by Elle East
I walked into the study room, and I was the first one there. In the center was a large circular table with plush leather chairs around it. The sky outside the windows was already pitch black, and there was a fire roaring in the fireplace in one corner of the room. The space would have been cozy if it wasn’t for the unappealing current purpose of it.
I took a seat. I wasn’t looking forward to this project at all and wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible so I could head back to my room. The sooner everyone showed up, the better.
A couple of minutes later, two other students wandered in. I didn’t know them personally, but I recognized them from seeing them in the halls. I knew their names because I saw them at the top of the lists the school would publish with everyone’s marks.
I greeted them when they came in. They’d never bullied me, so I didn’t dislike them. They greeted me back and then took a seat. We were sitting spread out around the table. It didn’t seem like the Kings were going to come anytime soon, so we took out our coursework and worked in silence until the last two members of our party arrived.
It was almost an hour later when the Kings finally decided to show up. I wasn’t surprised though. The Kings had a habit of making people wait because they thought their time was more valuable than anyone else’s.
I was in a bad mood by the time they strolled in, so I couldn’t help but ask, “About time you showed up. Do you get off on making everyone live by your schedule?”
The other two students looked at me in shock. They couldn’t believe I was speaking to the Kings in that way. No one else at the school, besides Victoria, would dare. But I didn’t care anymore, and I would not bow down to them again. This time I was going to call them on their shit.
Archer stopped and glared at me darkly. There was a storm raging in his gray eyes. Brett went to sit down across the table from me, and eventually Archer joined him.
“It’s your world and we’re just living in it,” I mumbled sarcastically.
The two Kings didn’t let on that they’d heard.
“Let’s get this over with,” Archer grumbled.
“Yes, I agree,” I said.
The tension in the room was thick, but this wasn’t the same kind of tension that was between Dean and I. This tension was filled with hatred. I could tell the two other students that had nothing to do with it felt it. I was almost sorry for them. They looked between the three of us nervously, waiting for us to start.
“How are we going to split this up?” I finally asked when I couldn’t stand it anymore.
“I don’t care about saying anything,” Brett said.
“Me either,” Archer added.
“Well, neither do I. The less I say the better. The people at this school don’t want to hear me speak anyway,” I said.
“Yeah, maybe it’s a good idea you keep your mouth shut. For once,” Archer growled.
That was the comment that set off the fight.
Archer and I started trading harsh words, and quickly Brett joined in. The other two students looked at us in shock, and I could tell they wanted to sink down in their seats and disappear. They wanted to be anywhere else but here at this moment, and I didn’t blame them.
The Kings and I clashed together with the intensity of a thunderstorm. We threw jabs at each other and let out all our built-up frustration. It was a dysfunctional mess. I was sure at any point one of us was going to try to flip the table—and completely embarrass ourselves because the table probably weighed four hundred pounds.
“—Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” I spat at Archer.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Your dad is a grade-A asshole.”
“Don’t you dare talk about my dad.”
“You just insulted my mom!”
“No, I didn’t. I don’t even know your fucking mom!”
This was getting out of hand, and we were resorting to low blows. I had planned to come back to this school and remain calm and detached, while strategically getting my revenge, but almost immediately I was arguing with them. They brought out the passion in me—in more ways than one, and that wasn’t a good thing. We weren’t accomplishing anything, and I needed to leave before it got any uglier and I completely lost my head.
“Well, since it doesn’t look like we are going to be working on our speech, I guess we are done here for today,” I said, grabbing my backpack and storming out of the room.
I didn’t get more than a couple feet away from the door when I heard footsteps rush at me. A hard hand gripped my arm and spun me around.
Archer was standing there. Panting slightly. He looked furious, but also something else. He looked… turned on? OMG.
I suddenly realized in horror all that fighting had worked me up as well. My chest was heaving, and I wanted to shove him against the wall, hard. I wanted to slam my lips against his so he couldn’t say anymore cruel things.
But instead I jerked my arm out of his grasp. “Don’t you dare touch me after everything you’ve done to me.”
“We did what we had to, not what we wanted to. You have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into by coming back here.”
“If that was an apology then it sucked.”
He growled in frustration and slammed his palm against the wall over my head, boxing me in. I flinched slightly, against my will.
“The worst thing about this is I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since you left. I never wanted you to come back—for your own good—but seeing you again tortures me. I can’t stop thinking about how your body felt against mine. I remember how your lips…”
He suddenly slammed his mouth against mine. He kissed me passionately, pressing into me with all the anger and frustration he felt from our argument.
He caught me off guard.
It felt amazing to be touching him again. My entire body was on fire and screamed at me to keep kissing him. It screamed at me to grab him and pull him closer. He wasn’t the only one who couldn’t stop thinking about this—but it was all a lie.
How dare he treat me like he had last year and then think he had any right to touch me. Any right to whisper those sexy things to me. Any right to kiss my lips.
I recovered and shoved him as hard as I could. He skidded back but didn’t lose his footing. The look on his face told me he was just as shocked the kiss had happened as I was.
“Fuck you, Archer King,” I said, and it came out as more of a throaty whisper than I wanted it to.
He looked so devastatingly handsome at that moment, his eyes glassy with lust and his lips slightly swollen. He raised a hand to his mouth like he couldn’t believe what had just happened, and I knew I had to leave right at that moment or I would march over there and continue our kiss.
I turned and walked down the hallway as quickly as possible, practically running. I couldn’t look back.
Chapter 7
More and more students just kept coming in to the auditorium. It felt like there was an endless supply of them. The five of us were already sitting on the stage, waiting for the assembly to start. I hadn’t been here much last year, but the auditorium was as beautiful as the rest of Crestmoore. Comfortable seats with dark red cushions stretched up and away from the stage. The cavernous ceilings were perfectly calibrated for acoustics so they barely needed the state-of-the-art sound system they had installed.
As the other students funneled in, I started getting more nervous. Each of the five of us had written our own section of the speech, and we were just going to present our parts one at a time.
We had tried to meet again after that disastrous first meeting, but the second time quickly dissolved into a fight just like the first. We realized we couldn’t be in the same room without ripping each other’s throats out, so doing separate parts was the best decision we could come up with.
The two other students in our group were just as relieved as I was when we decided to split up the work. They wouldn’t have to witness the
vicious battle between the Kings and I any more. During our second meeting, they had looked so miserable to be there that I felt bad for them.
I twisted my cue cards nervously in my hands. There were a lot of people out there. A lot of people who didn’t really like me. I took a deep breath and tried to calm down. It would be over soon, and besides, what was the worst that could happen? They booed me? Called me names from the safety of a faceless audience? Words couldn’t break my bones so I’d be fine.
As I surveyed the crowd, I noticed three girls in the front row closest to the stage. They were staring up at the five of us and smiling and batting their eyes. One of them winked and pulled her skirt up just a little higher to show off more of her thighs. I looked over to my left and realized the girls were flirting with Brett and Archer. Archer was smiling and winking himself, playing it up, while Brett was stoic but clearly looking too.
I rolled my eyes. Could those girls be any more obvious? Didn’t they realize guys like the Kings didn’t actually care about them? Guys like that would use them and leave them with broken hearts. They were selfish assholes who didn’t care about anyone but themselves.
Those girls were idiots for ever trying to get involved wi—a sudden flash of shame made my cheeks burn. I was exactly like those girls. I had fallen for the Kings’ smooth lies and handsome faces. I was being such a hypocrite for judging them when a month ago I had been that idiot.
About twenty minutes later, Headmaster Mullgrave came onto the stage and walked up to the podium to begin his welcome back speech. He was an imposing figure, and the entire room immediately fell silent the second he started speaking.
He gave the typical formal speech I would have expected from him. He went over the rules of the school again—as if anyone didn’t know it by now—the expectations and emphasized what an education from Crestmoore could provide for the students’ future. I wasn’t particularly interested in what he was saying, but I found myself hoping it would go on for a long time because the quicker his speech ended the quicker I had to give mine.
But it wasn’t a long speech and all too soon he was introducing the top five students of last year. The first of our group, Archer, walked up to the podium. The entire room erupted in loud cheers. He held his hands up to greet the crowd and then mockingly pretended to be touched by holding his hands over his heart.
“Thank you for that beautiful welcome, Headmaster…” He started his speech, and I had to admit it was an amazing one.
It was funny and clever and had the whole room laughing along with him. Archer was an amazing public speaker, something I had witnessed last year several times—one of those times being at the yacht party where he’d kissed me on the deck.
He’d just kissed me again a couple of days ago, and my head had been spinning ever since. I had replayed the kiss over and over in my head at least a thousand times. I couldn’t understand why he’d done it, but I assumed it was just another of their mind games. It was another way to trick me. Another way to get into my head and twist my feelings.
That was all I was to them, just a game. They had everything they could ever want and were so bored with their own lives they found pleasure in torturing others.
But I couldn’t deny how amazing the kiss had felt—and I hated it.
Archer finished his speech with a joke that made the entire audience burst out laughing. He left the podium and came back to sit with the four of us, a smug smile on his gorgeous face. He was good, and he knew it. He got a kick out of manipulating the audience and provoking the reaction he wanted out of them. He loved the control he had over others.
His eyes met mine, and he raised his eyebrows.
“Like what you see?” he asked, and I could just barely hear him over the roaring crowd. “Think you’ll be able to do that?”
I rolled my eyes and pointedly looked away, pretending not to be impressed.
Brett was next, and when he stood up the cheers remained just as loud for him. His enormous body dwarfed the podium, and he had to angle the microphone all the way up so he could be heard.
He was confident and commanding, but not as engaging as Archer. His speech was good. It was arguably better written than Archer’s but didn’t get as much of a reaction out of the audience because Archer’s delivery was better.
I watched the crowd during the speech and the three girls in the front row were working overtime trying to get Brett’s attention. I then decided to look more at the individual faces instead of the crowd as a whole. I could see all the girls in the first couple of rows were looking at Brett like he invented the sun.
My lip curled in disgust. He didn’t deserve their desire. Sure, the guy was hot as hell, but he was an asshole who had everything handed to him. He didn’t need anymore people stroking his ego—or stroking anything else.
Brett finished his speech, and the crowd cheered just as loudly as they did for Archer. He sat down again, and the next person to go was one of the other students in our group. The reaction she received was one-tenth of the one the Kings got—and that just made me even more nervous about how they were going to react to me.
Her speech was good, but it was very obvious how nervous she was. Her voice shook, and she rushed through the words written on the paper in front of her without looking up. She acted like she wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible, and I didn’t blame her.
When she finished, she quickly rushed back to her seat, almost tripping on the carpet. I realized I was next and stood up. The few people who were politely clapping for her stopped. There was dead silence as I walked over and stood behind the podium.
The last girl had been so nervous she’d forgotten to lower the microphone, so we’d barely been able to hear her. I lowered it and placed my notes down. I was nervous, maybe not as nervous as her, but nervous.
I looked out at the crowd. Everyone was looking at me blankly or with judgmental stares. I took a deep breath. I knew I needed to start. And the sooner I started, the sooner this would be over with.
I greeted the audience and heard one person start clapping. I searched for the sound and quickly located Dean on the left side of the room.
He was enthusiastically clapping his large hands together but quickly realized no one else was joining in. He slowly stopped and looked around the room in confusion. It was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop.
“Just get on with it!” someone yelled, and that caused a small ripple of laughter through the crowd.
I took another deep breath and began. No one looked interested. I heard whispers in the crowd as people started turning to their friends and openly talking. I noticed the scholarship students sitting in a corner of the room. They all looked so stressed for me—which wasn’t helping my nerves at all.
The only friendly face in the entire room was Dean’s. I turned back to him and he smiled supportively. Just focus on him, I told myself. He made me feel strong, and my voice rose in confidence. I was giving my speech only to him and fuck everyone else in the room. They didn’t matter like he did.
“… As we work hard to take advantage of the opportunities we’ve been given—” I suddenly stopped as I heard a loud cracking sound.
I barely had time to look down before the ground beneath my feet split open. I fell into darkness as the stage collapsed on top of me.
Chapter 8
I couldn’t tell if my eyes were open because everything was black. I was pretty sure I was still alive though because I could hear muffled shouting, but it sounded so far away. I tried to move, but I was being held in place by something heavy. I tried to reach down to push it off, but only one of my arms was free, and it kept hitting things when I tried to move it. I was surrounded and pinned in place. There was nothing I could do but wait.
Bright light soon broke into the darkness over my head. I reached up with my free hand, and someone grabbed it. They tried to pull, and that was when I felt the pain. I cried out, and they immediately stopped.
The voices were a l
ot closer now, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I was dazed and in shock, so it took me a bit to figure out what was happening. I was being pinned down by the pieces of the stage that had collapsed on top of me.
It felt like everything was happening in slow motion, but in reality I knew it was all happening very fast. The pieces of wood were being removed and tossed to the side. The hole above me grew bigger, and soon I could see the lights above the stage.
“Maddy, are you ok?” a deep voice asked me.
He sounded worried, and I quickly realized the voice belonged to Dean. I turned my head and saw him throwing pieces of the stage to the side.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said, but I actually wasn’t sure if I was fine or not.
He took the heavy piece pinning my leg down and tossed it like it weighed nothing. As soon as I was free, that was when the pain rushed through my body.
“Oww,” I moaned.
“Where does it hurt?” Dean asked in concern.
I tried to concentrate and scan my body to see where the pain was coming from. I was sore all over, but intense pain was radiating up from my leg.
“My left leg. It really hurts.”
I could see Brett and Archer over his shoulder. They were holding pieces of the stage in their hands, and they tried to come closer, but Dean told them to back up.
“You probably did this,” Dean accused them.
“Are you serious??” Archer asked incredulously.
“We would never,” Brett added.
I saw Grayson come into view as he hopped up to stand next to the other Kings. I then realized that there was a large crowd gathered around, but only the Kings and Dean were still on the stage. I was lying in a depression where the wood under the podium had collapsed. The rest of the stage looked like it was still intact, but no one in the crowd was brave enough to test it out by standing on it.
“We can help her,” Grayson said, coming closer to me.