Greg frowned. “You’re not going to hurt her, are you?”
“No…” A slow grin spread across my face. “Maybe a little bit.”
“I don’t like this, Hazel. Aren’t we just stooping to their level?”
“People like Courtney think they can get away with treating others like shit. They think that because we don’t have money or we’re not born white or we’re not straight or whatever, then we don’t count as human. The only way they will learn is if we turn that around on them, show them what happens when they become powerless. I promise I’ll do all the actual revenging. I just need you to make the formulations, and then I’ll have to figure out how to swap out—”
“If you’re intent on doing this, Andre might be able to help with that,” Greg said. “He’s got a friend on the maintenance staff.”
“He does?” I remembered I’d seen Andre gesturing to one of the women who worked in maintenance. Was that her? “Do you mean a lady friend? Is that why we hardly ever see him outside of class?”
“I think it might be,” Greg grinned. “He won’t talk about it, but I keep seeing him hanging out near the laundry chute, and he’s got a big dopey smile on his face all the time. Bet if it helps you he’ll finally spill the beans. I’ll talk to him about it tonight.”
“You mean you’re gonna help me?”
Greg swiped a hand through his blond hair. “I wish you’d just leave them alone. Things are good now. But I’m also not gonna let you do this by yourself, girlfriend.”
I hugged him. “You’re the best.”
“I know, honey.” Greg kissed the top of my head. “This is it, right? After we do this, you’ll call it even on the Queens?”
“Hell no. What we’re plotting right now is just the warm-up. I need something bigger, something that doesn’t just target Courtney but shows everyone at this school they can’t treat people like trash and get away with it. I just don’t know what it is yet.”
“Just don’t go getting yourself in deeper trouble. It may seem like we’ve got the protection of the three Kings right now, but that could change in a heartbeat.”
“I know. Don’t worry, we don’t need them,” I said with more conviction than I felt. “I don’t need anyone.”
* * *
When I said I didn’t need anyone, it wasn’t entirely true. I needed Ayaz to keep translating Parris’ book because I couldn’t read Medieval Latin. I needed Trey’s protection. I needed Quinn’s smile to make the long days go faster. And as much as I hated to admit it, I was starting to look forward to seeing the Kings, sitting next to them in class, feeling the jolts of fire when our arms brushed in the hall.
But just when I thought I might be falling for one of them, or all of them, just when I started to unclench my fists and let my guard down around them a tiny bit, I’d remember one of the horrible things they’d done to me, or get a flash of Ayaz fucking Ms. West, or recall the crossed-out photographs of previous scholarship students who they’d tormented.
I knew they should be included in my revenge plans, but what I didn’t know was if, when the time came, I’d be able to go through with it if it meant hurting them. Greg’s moralizing had started to rub off on me.
But I didn’t have to worry about that now. I was still focused on the Queens. I worked with Greg over the next week on perfecting three ‘concoctions.’ I loved that word because it made us sound like mad scientists cooking up something. In a way, we were – a plot to destroy Courtney.
For his mid-year chemistry project, Greg had decided to formulate a small makeup range – he’d already been experimenting with different recipes at his old school, but the faculty there had put a stop to his experiment. “They claimed it was because my work was potentially dangerous,” he told me. “But that’s not true. Some kids were making organic weed killers, which are way more toxic. The school didn’t want a boy making lipsticks.”
But at Derleth, no one cared what Greg did because they saw him as expendable. It was like we were cattle on a ranch. As long as the cows ate their grass and popped out babies, the farmer didn’t give much thought to their intellectual stimulation. At least it meant that no one asked questions when Greg wanted to spend extra time after class in the chemistry lab.
While Greg toiled with the chemicals, I snuck out of bed to rummage through the recycling. The maintenance staff cleared them first thing in the morning, and I needed to sneak my treasures back to my room without being seen. After a week, I had all the bottles and jars I needed. The Miskatonic Queens went through alotof beauty products.
I had everything I needed for phase two of Hazel’s revenge. All that was left to do was to countdown to D-Day.
Chapter Sixteen
“I can’t believe you’ve scheduled extra tutoring with Dr. Morgan during the movie night,” Quinn pouted over breakfast. “I was looking forward to snuggling with my girlfriend.”
The Eldritch Club was hosting a movie night tonight in the dining hall. Students could bring blankets and pillows from their dorm rooms, and instead of our usual fancy three-course dinner, the catering would be pizza and popcorn and fries. It sounded like fun. Too bad I was going to miss the first half. But I had a very good reason.
“Yeah, well,” I shrugged, popping a piece of bacon into my mouth. “It’s a pity both me and your girlfriend will be missing it, because I was really hoping to meet her.”
“Haha,” Quinn stuck out his lower lip. He still labored under the belief that if he called me his girlfriend enough times, it would be true. Although every time he said it, Ayaz’s back stiffened, which I… liked more than I wanted to admit. “Seriously, though, why are you worrying so much about your grades? You’re hanging out in the middle of the rankings. That’s better than most scholarship students could ever dream of. You should be kicking back like me.” He leaned back and tried to put his arm around my shoulders. I shrugged him off.
“What you call ‘kicking back,’ I call ‘being a lazy slug,’” I said. “Right now, I’m kicking Trey’s ass. I don’t want a bad grade on my Egyptian Pharaoh essay to ruin that.”
At the other end of the table, Trey snorted into his eggs. It was true that I’d pulled 35 points ahead of him, but only because he’d given me 500 of his own points to save me from being sacrificed. We both knew it, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to rub his dicksome nose in it.
