by Nicole Fox
I burst out into the empty hallway. I thought getting away from everyone would help, but my panic is only worsening.
I rest my head against the stone wall and try another patent-pending Dr. Sharon technique: naming as many colors as I can until the anxiety lessens. Red. Blue. Purple. Green. Orange. Black…
It’s not helping. A memory is coming back, a bad one.
It’s dark. Trees all around me. I’m sweating, running.
I think I’m lost. I don’t usually run in the dark, so I might’ve missed a turn somewhere, and now I’m not sure if I’m running back towards home or just getting deeper and deeper into the woods.
I can’t hear much over the sound of my own breathing and the crunch of the ground beneath my feet…
Until the sound of a girl’s pained whimper stops me cold.
“You’re not supposed to be out here.”
A voice snaps me out of my memory. I glance up—and freeze.
The boy casually leaning against the wall a few yards away from me looks like something out of a dream—or a nightmare. A single beam of ghostly light hits his face from a stained glass window overhead.
His jawbone is sharp and wide, his nose a harsh line down the center of his face, and his eyebrows slant over his deep-set eyes. Dark hair is buzzed close on the sides, but left longer on top and lands over his forehead. Everything about his features is hard and cold … but beautiful.
Breathtakingly beautiful.
He wears dark-washed jeans, a gray T-shirt, and a black bomber jacket, and his timeless style makes his appearance feel even more unreal.
Surely, this boy can’t be real.
Our eyes meet. It feels like my entire body is buzzing with electricity. Like I’m experiencing a kind of power surge.
“What did you say?” I finally gasp. My voice sounds weirdly strained.
His dark eyebrow arches upwards. In amusement or disgust, I can’t tell. “Your social skills need work,” he says wryly.
I’m pretty sure he’s kidding, but not positive. Everything about this boy is mysterious. Baffling.
“I’m not here to socialize,” I retort. I wince when the words leave my mouth. It’s a lame answer, but it’s the best I can do under the circumstances, seeing as how my brain is basically short-circuiting.
He nods slowly. “You’re the new girl.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Something like that.”
“Exactly like that, I think.”
There’s a level of arrogance in his voice that would normally piss me off. Instead, it just intensifies the heat building in my core.
“Who asked you?” I snap.
He grins and backs up, hands raised. “Woah there. No need to bite.”
“No need to be an ass, either.”
He lets his hands fall by his side and slips them carelessly into his pockets. God, he really is obnoxiously gorgeous. Like, I’m mad that someone this good-looking exists in the world. He studies me for a moment longer.
I burn under his gaze, but I refuse to walk away. It feels like we’re sparring here, and the first one to leave loses.
Then, as if he’d gotten everything he came for, he nods once and walks away. His shoulder brushes mine as he passes.
He calls back over his shoulder, “See you around, new girl.”
3
Lily
I head outside to catch my breath. My skin is crawling after seeing Mr. Foster and then the gorgeous asshole one right after the other, so I could use a little fresh air.
There’s a set of concrete stairs set into a grassy slope. I sink to a seat there and pull out my notebook.
Sketching always calms my nerves. The margins of my notebooks have been filled with doodles for as long as I can remember. When I draw, I can just let go, be free.
Or at least, that’s usually the case.
But after a few minutes of letting my mind wander, I realize my scribbles have turned into an arched eyebrow.
His arched eyebrow.
I quickly turn the page and start fresh on a blank sheet, taking a deep breath to clear my head.
“Why’d you stop?”
I startle and look over to see a tall boy with platinum blond hair slouched on the steps above me in front of me. He has on a brown leather jacket with frayed patches on the chest and sleeves.
“Oh, thanks,” I mumble, smoothing my hand over my notebook. “It was just a doodle.”
He shrugs and looks towards the school like he really doesn’t care either way. Without looking, he pulls a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from his jacket pocket and lights up. In the same motion, he offers the pack to me.
I don’t smoke. Correction: I’ve smoked before, but only because I found a pack of cigarettes in the street when I was thirteen and wanted to know what it would be like.
Still, the cigarettes feel like a test, and I don’t want to fail. So, I nod and accept one. The boy lights it for me, his eyes watching the flame as it tongues the tip. When it catches, he licks his lips and takes a long puff of his own cigarette, blowing the smoke in my face.
“You’re new,” he comments.
I roll my eyes. Not this again.
When I don’t answer, the boy blows out another puff of smoke and leans back against the metal stair railing. “Bold of you to pick a seat in Loser Land on your first day.”
I look around. The guy is right.
The rest of the student body has come out for lunch period, and—not to judge books by their covers—the handful of kids who’ve chosen seats over on this grassy slope don’t exactly measure up to the boy who scared me in the hallway. They’re a little grungier, a little angstier. Not nearly as arrogant and confident. Clearly a tier below.
“I wasn’t given much of a choice,” I admit.
The boy nods and exhales another cloud of smoke. “We’re a better pick than the Golden Boys, anyways,” he says.
I frown. “The Golden Boys?”
“Oh, that’s cute. Real naïve. You won’t last long like that, though.”
“Are you going to keep being an asshole, or are you going to explain what the hell you’re talking about?”
Instead of explaining, he jabs his cigarette across the lawn. I follow it to see a group of guys lounging around a picnic table in the sunlight.
One is tall, pushing six-three, but skinny, whereas the one next to him is broad and muscly. The tall one has short-cropped hair, a long nose, and is dressed in name brand from head-to-toe—athletic pants, shoes, and shirt. He looks like a walking advertisement.
The stockier boy is much more fashion-forward with a pair of jeans rolled at the ankles, leather boots, and a white T-shirt half tucked into his waistband. His skin is deeply tanned and I can tell he whitens his teeth even from a distance. They practically glow in the sunlight.
The group erupts in more laughter just as the two boys in front part, letting a third boy through. As soon as he steps into view, I gasp.
It’s the boy from before.
In the sunlight, he looks even more unreal. His dark hair has a blue sheen, and I can make out the full shape of his lips. His face looks just as chiseled as it did in the shadows, though, and I realize that is just his face. It wasn’t a trick of the light. This boy really looks like he is made from marble.
“Those,” my new friend drawls, “are the Golden Boys. Finn and his fuck buddies.”
I make the connection immediately. I don’t know how I missed it before.
Finn. As in, Finn Foster. Son of William Foster.
Fuck.
“Like you’re any better, Dallas?” comes a new voice, acidic and cutting.
I shade the sun out of my eyes and look up to see a girl standing in front of us, one hip jutted out to the side. She has on skintight jeans and a dangerously low-cut T-shirt. Her hair is bright red and falls around her shoulders in movie-star curls, and her frowning mouth is painted the same color red.
“Fuck off, Cora,” Dallas snarls right back at her.
�
�Why don’t you eat a dick?” she spits at him.
He sighs, stubs out his cigarette, and stands up. “Time to make my exit. Nice to meet you, new girl. Be careful of those assholes. Be careful of this bitch, too.” He nods at Cora. “Everyone in this school is a fucking snake.”
Then he saunters away, the patch of a horned devil on the back of his jacket gleaming in the Texas sun.
The girl who just came up, Cora, leans against the stairway railing and smiles at me. “Thought you might need some rescuing,” she says pleasantly.
I blink. It’s the first kind voice I’ve heard all day. “Oh,” I say softly. “Thanks.”
She sinks to a seat next to me. “Besides, I wanted to meet the new girl. Nothing interesting ever happens here. I’ve been going to school with the same kids since kindergarten. When someone new shows up, we notice.”
“Right,” I answer. I’m a little on the defensive after meeting Finn and the kid in the leather jacket in quick succession, but the girl seems bubbly and warm. I sigh and make a mental note to loosen up. No need to make more enemies than the ones I already have.
“I see you’ve met Dallas.” She jerks her head in the direction of the boy with the devil on his jacket.
“He seemed a little…” I pause before finishing, “I dunno, on edge.”
Cora rolls her eyes. “He thinks he’s holier-than-thou because he’s in a biker gang. But don’t let the tough guy façade fool you. He’s just an errand boy for those Hell Prince shitheads.”
My mouth falls open. “He is really a biker?”
Cora’s red mouth pulls into a grimace. “With the obnoxiously loud crotch rocket to prove it.”
“This school is a lot to process,” I comment.
Cora laughs at that. “Girl, you don’t even know the half of it.” Then she catches me staring into the distance. “I see you’ve discovered the Golden Boys, too.”
I blush and avert my gaze. “Dallas was saying something about them.”
“Mhmm,” she says knowingly. She’s clearly not buying my ‘what’s-going-on?’ act at all. “It’s fine. You wouldn’t be the first to fall for Finn on sight. We’ve all been there.”
“I’m not even sure who Finn is.”
“The dark-haired angel sent to us by the heavens,” she said dramatically. “Unless you were looking at Viktor, the tall one; Caleb, the burly one; or J.C. or Noah. All together, they are the Golden Boys. The princes of Ravenlake Prep. At least, that’s what they’d tell you if you asked them. Anyways, which one caught your eye?”
I look down at my lap and shake my head. “I was just looking. No one in particular.”
“Liar.”
I think Cora is making fun of me, but when I look up, she is smiling, her nose wrinkled. She nudges her knee against my leg and giggles. “It’s fine. Like I said, we are all a little bit in love with Finn. Girls and boys alike.”
My face flushes and I smile. “Fine. I was staring a little bit. I met him earlier today and wasn’t sure if he was real or not.”
Cora throws her head back in a full-on cackle. “Oh, God, never let him hear you say that. It would make him even cockier than he already is.”
“Roger,” I mumble.
She reaches out and touches my hair. “You’re really pretty, you know. Oh!” Cora claps her hands. “What’re you doing tonight?”
I start to answer, but Cora cuts me off before I can get a single syllable out of my mouth. “Because you should definitely come with me to Finn’s back-to-school party. It’s nuts. Annual Ravenlake tradition.”
I shake my head, but she rests a hand on my thigh and smiles again.
“I insist,” she says with the charm of someone who never gets told no. “It’s going to be badass. You’re coming. I won’t take no for an answer.”
Just then, as if she timed the whole thing perfectly, the bell rings to signal the end of lunch. All the students start shuffling inside. Cora grins brightly and takes to her feet, offering her hand back down to help me up.
“We’ll go over to my place after school to get ready and pregame,” she says confidently. She doesn’t wait for me to answer. Instead, she turns around and heads inside with the rest of the student body.
Leaving me all alone. Wondering just what the hell I’ve just gotten myself into.
4
Finn
Cora finds me after lunch ends.
Just like I told her to.
I let J.C. and Caleb go on without me, even though we all have fifth period together. You would have thought I’d told them to eat their own balls.
I pull her into an empty stairwell and shut the door. “So?”
“I did it.” She pushes her hair back over her shoulder. Usually, it is pristine and shiny, but right now it looks wild and windblown from sitting out on the lawn with the DeVry girl.
I roll my eyes. “I know. I saw you. I didn’t ask you here for a status report.”
“Then why did you ask me here at all?” she snaps, her tongue flicking over her top lip, rubbing off a bit of lipstick. “The new girl is a fucking loser. She is irrelevant. I don’t understand your obsession with her.”
“I’m not fucking explaining myself to you.”
Cora’s face flushes the same color as her hair. Even knowing what she knows about me, she desperately wants to be the focus of my attention.
If she knew what I have planned for Lily DeVry, she’d change her mind about that.
“I’m bored, Finn. Tell me what you want or I’m out of here.”
“Leave if you want,” I say, crossing my arms and shrugging. “But if you do, I’ll go ahead and upload a very interesting video I have burning a hole on my flash drive.”
Cora’s eyes go wide. She stares at me in horror.
“Revenge porn is illegal. I could turn you in, you know?”
I smirk, unable to hide my amusement. “Maybe. But not before everyone in school saw you sucking Viktor’s dick like your life depended on it. Your dad is still a deacon at your church, isn’t he?”
Cora mashes her lips together, her jaw squared and set in frustration, and I know I’ve got her. She’s a fuck-up whose parents think she is a good girl. Manipulating her is as easy as breathing.
“What the fuck do you want from me?” she snaps. “I talked to the girl, and she, of course, thinks you are God’s gift to humanity. I talked you up. I made her believe I gave one single shit about her, and we are officially ‘friends.’ I even invited her to your party. Fucking gag me.”
I nod, satisfied. “Good. You’re going to bring her there and keep an eye on her.
“No fucking way.” Cora crosses her arms and shakes her head. “That party is actually going to be fun. Don’t tell me I have to babysit that sad sack all night.”
“You don’t have to,” I say with a shrug. “But again, if you don’t, the party might turn into a public screening of one of my favorite films of the year. The cinematography is a little shaky, but the lead actress puts on one hell of a show.”
Cora’s cheeks go ruddy, and she looks around to make sure none of the passing students overheard. If they did, none of them would stop and say anything. Not to me.
“You’re an asshole, Finn.”
I scrunch up my face as though I didn’t hear her. “What? Sorry? I couldn’t hear you. Did you want me to release the video?”
Her lower lip wobbles like she is going to cry, but she stiffens it quickly. Cora knows better than to show me her weaknesses. I’ll only use them against her. “Fine. I’ll do it.”
She turns and leaves without another word. I stand in the empty stairwell for a minute after she’s gone. I can’t help a grin from spreading across my face.
Tonight is going to be fun.
5
Lily
The rest of the afternoon drags by. I’m about ready to fall asleep on my face when the final bell rings, dismissing us for the weekend.
I zombie-walk with the rest of the crowd through the front doors and spill out in
to the parking lot. Most of the Ravenlake kids are clambering into Range Rovers and BMWs, peeling out at top speed on their way home to the various McMansions scattered around town.
I make my way over to the dumpsters. Mom and I agreed to meet here after school so we could take the bus back to the motel where we’re staying for the time being.
She’s beat me there. I look up to see her standing next to the large metal bin with a tote bag hanging from her elbow and a sweater hanging over her arm. She has on the black polo and pants that all of the Ravenlake Prep non-teaching staff wear, and I want to suggest that she bring some clothes to change into before we leave, but I also don’t want her to think I’m ashamed of her.
Because, honestly, I’m not. I just don’t want the other students to make fun of her. I can handle them being mean to me, but my mom is a hard worker and a good parent, and she doesn’t deserve to be on the receiving end of ridicule from a bunch of spoon-fed, born-rich assholes who have never worked a day in their lives.
None of them know a thing about heartache. Not like she does. Not like we both do.
She is staring straight ahead, her mouth pulled down at the corners as it so often is, but when she hears the crunch of my steps on the gravel, she turns to me and pastes a big smile on her face.
“Hey, baby girl. How was your first day?”
I shrug. “Fine.”
“Did you make any friends?”
I think back to Finn and Dallas and Cora. I met people, at least. Only time will tell if they are actually going to be my friends. Though, I have a good feeling about Cora. She seemed nice.
“I met a few people,” I admit. “I think I’m really going to like my art class.”
“Of course you will,” she says, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and leading me down the sidewalk that wraps around the school to the side parking lot where she parked our ancient, rusted-out Honda. “You filled three sketchbooks over the summer. If you don’t get an A in art class, this school is rigged.”