This is fuckingwild.
I toss my phone to Gabriel. “Take my picture.”
Gabriel leans back and snaps a few shots. I grin. “Text it to Antony. He’s in my contacts. He’s going to bepissedat me.”
“Who’s Antony?” Gabriel asks. I shake my head at him and plant my foot hard against the floor.
I take the off-ramp and tear up Santa Casilda Drive, taking the corners as fast as I damn well please. I laugh as the adrenaline surges in my veins, and Gabriel looks at me like I’m mad and he can’t decide if he’s terrified or turned on by it.
I could drive around in this car all night, but we have a job to do. Reluctantly, I turn around and head back toward the city, toward Stonehurst Prep.
We pull up into the school parking lot. There’s no one around, either. Noah paid off all the school security guards to make themselves scarce for the night. Eli and Noah go to the bushes where we hid the tools we need, and lay them out on the ground in front of the car.
I pick up a wrench and grin at my conspirators. “Let’s get to work.”
* * *
By the timeI get home and crawl into bed, it’s nearly 3AM. Queen Boudica lifts her head from the pillow and shoots me a ‘what-time-do-you-call-this’ look. I cradle her against my chest and fall asleep listening to her steady purr. It reminds me of the purr of the Mustang’s engine.
When my phone alarm rings, I throw it against the wall. But five minutes later I drag myself awake. No way do I want to miss school today.
I pull on my uniform, cake on makeup to hide the dark circles around my eyes, and pour myself a thermos full of coffee. I walk down to the corner where Eli’s waiting for me in the Porsche. He looks as shit as I feel.
“You brought coffee?” He holds out his hand.
“Get your own.” I sip from the thermos as we cruise around Harrington Hills toward Stonehurst.
Eli stops at a drive-thru and grabs a ridiculous coffee with whipped cream and caramel. It smells a hundred times better than mine. He slurps it happily as we drive into school.
Dick.
George, Gabriel, and Noah are waiting beside Eli’s parking spot. Noah has his hands in his pockets. He looks a little less put-together than usual, his dark hair rumpled, his shirt collar askew. The dark circles under his eyes only make him look more dangerous.
Beside him, Gabriel bounces on the balls of his feet, his shirt open to reveal his butterfly tattoo swirling around his regal neck. George looks between us, confusion written across her features.I hope she likes our surprise.
“We waited for you.” Gabriel throws open my door and tugs me out. “Hurry that sweet arse up, would you, Mac?”
Gabriel links arms with me and George, dragging us toward the entrance. All around us, voices swirl with laughter, with shock and surprise, as the word of what we did spreads through the student body.
We pass under the colonnade into the main courtyard. It’s so crowded with students craning for a look that it’s impossible to see a thing. Noah glares around us until people step aside and let us through.
“Mackenzie, is this some kind of—” George’s eyes widen, and her hand flies to her mouth as she lets out a whoop. “Is that… Alec’s car?”
“It sure is,” I beam.
Alec LeMarque kneels on the cobbles, his head in his hands, while students toss spitballs at him and snap photographs of his shame. In front of him, in the middle of the quad, is his beloved car, taken to pieces and perfectly remade again – only now, there’s a statue of Leda and a swan growing right through the middle of it, so the swan appears to be driving with its beak.
In her hands, Leda holds a picture. It’s a photograph taken by accident on my phone as it was flung into the sand, and then saved automatically to my cloud account. It shows Alec, his face carved in cruelty, as he leans over a girl held against the hood of a car. You can’t see her face, but she’s clearly not enjoying herself.
Beneath the picture are the words, “Alec LeMarque hurts women. So we fucked up his shit.”
38
Mackenzie
Ihit reply on the video again, slowing down the speed to watch Alec’s face as a student captures his humiliation on their camera phone. Nothing ruins a self-centered fame-whore like Alec better than a public scandal.
The images are plastered all over social media, and just as I suspected, stories have started to come out about his treatment of female co-stars and producers. There are rumors the police will open an investigation. Two major film projects dropped him from their cast, his agent fired him, and many say they’ll never work with Alec LeMarque again. Principal Foster sent around an emergency announcement declaring he’s been expelled from school and offering counseling services to anyone victimized by him. Even his own father has taken to Twitter to denounce his son and publicly cut him off.
