I rolled my shoulder in circles, trying to get feeling back in my arm. “You just jerked me around like a dick and probably pulled a muscle. I’d hardly call that worthy of a medal, let alone afavor.”
“You think your favors are worth shit at this school?” he sneered, and a hint of that cruelty I knew he was hiding flashed in his emerald eyes. Dicksome as he was, he did raise a valid point.
“I’m just trying to get to the dining hall. Thanks for the shoulder injury.” I turned back to the hallway. The crowd had thinned a little. A group of girls stopped in front of the lockers opposite us. They kept darting glances at Quinn and me and giggling.Jesus, no need to act like total sluts. He’s not that good looking.
Okay, he was, butstill—
“Meat, wait!”
I turned. I never should have turned.
“If I tell you where the dining hall is, what do I get in return?” Quinn waggled his eyebrows.
“I said forget it. I’ll find it on my own.” I shoved past him. I was able to fight my way down to a narrow corridor that led to a set of steps I hadn’t noticed before. There were no lights on in the stairwell, but they weren’t blocked off or anything.Odd. I wonder where these lead.
As I searched the walls for a sign or map, a familiarscritch-scritchnoise sounded from behind the wood paneling. At least I knew the rats are everywhere. They weren’t something blocked into the basement walls for the sole purpose of terrorizing scholarship students.
“I wouldn’t go that way if I were you.”
I whirled around. Quinn leaned against the wall, watching me with an amused expression. He stepped toward me. The light in the hallway backlit his silhouette, highlighting his muscled shoulders and the curve of his ass. Damn, that boy made dress slacks look fine—
I lifted an eyebrow. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. That’s the gym. It’s off limits because of contamination. Didn’t you read your rulebook?”
“That thing’s a Tolstoy novel – long and boring and filled with communist plots. How do you mean, contaminated?”
“It started a few years ago – this horrible smell like rotting meat wafting up from under the gymnasium. It seeps out of the vents in that wing. It got so bad that students were fainting. They had experts in to perform tests to try and figure out what was causing it.”
“My mom couldn’t even get a HVAC repair person to come to our second-floor apartment. You rich bastards managed to get someone to drive up that demented road just because some idiot left his sandwich in a vent?”
“It was a whole team of guys in hazmat suits,” Quinn beamed. His smile sent a burst of flame through my chest. “But they couldn’t figure out what was making the smell. The best they could come up with was that there’s a pocket of gas under there that’s been disturbed. Parents were complaining.” Quinn put on a faux high voice. “‘My little Sissy won’t be attending school in a toxic waste dump.’ That kind of thing. So the faculty had to close that wing until they could fumigate it. Now we have gym outside in all weather. It’s interesting in winter with four inches of snow on the ground.”
“Something to look forward to.”
“It makes all the girls’ nipples hard, so no complaints from me.” Quinn’s eyes traveled over my body, stopping at my chest. His gaze made me feel naked, like he could somehow see my nipples through my blazer and shirt. I hated that I liked it, but I liked it. “That uniform is working for you.”
“My fist will be working for your face if you don’t quit eye-fucking me,” I growled.
“You have a mouth from the gutter, that’s for sure.” Quinn held out his arm. “Come on, I’ll show you the dining hall. Walk in there on my arm and your social status will be a notch or two above amoeba. It’ll be a hoot, and I’ll even consider it one of your favors.”
I entertained Quinn’s offer for a moment. So far, he’d been the friendliest person I’d encountered today, which wasn’t saying much. He clearly wasn’t lying about his manwhore status, but he was one of the Kings, which meant that he could protect me. If he felt like it.
But that was just the thing. No way did I trust this guy, especially not when he was cut from the same cloth as Trey and Courtney. I didn’t want any part of their world, especially not if it meant trying to suck up to dicksome jerks like Trey.Especiallywhen I couldn’t earn merit points for it. I was here at Derleth for one reason only – to stay out of foster care, to get a scholarship to a good college, and build a new life for myself. Okay, that was three reasons. I shook my head. “No thanks. I’ll find it myself.”
I shoved past him. As I rounded the corner of the hallway, I dared a glance back over my shoulder. Quinn stood in at the top of the dark staircase, his elbow still jutting out in offer, a bewildered expression on his face.
* * *
I followed a group of junior girls across the quad to the dining hall, which was housed in the East Tower at the rear of the school. As I climbed the steps and entered under the arched wooden doors, my breath caught in my throat. The hall was straight out of a Harry Potter movie – a dark wood gothic ceiling arched high over rows of narrow banquet tables, set with gleaming silverware, crystal glasses, and candles in silver holders. The teachers ate their meals on a raised dais at the far end of the room below three screens that displayed the class lists. Delicious smells wafted from swinging kitchen doors, where a line of wait staff in grey uniforms emerged with large trays.
The only time I’d ever eaten meals served by a waiter was when my mom took me to Denny’s every year for my birthday. And Denny’s was nothing like this.
I scanned the room and noticed Loretta sitting at a table in the far corner. As I filed up the center of the room toward her, sniggers reached my ears from the tables on either side of me. I caught a few whispers of conversation, “… gutter whore… selling her services… they’ll let anyone in these days… bet she fucked the whole scholarship committee…”
Ignore them. Keep walking. They can’t do anything to you here where the teachers are watching, or risk losing their precious merit points.
I kept my head high and focused on Loretta. Just three more tables to pass. From the dais at the head of the room, Headmistress West loomed down, her dark eyes following my advance.
