by Kasi Blake
Bay-Lee had looked everywhere for her necklace. She’d turned her dorm room upside-down in an effort to find it. Frantic, she went to Keisha’s room. The second the girl opened her door, Bay-Lee stuck her hand out. “Give it back.”
“What?” Keisha blinked several times.
“Don’t play stupid with me. You took my necklace again, and it isn’t funny so give it back.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Bay-Lee was afraid of this. “If you didn’t take it, maybe Serena did. She was in my room when I walked in and could have snatched it off my dresser or found it on the floor.”
“Want me to kill her for you?” Keisha asked, wide grin on her face. She stepped aside to allow Bay-Lee access to her dorm room. Unlike the other students, Keisha didn’t have to share. The girl even had a huge bed instead of a twin. There were fashion pages from magazines on the walls, original drawings—apparently Keisha was an artist—and clothes strewn everywhere. “Or do you want to do it?”
“Believe me, if I could get away with it, I’d do it in a heartbeat,” Bay-Lee said as she tried to find a safe place to stand. The fear that breakable objects were hidden beneath the scattered clothing kept her from roaming. She pushed stuff aside with the toe of her shoe, cleaning a few inches of floor space so she’d have somewhere safe to stand. It looked like a clothing boutique had exploded.
“Carly’s gain is your loss,” Keisha said.
“Who is Carly?” Bay-Lee asked, irritated. “Was that Serena’s last roommate? She must be having a party right now. Serena actually threw some of my stuff into the trash this morning because she wanted to make space for her unicorn collection on my shelf. Can you believe it? She has a unicorn collection.”
“Uck!”
“And she has a twin sister.” Bay-Lee rolled her eyes. “Can you believe there are two of them? I certainly hope the other one isn’t as bad as her.”
“She’s dead.” Keisha delivered the news with her usual tact.
“Oh.” Now she felt bad for the girl. Still… “That doesn’t give her the right to make my life miserable.”
“It will only get worse unless you establish dominance from day one.” Keisha walked across her messy floor and plopped down on her bed, big smile. “They tried to put me with a few roommates when I was just Bait.” Her golden eyes sparkled as she gazed at the wall over Bay-Lee’s shoulder. A wistful smile curved her mouth. “The first girl came in with a game plan, thought she could take over, but I set her straight. You should have seen how fast she was begging them to relocate her.”
“What did you do to her?”
“Tricks.” Keisha laughed. “Things like setting my alarm to go off at two in the morning. Some of her clothes went missing. I glued the pages in one of her textbooks together, put sand in her bed, and basically drove her nuts until she left. She was so busy watching out for traps she didn’t have time to keep up with her schoolwork. The girl almost flunked out.” Keisha shrugged. “She was my guinea pig. After her I used the tricks that worked the best, got rid of them all in the first twenty-four hours.”
“Isn’t it against school policy to drive your roommate crazy?”
“Don’t know.” Keisha grinned. “No one reported me for it.”
Bay-Lee envisioned the sort of things she’d like to do to Serena. Somehow she didn’t think tricks would work on this girl. Serena was the type to complain in a loud, whining voice. In fact, she’d probably run straight to Van and file a report. It wasn’t worth the risk.
“I’ll find a way to get along with her somehow,” Bay-Lee said.
“Yeah, I guess with your father being the CEO of the school you can’t make waves and not get noticed. Must suck to be you.”
“Why don’t you have a roommate now?”
Keisha shrugged as if she didn’t know, but her expression turned smug. “Guess word got out about me. After the third roommate jumped ship no one else wanted to move in here. If they were assigned to my room, they’d get themselves reassigned immediately.”
Bay-Lee didn’t want to think or talk about roommates anymore. She needed to blow off some steam. The real reason she’d tracked Keisha down came soaring to the front of her mind. “I would love to go dancing and burn off some frustration.”
Keisha’s face lit up with excitement. “I have a friend who works at the door of a great night club in town. He’ll sneak us in. As long as you promise not to drink it won’t be a problem.”
“I’m not interested in drinking, only dancing.”
Keisha’s gaze raked Bay-Lee from head to toe. “You are not going out dressed like that.” The girl jumped up and hurried to her closet. She yanked out several outfits and tossed them before finding what she was searching for. Holding up a sleeveless black mini dress, zipper running from top to bottom in the front, she said, “Wear this. It will look awesome on you.”
While Bay-Lee stripped out of her clothes and struggled into the snug dress, Keisha rummaged her closet for shoes. On hands and knees, she dove into a pile of them and came up with two sparkly gold stilettos. “Here. Try these on. They’ll be perfect with that dress.”
Bay-Lee felt like Cinderella getting ready for the ball. Tension melted off her. She couldn’t wait to hit the dance floor. She was in such a good mood she even allowed Keisha to do her make-up. They rushed to get ready. Roommate troubles forgotten, she followed Keisha’s lead.
Giggling, they ran for the door once they were both ready.
“We have to sneak out,” Keisha said, blocking the exit for a moment. “If anyone sees us, we say we are on our way to meet some boys at the lake. They won’t care about that, but your father has rules against going to town without his approval. We can get expelled for going to a club.” Her golden eyes narrowed on Bay-Lee’s face. “Well, maybe you can’t get kicked out, but I sure can, so chill, okay?”
Bay-Lee made a show of locking her lips and tossing the key. She wondered what Keisha would say if she knew the truth, that Van wasn’t her father. It would be nice if he would give her permission to tell people. Students hated her because of him. But she had to keep her mouth shut. Regardless of the cost to her, Avery needed to be kept safe.