No. Oh no.
I picked up the sodden page and unfolded it carefully. It was a pen and ink drawing done in a tattoo style of a woman in a slinky teddy and heels holding a three-headed snake that coiled around her body. The words ‘snake charmer’ wrapped around the image. A ragged edge along one side cut off the end of the word and one of the snake’s heads.
I’d recognize that image anywhere. I’d stared at it so many nights, thinking about whether I should tell Dante how I felt about him, whether I should risk our friendship…
It was a page torn from Dante’s journal. The journal that was taken from my room.
Loretta called my name, but it seemed muffled, as though she was speaking to me through water. My eyes clouded over as the paper crumbled in my hands, turning into a pile of wood pulp.
I stood up, heedless to the teachers who ordered me to get back in my seat. My fingers flew to the burn on my wrist. All around me, students laughed. Not the nervous titters of before, but cruel, mocking laughter.
My vision narrowed, focusing on three faces. Trey. Quinn. Ayaz. They stared at me with hands behind their heads and angelic, innocent smiles on their faces, while all around them, their Queens and subjects rolled about with laughter.
I balled my hands into fists. But there was nothing I could do.Nothing.It was like standing on the footpath in front of my apartment all over again, watching it burn, hearing my mom screaming inside and not being able to do a thing to save her.
Only this time, it was me who was burning up.
As I shuffled toward the door, Courtney stood. A candy-sweet smile plastered across her face. She came around her table and placed a hand on my shoulder, giving me a gentle shove toward the courtyard. “We’re yourfriends, gutter whore. Wecareabout raising trash like you out of the ghetto. And that starts by getting rid of your ghetto junk.”
My knees locked. My body froze. Inside my mind, flames leaped up from the floor, their heat tearing at my skin.
Courtney gave me another shove. “Go on, Hazel. Go look. Remember to thank us, because we did this for your own good.”
I staggered down the stone steps, their laughter following me. At the foot of the steps, French doors opened out onto the quad. Dusk streaked across the open sky – the spires of the Academy’s towers piercing a band of burnt orange.Fire. Fire blazing in the sky.
Rubbish fluttered across the quad, catching on the columns and tumbling over the steps of the ornate fountain. Mostly rectangular sheets of paper fluttering and skittering between the fallen leaves.Weird. I wouldn’t have thought in a school like this they’d allow all this trash to accumulate.
I stepped onto the path leading across the lawn, up to the fountain in the center. More papers floated inside, the ink turning the water a muddy brown. A paper fluttered against my knee. I picked it up, and even without looking at it, Iknewwhat I’d see. I blinked. Through a haze of unshod tears and imagined flames, the scribbles resolved themselves into familiar shapes. More drawings. Band logos. Tattoo designs. Wild animals leaping off the page.
Dante’s journal.
Pages and pages of his drawings, his thoughts and dreams, his doodles and love letters floated in the fountain. Ink and paper dissolving. Ruined.
Laughter rolled over me like a wave, dragging me under so I drowned in that murky water. I tore my gaze away from the fountain, bent down and grabbed the pages on the ground, chasing them down as they skittered across the cobbles.
Tears burned in the corners of my eyes, desperate to spill over. The name-calling and the insults and the shitty room and the numbers on toast I could handle. But this… they’d destroyed my most cherished possession. And for what?For nothing.
I spun around to face them. Trey stood at the bottom of the stairs, a wicked grin on his face. His dark-haired girlfriend, the beautiful Tillie, glared at me, her arms possessively circling his torso. Trey had his arms around his buddies, Quinn and Ayaz. Quinn looked at me with a hint of pity in his green eyes, but his laugh was loud and boisterous – the loudest of all, rising straight from his belly and echoing off the spires. Under his arm, Courtney chortled, tears streaming down her doll-like face. Only hers were happy tears – happy because she’d taught me this valuable lesson.
Ayaz didn’t laugh, but he smiled a cruel smile that froze the blood in my veins. His eyes swept over me with a look that was part hunger, part venom.
The tears spilled over. I rubbed at my cheek, trying to stop them, but I couldn’t push them back into my ducts. I opened my mouth to shout some witty retort, some one-liner that would bring them all to their knees. But nothing came except more tears.
That was all I had left of Dante, and you took it from me.White-hot rage burned in my veins. The same fire that had consumed my life now burned inside me, and it was desperate for revenge.
Fucking Derleth Kings, I hope you’re ready. Because this is war. And I am going to tear your kingdom down.
Chapter Five
Even after what the Kings had done, I wasn’t allowed to leave the dining hall. A teacher named Dr. Armitage caught me as I fled across the quad and turned me back. When I walked back into the hall, everyone was silent, but I could feel their laughter buzzing in the air, like a swarm of locusts stripping a fertile field. I returned to my seat, stared at my plate of congealed potatoes until Greg whisked it away and handed it to Andre, and left as soon as dessert was served.
Echoes of laughter followed me as I slunk through the halls with the scraps of Dante’s drawings clenched in my hand. Courtney passed me in the hallway and hissed in my ear. “I hope you didn’t think you would top Art class with those ghetto scribbles, gutter whore.”
I wanted to tell her that they weren’t mine, that they were done by my best friend, and that he had more talent in his pinkie finger than she had in her entire airhead brain. But a) she wouldn’t care and b) I didn’t know if that was true. Kids at this school tended to be overachievers, so Courtney was probably being hailed as the next Rembrandt.
I escaped to the peace and quiet of my staircase without running into any of the Kings. I slammed the door of my room, enjoying the satisfying crack as the wooden frame trembled. I flopped down on my bed, holding up the salvaged pages to the dim light, running my fingers along the jagged edges, wishing like hell things could be different.
Dante slid the journal across the cafeteria table. “History class was boring as fuck today.”
