinn held out his arm. “Come on, I’ll show you the dining hall. Walk in there on my arm and your social status will be a notch or two above amoeba. It’ll be a hoot, and I’ll even consider it one of your favors.”
I entertained Quinn’s offer for a moment. So far, he’d been the friendliest person I’d encountered today, which wasn’t saying much. He clearly wasn’t lying about his manwhore status, but he was one of the Kings, which meant that he could protect me. If he felt like it.
But that was just the thing. No way did I trust this guy, especially not when he was cut from the same cloth as Trey and Courtney. I didn’t want any part of their world, especially not if it meant trying to suck up to dicksome jerks like Trey. Especially when I couldn’t earn merit points for it. I was here at Derleth for one reason only – to stay out of foster care, to get a scholarship to a good college, and build a new life for myself. Okay, that was three reasons. I shook my head. “No thanks. I’ll find it myself.”
I shoved past him. As I rounded the corner of the hallway, I dared a glance back over my shoulder. Quinn stood in at the top of the dark staircase, his elbow still jutting out in offer, a bewildered expression on his face.
I followed a group of junior girls across the quad to the dining hall, which was housed in the East Tower at the rear of the school. As I climbed the steps and entered under the arched wooden doors, my breath caught in my throat. The hall was straight out of a Harry Potter movie – a dark wood gothic ceiling arched high over rows of narrow banquet tables, set with gleaming silverware, crystal glasses, and candles in silver holders. The teachers ate their meals on a raised dais at the far end of the room below three screens that displayed the class lists. Delicious smells wafted from swinging kitchen doors, where a line of wait staff in grey uniforms emerged with large trays.
The only time I’d ever eaten meals served by a waiter was when my mom took me to Denny’s every year for my birthday. And Denny’s was nothing like this.
I scanned the room and noticed Loretta sitting at a table in the far corner. As I filed up the center of the room toward her, sniggers reached my ears from the tables on either side of me. I caught a few whispers of conversation, “… gutter whore… selling her services… they’ll let anyone in these days… bet she fucked the whole scholarship committee…”
Ignore them. Keep walking. They can’t do anything to you here where the teachers are watching, or risk losing their precious merit points.
I kept my head high and focused on Loretta. Just three more tables to pass. From the dais at the head of the room, Headmistress West loomed down, her dark eyes following my advance.
Trey and Quinn sat with another boy – another King I guessed, judging by his fierce good looks. Our third monarch had rich brown skin, dark hair cropped short, and a smattering of dark stubble along his strong jaw. His aquiline features and arresting eyes – so dark they appeared almost black, reflecting the flickering candlelight – suggested a non-American origin, but I couldn’t place it. His gaze followed me across the room, his face locked in an expression of such fierce hostility a shiver of fear ran down my spine. That guy hadn’t even met me and already he seemed to hate me more than Trey. I hoped I’d never run into him, but I knew that was too much to wish for at this school.
The girls in front of me filed past Trey’s table. As they did, Trey held up a piece of bread. The self-satisfied smirk never left his face. His friends followed suit, holding up their bread and snickering. Then they’d put their bread down again, reach for the butter and jam, and hold them up for each other. Each time a piece of bread was raised, the guys would crack up laughing.
As I moved behind their table, I could see that Trey was using the jam to write a number on his toast. As a cute junior girl with blonde braids and a slightly turned-up nose walked past, he held up his toast so his friends could see the number – an eight.
My cheeks burned. I understood immediately what was going on. They were ranking the girls out of ten. Holding up numbers scratched into their toast like we were swimwear models.
My skin itched. Even though I was covered in the expensive Derleth Academy uniform, I felt completely naked, and not in a good way. Trey saw me staring at him, and he flashed me an evil grin before bending over his toast.
I gulped. I had no choice but to keep walking if I wanted to reach Loretta. There was an empty chair on the end of Trey’s table, but it was next to Courtney, so that wasn’t an option. I just had to go.
I sucked in a breath, held my head high, and walked past their table. Trey’s laughter boomed over the hall, echoed by guys throughout the whole room. My cheeks flushed with heat.
I wasn’t going to dignify his behavior by trying to see my number, but he’d turned it around and shoved it in front of my face so I couldn’t help but see it.
A six.
Part of me was happy they’d given me a six. Trey Bloomberg thinks I’m a six.
How messed up is that?
With his other hand, Trey held up a pickle on his fork, placing it in front of the toast. “That’s the minus sign,” he called to me. “You’re a negative six. You’ve got no chance of scoring in this school, gutter whore. You’d have to pay one of us to fuck you, and we know you don’t have the cash.”
My heart hammered. Laughter rippled around the room. The walls leaned in, moving closer, boxing me in with these horrible people. Don’t cry don’t cry don’t—
Thinking fast, I swiped the bread off his fork and bit into it. “Thanks for the handout,” I muttered with my mouth full as I headed toward my place.
Students gasped. Hundreds of eyes followed me as I slumped down in the seat opposite Loretta and took another bite of the bread. Shocked murmurs passed through the students, but none looked more surprised than Trey Bloomberg. He sat down quickly, snapping his fingers to one of the servers, who rushed to fill his plat
e with more fresh bread. Quinn was laughing, and the third guy… he looked positively murderous.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Loretta mumbled, not looking up from the bowl of soup in front of her.
“Did you see what they’re doing?” I demanded, dunking Trey’s bread into my soup and taking another huge bite. The flavors of the sweet and slightly spicy pumpkin burst in my mouth. Oh wow. I didn't remember the last time I’d ever eaten something so delicious. At home, we usually had ramen noodles or pasta – cheap and filling, but my stomach would growl half an hour later.
“Of course I saw. Just ignore them,” she whispered.
I mopped up more of the soup with the last of Trey’s bread. “I can’t do that. It’s insulting and sexist. We should at least tell a teacher—”
“No!” Loretta’s hand flew out, clamping down over my wrist. “You don’t want to do that.”
“Why not?”
“Those guys’ parents give a lot of money to this school. The teachers will bend over backward to give them exactly what they want.” She pushed her tray away.
“Sometimes, that means literally,” a guy beside us piped up. He leaned over to join the conversation. He had white-blond hair cut into a preppy style, a friendly smile and one of those voices that sounded like he should be in showbiz. I smiled back at him, grateful for the first friendly interaction I’d had since arriving at Derleth Academy. Quinn Delacorte didn’t count.
I picked up the new guy’s innuendo right away. I was my mother’s daughter, after all. “Are you saying one of them is sleeping with a teacher?”
“Ayaz Demir. At least, that’s the rumor. I’m Greg Lambert, by the way.” Greg’s eyes glittered as he indicated the cruel prince sitting between Trey and Quinn. Loretta busied herself with her soup, deliberately ignoring us both. I bet Greg’s wanted someone to gossip with ever since he arrived. I was happy to oblige. Since the Kings had decided they were out to get me, I wanted all the ammunition on them I could get. “Ayaz might not even be the only one. Courtney Haynes has been trying to get into Coach Carter’s gym shorts, but even her considerable charms don’t seem to be working. I suspect he might have eyes for his star lacrosse captain.” He nodded toward Trey.
Of course Trey’s captain of the lacrosse team. According to the brochure, Derleth’s lacrosse team were national champions. The dude really did rule the school. “Are Trey and Courtney an item?” I asked.
“Nope. Courtney’s had an on-again, off-again thing with Quinn Delacorte. Rumor has it that she wants to be serious, but Quinn doesn’t do serious. He’s a manwhore of the first order. See the girl with the jet-black hair and pouty lips next to her? That’s Tillie Fairchild. She’s Trey’s girl. Don’t let her catch you making eyes for Trey, because their parents have been arranging their wedding since they were in diapers.”
“Yeah, that’s not going to be a problem.” I accepted a plate piled high with roast beef, carrots, mashed potatoes, and a dark, rich gravy from a server with downcast eyes. My mouth watered. I remembered my mom making roast beef when I was a kid. For a time there she had a boyfriend, and it was his favorite. But after he left, we never had it since. I figured it was because we were too poor to afford it, but it could also have been the memory of the food was too painful for her. But that wasn’t my pain, and this food was too delicious to turn down. I shoveled mashed potato into my mouth. “Wheeooodetrepparratsberranggggamarr?”
“Manners.” Greg smiled, digging into his own food.
I swallowed. “Sorry. Why would Trey’s parents be arranging his marriage? Are they crazy religious?”
“I don’t think so. Their families are both big deal names in international shipping, and the marriage is the first step in merging their kingdoms. Rich people’s lives are very different from ours.”
“I’ll say. Although, they sure do know how to eat.” I took a gulp from the sparkling water in my crystal glass. “I had the pleasure of meeting Trey and Quinn today. Is that other guy any different?”
“Ayaz? He’s Turkish and he has a temper. If he tells you to do something, you do it.” Greg pointed to Loretta’s soup. “Are you going to finish that?”
“Ayaz put Greg’s head through a wall in the Senior Common room on the first day of school,” Loretta said. She shoved her soup toward Greg, who didn’t eat it himself, but passed it down to a hulk of a black kid sitting next to him.
Greg lifted up his floppy blond hair to reveal a long scar. “I’ve been marked by Ayaz. Doesn’t make me special, though. I bet everyone in the school’s got a similar scar from that guy.”
“Wow.” That scar looked nasty. I thought I’d left fights and violence behind in Philly. At my old school in the Badlands, we had to enter through metal detectors to make sure no one was carrying weapons. “Did he have a reason, or was this just a random act of head-smashing?”
“Because Greg’s gay,” Loretta muttered, poking at her potatoes.
“Because I was gay and I flirted with him. I was joking around, but apparently, it wasn’t funny.” Greg gestured around at the table of scholarship students. “They already knew I was gay. The scholarship committee pulled together these extensive files on each of us. Somehow, the monarchs must’ve seen them. They know everything about us and our old lives. So that’s terrifying.”
Anger seethed inside me as I watched the three Kings laughing with their friends. “I know they’re Kings of the school and they’re richer than Croesus, but that doesn’t mean this Ayaz guy can go around putting heads through walls.”
“I agree, but I’m not going to be the one to do anything about it,” Greg shrugged. “I worked my ass off to get here, and I won’t let the Kings or Queens jeopardize it.”
“How could they jeopardize your place?”
“Andre here—” Greg patted his friend on the shoulder, “is mute. He can’t talk because of a head trauma sustained some years ago. Despite this, he reported Quinn Delacorte for making inappropriate comments to Loretta. Instead of investigating it, Headmistress West gave him a lecture about focusing on his own studies instead of concerning himself reporting other students, and docked him 20 merit points. 20 points are nothing to a rich kid like Trey or Ayaz, but it could be a disaster for us. If any of us drop too low, they rescind our scholarship. Any one of us could be kicked out at any moment. And Trey and Courtney and their posse know it.”
What the Kings and Queens giveth, they can also taketh away.
I scraped the gravy residue off my plate, wondering if it would be a demeritable offense to lift up the dish in my hands and lick off the last morsels. Loretta leaned forward and shoved her potatoes onto my plate, and I dug in gratefully, Greg’s words playing across my mind. For the first time, I understood why Loretta was so frightened. The Kings and Queens on the table opposite really did rule the school.
The wait staff moved around the room, topping up bread plates and taking drink orders. While everyone ate, teachers stood up to give announcements about sports teams and extracurriculars. I noticed that all the teachers were doctors or professors, almost as if this was a college instead of a school. A plump woman at the end of the row introduced herself as Dr. Halsey and invited anyone who wanted to try out for the school production to come to auditions in the auditorium on Thursday.
“Are any of you guys going to audition?” I asked.
Around the table, three scholarship students shook their heads. Loretta jerked hers so hard I was afraid it would fall off.
“Well, I’m gonna try out.” I chewed a mouthful of potato and gravy. “I used to write plays and perform them with the theatre troupe at my old school. My best friend made these elaborate sets – he was an amazing artist. It was heaps of fun. Even though we had no funding for a proper theatre department, we won a couple of competitions. According to the brochure, I need extracurricular activities if I have any hope of being top of the list, so I figure—”
Loretta was shaking her head.
“What?” I demanded.
“Courtney plays all the lead roles in school productions, unless she’s directing,” Loretta said sourly. “She’s been taking acting lessons from some Hollywood star since she was three. She won’t like you there.”
“I don’t care what Courtney likes.” I turned to Greg. “You want to come with me? We could sing a duet?”
“Are you assuming that because I’m gay I must love musicals?”
“A little bit, yeah.”
“Well, you assume correctly.” Greg grinned. “I do a mean Ryan from High School Musical.”
“Of course you do. I was thinking more Phantom of the Opera—”
Or with this school, maybe Sweeney Todd. We could pretend to slit Courtney’s throat and bake her into a pie.
Loretta glared at Greg. “Didn’t you learn anything from Ayaz? Just keep your head down, stay out of trouble, and hope you don’t come dead last.”
“Why?” I demanded. “What happens if you come last—”
Something sharp slammed into my forehead, knocking my head back. A paper plane fell into my gravy. It was covered in doodles and handwriting. Familiar handwriting.
No. Oh no.
I picked up the sodden page and unfolded it carefully. It was a pen and ink drawing done in a tattoo style of a woman in a slinky teddy and heels holding a three-headed snake that coiled around her body. The words ‘snake charmer’ wrapped around the image. A ragged edge along one side cut off the end of the word and one of the snake’s heads.
I’d recognize that image anywhere. I’d stared at it so many nights, thinking about whether I should tell Dante how I felt about him, whether I should risk our friendship…
It was a page torn from Dante’s journal. The journal that was taken from my room.
Loretta called my name, but it seemed muffled, as though she was speaking to me through water. My eyes clouded over as the paper crumbled in my hands, turning into a pile of wood pulp.
Shunned: a reverse harem bully romance (Kings of Miskatonic Prep Book 1) Page 4