The Bully (Kingmakers)

by Sophie Lark

  I steal as many oranges as I can stuff in the pouch of my sweatshirt, then I run back to the Undercroft, cursing Rakel’s extortionary tactics the entire way. She’s been paying a little too much attention in Professor Owsinki’s class.

  “Here, you fucking terrorist,” I say, dumping the oranges down on her lap.

  “Great,” Rakel says. “I’ll help you when I’m done eating them.”

  “RAKEL!”

  “Alright, alright.” She grins. “Tell me what you want.”

  I take a deep breath. “I need to find somebody. But I only have a small amount of information about her. And she might be in hiding.”

  Rakel considers. “Is Miles’ satellite still working?”

  “Yeah, as far as I know.”

  Miles and Ozzy set up their own private network on the island so they’d have constant internet access outside of the limited and highly-monitored connection available through the school computer lab.

  Rakel keeps Ozzy’s old laptop hidden under her mattress. It looks like it’s been through a war but performs like a race car.

  Though I’ve gotten pretty decent at my Code-breaking and Security Systems classes, Rakel is still the master at old-school hacking techniques. I hope she can put her skills to use on my behalf.

  Rakel rolls off her bed so she can dig out the laptop, scattering orange peels everywhere.

  Then she reseats herself, holding her fingers over the keyboard like a pianist about to play a concerto.

  “Alright . . . what do you know about this person?” she says.

  19

  Dean

  Cat and I are openly dating now. We spend most of our time together, outside of class time.

  I need to be with her, because when I’m not, I’m plagued with a sense of revulsion toward my own future.

  I always knew the plan: graduate from Kingmakers, take a position under Danyl Kuznetsov, pay off my two years’ service, then work my way up in the Moscow Bratva until I’m Pakhan.

  But now when I picture going back to Moscow, battling with Vanya Antonov for ascendency, forcing the rest of the Bratva to respect and support me, I just feel . . . blank.

  I never liked Moscow. I always hated living there.

  I ask Snow, “Did you like St. Petersburg?”

  He shrugs. “Well enough.”

  “But you wanted to go to America.”

  “I wanted to fight at Madison Square Gardens. To me, that represented the ultimate achievement in boxing.”

  “And you stayed in New York after.”

  “That’s right.”

  He’s taking me through a heavy bag workout with intense three-minute rounds. I can only question him during the brief rest period, because otherwise I’m panting too hard to speak.

  I pound the bag with all my might until Snow clicks his stopwatch, letting me know I can rest again.

  “What’s New York like?” I puff.

  “Loud. All the time. Horns, sirens, subway trains, people shouting when they think they’re just talking. It’s constant stimulation—the color and diversity and the scent of the food. You could eat a different kind of food every day and never have the same thing twice. It’s safe, too—surprisingly safe. You can walk around any time, day or night. It’s always busy, always people around.”

  He clicks his watch again, prompting me to launch myself at the bag once more, punching, ducking, circling, hitting again, until my three minutes are up.

  I flop down on the mats, taking a hefty swig of water. I’m pouring sweat and I’ve got four more rounds to go.

  “My mother was from Chicago,” I tell Snow.

  “I’ve been there,” he says. “Great city.”

  “I was born there. But I haven’t seen it since I was little.”

  “Maybe you should visit,” Snow says, clicking his watch once more.

  I always thought of Chicago as the place from which we’d been exiled. Forced out by the Gallos.

  But it is my heritage just as much as Moscow.

  I have American citizenship, not just Russian.

  I pound the heavy bag with both fists, enjoying the satisfying thud as it gives way before me.

  The second round of the Quartum Bellum takes place in February. The Sophomores have already been eliminated, so I don’t have to worry about Lola Fischer endangering Cat again.

  Instead, I have to endure the fiendish creativity of Professor Penmark, who organizes the competition for maximum discomfort. Usually Professor Howell sets up the challenges—this one has a sadistic flair that could only come from the master of Torture Techniques.

  Professor Penmark orders the three remaining teams to form a horizontal line along the Moon Beach, with our asses in the sand and our feet facing the water.

  Then he strings a chain all the way down the line, looped around our wrists and ankles, with several different types of padlocks between each student. The challenge is to pick the locks before the tide comes in and drowns us.

  This would be difficult enough if the water weren’t freezing and the waves random and vicious, trying to tug us out into the ocean.

  To add to the fun, each team receives only one lock pick that has to be passed along the line student by student.

  As soon as Professor Howell fires his starter pistol, the pick begins to move down the line. Progress is spurty, with some students easily popping their padlocks, while others struggling for an agonizing period of time. Several of the locks are in hard-to-reach positions, and the padlocks quickly become jammed with sand and bits of seaweed.

  The waves start washing over my knees before the pick is even halfway down the line. Each rush of frigid, salty water makes the students shiver until the chains clatter like castanets.

  “I can’t do it,” Coraline Paquet sobs on my left. “My fingers are ice.”

  “Pass me the pick,” Motya grunts. “I’ll help.”

  Kade, Leo, and Claire have all stationed themselves at the very end of their respective lines, so they’ll be the last to be unchained. Unlike most years, I’ll be sorry to see any of the Captains eliminated, because I know how badly they all want to win.

  The water is up to my chest by the time I get the pick. I have to work blind, trying to feel the tumblers when my numb fingers can hardly grip let alone sense.

  “I dropped it!” a hysterical Freshman girl shrieks. “I dropped the pick!”

  “Find it!” Kade cries. “Comb the sand.”

  Chained where he is, he’s incapable of assisting.

  “It’s too late!” she cries. “The waves took it!”

  I can see Kade gritting his teeth, furious and helpless.

  “Find something else!” he cries. “Who has a Bobby pin?”

  “I do,” another girl says, further down the line.

  “Pass it along,” Kade orders.

  The girl pulls the pin from her bun, straightens the minute metal rod, and passes it down the line.

  It doesn’t work as well as the lock pick formed for that purpose, but after a few minutes of struggling, the first girl manages to free herself. She passes on the Bobby pin.

  The Freshmen are behind now.

  I fumble with the last padlock on my right ankle, finally finding the appropriate angle and popping the hasp. I pass the pick along to Ares, glad to get the fuck out of the water.

  Now only Ares, Anna, and Leo are left on our team.

  Ares finishes quickly, taking only a few seconds to pop his locks.

  Anna takes a little longer, as she has four separate padlocks on her length of chain. She grits her teeth, her slim shoulders shaking as the icy water hits her again.

  “You’ve got this,” Leo murmurs to her.

  “Almost there . . .” Anna mutters, and finally the chains fall away.

  She passes Leo the pick.

  The water is up to his neck now, and the next wave hits him right in the face. He holds tight to the pick, jamming it into the lock.

  Meanwhile, the shorter Claire Turgenev is alr
eady almost entirely underwater. She has to tilt her head all the way back to catch a breath between the waves.

  Stubbornly, she refuses to submit.

  “Don’t you fucking stop, Jasper,” she says to the second-last Senior, spitting out a mouthful of seawater.

  Jasper Webb pops the last lock and presses the pick into her hand.

  Claire takes one final gulp of air, then lets the waves wash over her as she blindly tries to pick her locks underwater.

  I watch the place where she disappeared, wondering if she’s really going to drown herself rather than give in.

  “Got it!” Leo says, popping up like Harry Houdini with the chains dropping away.

  Claire still hasn’t emerged. I glance at Professor Howell, wondering what he’s waiting for.

  He watches the spot where Claire submerged, silently counting the seconds she’s been under. A full minute passes.

  Professor Howell frowns, unable to even see air bubbles rising in the rough surf. He uncrosses his arms, ready to intervene.

  Right as he takes a step forward, his sneaker sinking into the wet sand, Claire jumps up, drenched and shaking.

  “Done!” she coughs.

  The waves tumble over Kade Petrov and the three remaining Freshmen, dragging them out with the chains still wrapped tight around them. Professor Penmark and Professor Howell rush forward to haul them out of the water. One of the Freshman boys retches up seawater and one of the girls looks close to tears.

  “No!” Kade sputters. “We weren’t done!”

  “You’re out of time,” Professor Howell says. “The other teams are done.”

  Kade stands on the beach, shaking with cold and acridly disappointed. He can’t meet the eyes of his teammates.

  I clap him on the shoulder, making him jump.

  “You did well,” I say. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “We lost,” Kade says. “We’re out of the challenge.”

  “Not everything is in your control.”

  “Then how come Adrik always manages to win?” Kade says bitterly.

  “I don’t know.” I shake the seawater out of my eyes. “I’m not Adrik, either.”

  Kade looks up at me, remembering who he’s talking to—not a perpetual champion like Adrik or Leo. Just another person who sometimes takes it in the teeth, despite all he can do.

  “Hey, I meant to tell you,” Kade says awkwardly, “I’m sorry about your dad.”

  “He made his choice,” I say, shrugging it off.

  I hate that my father had to embarrass me one last time in such a public way. I’ve squashed the attempts of any of my friends to talk about it. The only person I’ve discussed it with is Cat. And Snow, the day I found out what happened.

  We all have to make the long walk back up to school, shivering beneath the towels that Professor Howell handed out.

  I walk with Kade, even though we’re not talking, because I know how it feels to be alone with your failure.

  20

  Cat

  Lola is driving me bonkers.

  We share almost all our classes, and she won’t get off my fucking ass.

  I swear she’s following me around campus just to give me shit.

  She seems to pop up everywhere, especially if Dean isn’t around. She accosts me in the hallways, the dining hall, and even the library now that her ban has elapsed—though she’s careful to make sure Miss Robin isn’t around before she starts harassing me.

  As I pass through the common room on my way out of the Undercroft, she jumps up out of an overstuffed armchair, blocking my path.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” she demands, shifting in front of me as I try to sidestep her.

  “None of your business,” I say shortly.

  “Are you going up to the Bell Tower to meet Dean again?”

  I narrow my eyes at her. I think of the Bell Tower as belonging to me and Dean alone. I’m annoyed that she knows about it.

  “What exactly is your fixation with me, Lola? Harassing me isn’t going to get you back in the Quartum Bellum.”

  “I don’t give a fuck about that stupid competition,” Lola snarls, tossing her shining hair contemptuously.

  “Then what the fuck is it?”

  “It’s you,” she sneers, towering over me even in her flat shoes. “Mousy, sneaky, stupid little you. Everything about you irritates me.”

  “Then why can’t we just avoid each other in peace?”

  I try to step around her again but she blocks me, her arms folded across her sweater-clad breasts. Lola always looks like she stepped off the pages of a Ralph Lauren catalog—nails manicured, skirt freshly pressed, not a hair out of place.

  “I wish I could avoid you,” Lola says softly, “but you’re always strutting around with Anna Wilk and Chay Wagner and Leo Gallo, like you’re one of them, like you belong. They’re not your friends. They just pity you. You’re barely a mascot to them.”

  I can feel my face getting hot.

  Lola is poking at my deepest insecurity, and she knows it.

  But she’s not invulnerable herself. In attacking me, she’s letting her own weakness show.

  “You’re jealous,” I say, in wonder.

  “Jealous of you?” Lola sneers. “Why would I ever be jealous of you?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, moving to pass her again. “Maybe you just can’t stand to see someone else happy—”

  This time Lola shoves me hard in the chest so I stumble back a step.

  “And why are you so happy, exactly?” she demands. “ ‘Cause of your new boyfriend? You don’t actually think he likes you?”

  Now she’s really starting to piss me off. My hands ball into fists, my nails cutting into my palms.

  “Just because he likes fucking you doesn’t mean he gives a shit about you . . .” Lola hisses. “I saw you chasing after him like a lost puppy, carrying his books to class . . . He’s using you because you’ll do whatever he says. When he’s tired of you, he’ll throw you away. And you’ll be back to the lonely little loser you always were all along.”

  “You don’t know anything about Dean and me,” I spit back at her.

  Lola laughs.

  “I know everything,” she says. “It’s plain as day. You’re the only one who can’t see it.”

  With that, she shoves past me, heading for her room.

  I cross campus alone, her words still ringing in my ears.

  I do think Lola is jealous. With the exception, perhaps, of the Paris Bratva, Leo Gallo’s group is the most popular at our school. Lola resents my place at their table.

  But that doesn’t mean she’s wrong.

  Dean’s and my relationship started in a highly unorthodox way. How can I be sure how much of our connection is sexual chemistry, and how much is something more?

  Dean said he loved me. But he had just heard the news of what happened to his father.

  He might only be attached to me because he has no one else.

  I climb the cracked stone steps of the Bell Tower, a host of unpleasant thoughts swirling around in my head.

  Dean is already waiting for me at the top. He seizes me and kisses me wildly, like it’s been weeks since we saw each other.

  Even the kiss fails to comfort me. I don’t know how to discern between passion and love.

  I feel low all the following week.

  I shouldn’t let Lola get to me, but the more I’m falling for Dean, the more I realize how miserable I’ll be if this thing between us ends.

  I’ve put myself in a precarious position.

  After being with him, how could I care about anyone else?

  Who else could seem handsome, compared to Dean? Who else has a voice that sounds like sandpaper and silk, that vibrates on just the right frequency to make my whole body thrum?

  Who could love or hate with his level of passion?

  I’m in way over my head.

  I’m crazy about Dean, and it terrifies me.

  I don’t know
how to tell him how I feel, or better yet, how to show him. These are uncharted waters. I’ve never even had a boyfriend before—I skipped the training wheels and went straight to the Harley.

  Until I figure it out, I’m trying to avoid Lola so she doesn’t fuck with my head any further.

  I’m heading down the stairs of the Keep to our Security Systems class when I hear her coming up from the opposite direction, talking loudly with Dixie Davis. Their derisive laughter rings off the stone walls.

  Not wanting to convene with them in the hall, I make an about-face and run up instead, all the way to the top floor.

  I had planned to run down the long, carpeted hallway outside the Chancellor’s office, then descend the opposite staircase. Instead, the Chancellor’s door cracks open, and I dart into the nearest niche in the wall, crouching down behind a large and rather ugly Grecian urn.

  The move is instinctive, driven by a desire to avoid being seen by Luther Hugo. I don’t realize that he’s accompanied by someone else until I hear a low female voice saying, “You’re the one who let him come here.”

  “I had no choice,” Hugo hisses. “It would have looked stranger if I didn’t.”

  Peeking around the edge of the urn, I see Miss Robin’s brilliant red hair trailing down the hallway alongside the Chancellor’s broad back.

  There’s nothing unusual about the librarian visiting her uncle. Except for the complete lack of affection in either of their voices.

  “He doesn’t know anything,” Miss Robin says, haughty and dismissive.

  “You’d better hope he doesn’t,” the Chancellor snaps back at her.

  “If you honestly think—”

  They’re getting too far away for me to hear. I lean out a little further, trying to get a better angle.

  The urn wobbles, drowning out whatever the Chancellor replies.

  I frantically grip its handles, preventing it from toppling over, but grimacing at the noise.