Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Monday, September 10
Tuesday, September 11
Wednesday, September 12
Thursday, September 13
Friday, September 14
Sunday, Septmber 16
Author's Note
More Books by Scarlett
Find Scarlett Online
Loyal
The Zara Chronicles
Scarlett Haven
Copyright © 2018 Scarlett Haven
http://scarletthaven.net
All rights reserved.
Cover by Scarlett Haven
Edited by Janet at Dragonfly Editing
This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are products of the author’s imagination, and used fictitiously.
Monday, September 10
Who is she?
I stand in the middle of a crowded corridor, people whizzing around me as they race to their classrooms. And yet, surrounded by all these people, I have never felt so alone in my life.
I have no idea where I’m going and I feel ridiculous in my school uniform. I’ve never had to wear a uniform in my life. And I hate the feeling of conforming. I look just like everybody else here—black and navy-blue plaid, pleated skirt, a white blouse, a navy-blue blazer.
I look at the map of the school that they gave me, wishing I was back in Malibu with my friends instead of at this ridiculous boarding school. I mean, who goes to boarding school in Switzerland?
About a week before I was going to start my junior year of high school, my parents informed me that instead of finishing my last two years with my friends, I would be coming here. Then they proceeded to tell me that coming to this school is an honor. Which makes me wonder even more—why was this school interested in me to begin with? There is nothing special about me. My parents, they are the special ones. I’m just the offspring.
“Are you lost?” I hear.
I turn around to face the person who spoke to me. It is pretty obvious they’re speaking to me, since I’m the only person who appears to be lost in this massive school. Since I only arrived yesterday, a week later than everybody else, I didn’t have a chance to look around the school to figure out my way around, and I am so turned around.
The guy who spoke stands over me by at least a foot, which isn’t hard considering I’m only 5’2”. He’s thin, but also has a bit of muscle on him. I’m thinking he must play baseball, or whatever sport they play at this school. It comforts me to hear that his accent is American. I worried I’d be the only one.
“Uh, yeah,” I say, lifting my head to look up at him.
His caramel colored eyes meet mine and he smiles. He has kind eyes. I like him immediately. “Where you headed?”
I look at my schedule one more time. “Advanced Calculus.”
“That’s where I’m going, too,” he says. “You can follow me. We need to hurry, though. Mr. Brown doesn’t like it when people are late.”
He turns the opposite way that I was headed and starts walking to class. I nearly have to run to keep up with him, which isn’t surprising considering his legs are twice as long as mine. I feel a bit like a toddler who is trying to keep up with their parent.
We walk into the classroom right as the bell rings and the teacher, Mr. Brown, I’m assuming, gives us both a dirty look. I’m slightly out of breath from the almost-run to class.
“Sorry, Mr. B. I found a straggler. I had to help her find her way,” the boy says. I still don’t know his name.
“Take a seat, Mr. Days,” the teacher says to the boy.
I stand there and look for a place to sit, too.
“And you’re the new girl,” Mr. Brown says to me, sounding very annoyed. “Zara Summers, correct?”
I nod, expecting people in the class to have some kind of reaction to my name, but they don’t. I let out a sigh of relief, loving the fact that people here don’t know who I am.
People in California only like me because of who my parents are. They think I can give them something. And maybe I could in California. But not here. Here, I am the same as everybody else. Maybe boarding school won’t be terrible.
“Miller,” Mr. Brown says, turning his attention to somebody in the back row.
“Yes, sir,” a boy says. His accent is British, which instantly has me swooning without even knowing what he looks like. What is it about British accents that makes a guy ten times more attractive?
“Can you show Miss Summers around?” he asks.
“Umm...” the guy runs a hand through his brown hair and looks at me. His eyes are the brightest color of blue I’ve ever seen. He’s cute, even without the accent. “Do I have to?”
The class laughs and I am mortified. I don’t even know this guy, but I already loathe him.
So much for swooning.
“Do you have a problem with her?” Mr. Brown asks.
“Who is she and why have I never seen her before?” the boy, Miller, asks. “Shouldn’t she be with the freshman, getting the tour of the school?”
Do I look like a freshman?
I’m two seconds away from losing my tempter.
“Enough questions,” Mr. Brown says, his voice firm. He turns to me. “You can sit by Miller. He will be happy to show you around the school.”
Happy?
I look at ‘Miller’ to see that he’s wearing a scowl on his face. I want to object, but I don’t exactly have a choice. I walk back to where the boy called Miller is sitting and take a seat beside him. Just as I’m getting out a pencil, the teacher announces that there is a pop quiz. I’m surprised to hear that there is a pop quiz on the first day of class, but I’m not complaining. Everybody groans, but I feel excited.
I am amazing at calculus.
Maybe I can show Mr. Brown, and everybody else in the school, why I am here.
There is one thing in life that I’ve always excelled at, and that is school. I’ve always been the top of my class. When I was a kid, they talked about me skipping grades, but my mom wouldn’t let me. She said she didn’t want me to be one of those kids in college at thirteen. I’m glad she held me back from graduating early.
“You look excited,” Miller says to me.
“Because I am,” I whisper back. “I love calculus.”
He rolls his eyes. “You are a freak.”
“Obviously.” I learned years ago that I’m not like anybody else. I embrace my inner weirdness.
“I’m Camden,” he says. “My friends call me Cam.”
“Hello, Cam.”
“You can call me Camden,” he corrects. “We’re not friends.”
Yikes.
I turn towards the front as a paper lands on my desk. I look at the numbers and smile.
This is so going to be my favorite class.
Well, except for Camden. But not even his bad attitude could ruin this for me.
After class is over, Mr. Brown asks me to stay behind. Camden stays too, since he is supposed to show me to my next class. It’s like Mr. Brown wants to torture me by sticking me with the rudest boy in the school.
“Yes, Mr. Brown,” I say, walking up to his desk.
He holds up my test which has a big A+ written in red. “You didn’t get one question wrong.”
“Is that a problem?” I ask, noting the sour look on his face. Maybe this school doesn't encourage their students to excel.
“Only one student has ever done that before, and it was over twenty years ago,” he says. “My class is hard. Some of the best students don’t even make it out alive. And you come and ace this test on your first day.”
“I’m... sorry,” I say, feeling the need to apologize.
“Who are you really, Zara Summers?” he asks. “Where are you from?”
“I’m from California,” I answer, feeling confused.
Mr. Brown waits. “What is so special about you?”
“Nothing. I don’t even know why I’m here,” I say. “My parents just told me a week ago that I was coming here for my junior year. I didn’t exactly have a choice. So, that is why I’m here, I guess.”
“Juniors don’t get accepted here. Ever,” Mr. Brown says. “It’s policy. Every single student who has ever started here, has started as a freshman.”
I shrug. “Maybe they changed their mind about letting older students in.”
“There has to be more to it,” Camden says, reminding me that he’s still standing behind me.
“You two, get to your next class,” Mr. Brown says.
Camden walks out into the hallway and I follow him, having to trust that Camden will lead me to the correct class.
I pull my schedule out of my bag as we walk down the hallway.
“I have... accent training next,” I say, reading it twice.
What the heck is accent training?
“I know,” Camden says. “All juniors have the same schedule.”
“Oh,” I say, stuffing the paper back in my bag. “What is accent training?”
“Exactly what it sounds like,” he says, his voice sounding perfectly American.
Wait, I thought he was British.
“What? Are you... I’m confused.”
He just rolls his eyes without responding. He walks into a classroom, me hot on his tail.
There is a young teacher at the front of the room. She smiles when she sees me come on.
“Zara Summers, right?” she asks.
I nod.
“I’m Jasmine French, it’s nice to meet you. There was a mix up in your scheduling. You won’t be taking this class,” she says.
“What?” Camden asks. “But she’s a junior.”
“She doesn’t need accent training,” Jasmine says. “Right, Zara?”
“Wait, so accent training is literally us learning to speak in different accents?” I ask, feeling silly for not picking up on it earlier.
“Yes,” Jasmine answers.
“Ah, okay,” I say. “So, where do I go then?”
Ms. French is right. I don’t need accent training. I’ve always been really good with accents. I mean, it makes sense, considering who my mom is. I guess I had to get some of her talent, right? Even though I’m good at it, acting was never really something I was interested in.
My mother is Isabel Jensen-Livingston.
Yep, that Isabel.
She won her first grammy when she was my age, sixteen, and nobody ever lets me forget it.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m proud of my mom. She has a successful career and she deserves it. She works harder than anybody I know. I just sometimes feel like I will never live up to her standards.
“You’re going to the gym. You get two periods of physical training,” Jasmine says.
“That’s not fair,” Camden says. “Why does she get to skip this class?”
“Zara tested out of this class,” Jasmine says to Camden. “And when you’re able to test out of this class, you can join her.”
Camden’s face is red.
I didn't take any sort of a test, actually, and I'm surprised they know that I don't need this class. I'm not complaining though. I would've been bored.
I clear my throat. “Um, which way is the gym?”
“I’ll take her,” a voice says.
I look over to see a boy with dirty blond hair walk up to the front of the class.
Jasmine looks at him, tilting her head to the side, as if she’s considering it.
“We’re doing Russian accents today, right?” the boys asks. “You know I don’t need any training with Russian accents.”
She nods. “Okay, fine. Go with her, but only for today.”
“Thanks, Ms. French,” the boys says, then looks at me. “After you.”
The boy towers over me. Actually, most of the people in this school do, but that’s nothing new. He has dirty blond hair with natural lighter highlights—the kind most women pay hundreds, even thousands, of dollars to attain.
What stands out to me the most about this boy, though, is his eye color. I can’t tell what color they truly are—blue or green. They keep changing, depending on how the light hits them.
“So, how are you liking our school?” he asks me, as we walk from the classroom.
“It’s fine,” I say, shrugging my shoulders. “I mean, besides Camden, everybody has been pretty nice so far.”
He laughs. “Camden doesn’t like anybody, don’t take it personally.”
“So... who are you?” I ask, wanting to know his name at least.
“Sorry,” he says. “I forget that you’re new. We don’t ever get new students around here. I’m Austin Petrov.”
“Petrov,” I repeat. “Is that Russian?”
He nods. “My dad is Russian. My mom is American. They met while going to school here, actually. They fell in love and the rest is history, I suppose.”
“Your parents went to school here?” I ask.
He nods. “Most of the students had parents who went here.”
Except me.
“Ah, not me,” I say. “My mom was a high school drop-out, though I suppose that worked out well for her. And my dad only managed to graduate college because of baseball. His teachers wouldn’t fail him.”
“Who are your parents?” he asks, opening the front door of the school. He holds it open for me, too.
“Um, my mom is Isabel Jensen-Livingston,” I answer, walking out of the front of the school. It’s pretty cold outside. Even my blazer isn’t enough to keep my warm. I hope we won’t be outside long.
“Ah, that actress,” he says.
“Yeah, her,” I say. “And my dad is Jack Summers.”
“Did he used to pitch for the San Francisco Giants?” he asks.
“Yep,” I answer.
“That’s cool, I guess.”
I love how he doesn’t react the way most people do when they find out who my parents are. Most people want to meet them or want tickets to a game or want... something. But not him.
He starts walking towards a parking lot with cars in it.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“To the training facility,” he answers.
Training facility?
He opens the passenger side of a large, 4wd SUV, motioning me to get in.
“Thank you,” I say.
The leather seats are cold against my legs as I get in, and I wish I had known I was going to be going outside today. It’s only September, but it’s already cold in Switzerland. Colder than it ever gets in Malibu.
“Do you have any kind of training?” Austin asks, as he starts the car. He turns on the heated seat for me.
“Training for what?” I ask.
“Physical training. Maybe MMA or some kind of self-defense?”
“Um... I do yoga a few times a week, and try to run every morning,” I say. “I mean, I do sessions with my mom’s trainer whenever she’s in town. Her trainer kicks my butt though. He’s rough.”
“Today might be hard then,” Austin says.
“Why?” I ask. “PE is the easiest class.”
He laughs. “You’ve obviously never had a physical education class at Spy School.”
“Spy School?” I ask, as he parks the SUV in front of a huge building. Like, I seriously think this building is bigger than our actual school is. “This is the school’s gym?”
“One of them,” he answers.
One of them?
What kind of school did my parents send me to?
Friends?
My whole body hurts. I don’t know how I make it through English Lit class after physical training. For a moment, I wonder if I did something wrong that made my parents send me here. It’s more like military school.
But then I realize I’ve never done anything bad that would have caused them to send me here.
At lunch time, I make my way into the dining hall. The thought of where I’m going to sit doesn’t even enter my mind until I am standing there awkwardly, looking from table to table.
I don’t know anybody, yet, not really.
There are people looking at me, and I feel like the star of every single high school movie I’ve ever seen. I’m two seconds away from going to eat my lunch in the bathroom when a boy with dark, curly hair walks up to me.
“Do you wanna sit me with and my friends?” he asks. He has a Kiwi accent.
The boy has friendly eyes—dark green, but soft. I immediately decide I want to be his friend.
“Sure,” I say, grinning at him, hoping I appear to be just as friendly. I want this boy to like me. I want everybody at this school to like me. Even though I don’t particularly want to be here doesn’t mean I have to isolate myself.
He sits down at a table with three other boys and I sit beside him.
I recognize all three boys instantly.
The first is Camden, who looks at me like he hates to even be in the same room as I am, let alone at the same table. Then there is Austin, who isn’t scowling, but he’s also not smiling. Maybe he’s indifferent about me sitting here? I’m not sure. And the third boy I recognize is the boy from this morning. I don’t know his name, but he’s got a huge smile on his face.
“I didn’t get to introduce myself earlier,” the boy says. “I’m Tristan. It’s nice to meet you.”
Camden’s discomfort seems to grow when he realizes the other boys at the table are okay with me being here.
“Nice to meet you, too,” I say, grinning back at him. “I’m Zara.”
“Zara,” the Kiwi who invited me to the table says. “That’s a pretty name.”
“And you are?” I ask him.
“Stefan Thompson,” he answer. “Pleased to meet you.”
“What part of New Zealand are you from?” I ask.
His laughs.
Like actually laughs.
“Why is he laughing?” I ask, looking at Tristan.
Loyal Page 1