Courtney was clearly supporting Loretta to live here as a Queen. But why? She wouldn’t be doing it out of the goodness of her heart. So what was Loretta’s end of the bargain?
I shuffled through her bookbag and the stack of things on the desk, hunting for the battered journal Loretta carried everywhere. She used to hide it in the gap between our desk and the wall. It might’ve rankled another roommate, but we both knew that when you were poor you hid your precious things.She’s probably still hiding it. Old habits die hard. Maybe under the mattress or—
“Hello, Hazel.”
I whirled around, banging my head on the overhead shelves. Loretta sat in the middle of the bed, the blanket pulled up to her chin so she looked like a ghost rising out of the mattress. She fixed me with a vacant gaze that sent a chill down my spine.I swear she wasn’t there a moment ago.
“Loretta, hi.” I rubbed the top of my head. “You scared me.”
Above Loretta’s head, a ratscritch-scritchedbehind the wall.
“Why are you scared?” Loretta asked in a flat, uninterested voice. “You’rethe one sneaking aroundmyroom.”
“Yes. So, about that… I was…” I searched around for a suitable story, but Loretta’s blank stare unnerved me. I shrugged. “Yeah, I got nothing.”
Loretta didn’t reply. She kept staring at me with dead eyes.
Dead eyes…
“So…” I said, shoving my hands into my pockets and taking a step toward the bed. “We haven’t really talked since this quarter started. How do you like your new room?”
“It’s fine.”
“I saw that you aced the English test the other day. Congrats! I messed up all the Shakespeare questions. I can never make sense of his thees and thous.”
Loretta’s blank expression was starting to creep me out.
I sighed. “You know you could hang out with us if you wanted to, right? We miss you, especially Greg.”
Loretta’s eyebrow twitched.That got a reaction. Interesting.I pressed on. “I can’t pretend to understand everything that’s going on with you right now, but I want you to know that I’m here if you ever need a friend.”
“We’re not friends,” she said in her flat voice.
“Yes, fine, we’re not friends,” I snapped. “But I still won’t let the Queens get away with what they did to you.”
“They gave me all this.” Loretta gestured to the room.
“Yeah, but they took so much more from you.”
“If you say so. A word of advice,” Loretta’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t mess with Courtney.”
I smiled innocently. “Who, me?”
“You had your fun with the superglue, but don’t try anything else. It won’t end well for you.”
“Thanks for the creepy warning,” I shrugged. “But I can handle Courtney.”
“No, you can’t. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re invincible just because you came from thehood. They’ve got power over you that you can’t even…” She shook her head. “Forget it. Just get out and leave me alone. Go join yourboyfriends.”
She spat out the word with such venom, a surge of anger rose inside me.Fine, I won’t try to help you. I turned away from the bed and stalked toward the door. Rats scritched overhead. My hand closed around the handle and a rush of regret hit me. I was the queen of lashing out at people when I was scared. I should have learned to recognize it in others.
“I know what happened to you,” I said, still facing the door. “I know about the deity beneath the school, and what it demands of its loyal servants. But it’s not invincible. Something about me hurts it. I’ve felt it cry out in pain, and it’s a terrible thing to behold. That means there’s still hope. We’re hunting for a way to fix things, to give you and everyone else back what was stolen. Loretta, I’ll b—” I turned around.
A scream caught in my throat.
Loretta had vanished. The bedsheets were pulled tight and straight, as if she’d never been there at all.
Chapter Seventeen
