“Why would I choose someone else? You’re doing great. You’ll get an A+ for this assignment. Now, pretend you’re a rapist. Lunge at this girl.”
The ‘r’ word sings in the air, heavy with the scent of blood. Alec crawls to his feet. He can barely stand. Antony cracks his knuckles again, and fear flickers in Alec’s eyes as he lurches toward George.
For a moment, she’s frozen, and I know she’s not seeing Alec as he is now, but she’s remembering another night, another time he lunged at her and put his hands on her without permission.
“Ms. Fisher.”
The authority in Antony’s voice snaps George from her trance. She moves her body, although I’m not sure she’s even aware she’s doing it. Antony’s behind her, touching her shoulder as he instructs her.
Alec grabs George’s arms, and the look on his face is pleading. But there’s no mercy here. He took that from George when he hurt her. She snaps her body around, so his momentum carries him forward, where her upturned knee connects with his crotch with a satisfyingCRUNCH.
“Yusss!” I punch the air. “Go George.”
“A classic move,” Noah observes with a wry smile. “She’s learned from the best.”
Alec’s on the ground, moaning, but George has more she wants to say. She kicks him in the side, then again. She doesn’t stop kicking. Her face twists into this misshapen roar, and all that is the George I know disappears, and a monster takes over. A monster that Alec LeMarque made.
Cleo keeps looking at Antony like she expects him to call George off, but he simply smiles and taps his foot. Tears roll down Alec’s cheeks, and blood spurts from his nose and a cut above his eye. But still, George keeps kicking.
Antony moves around the room until he’s standing next to us. “Here’s a plot twist for you,” he whispers. “It turns out Brentwood wasn’t our mystery gunman after all.”
“Oh yeah?” I lift an eyebrow. “It was bothering me how messy that was. It didn’t seem like Brentwood’s style. Please tell me it’s not Brutus.”
“It’s not him. Old Brutey Boy is still AWOL.” Antony nods to the prone body of Alec LeMarque. “Your friend Alec purchased a rifle last month. The model matches the bullets I pulled out of the wall.”
“Shit,” Noah says.
“I admire his cajones. I didn’t think he had it in him.”
“Anything he had in him is not in him anymore,” Antony chuckles. “Consider this an early birthday present.”
So Antony was the one who let Alec back in. I wish he’d told me – that was just like my cousin, storming ahead with his own agenda, believing he knew best. It never occurred to him to warn me I might see my would-be rapist in the halls.
I had to applaud his execution, though. I know exactly what my cousin is doing with this little display – showing Alec and the rest of this school who’s really in charge.
It’s working.
George staggers back, wiping Alec’s blood from her face. She slumps, coming back down from the adrenaline I know is coursing through her. She’s never looked more beautiful – a warrior goddess restoring balance to the world. As Alec crawls to his feet, blood streaming from his nose, his friends step away from him. Even Cleo wrinkles her nose in disgust. Message received.
She may not really be here, but Mackenzie Malloy’s reputation at Stonehurst Prep just got dangerous.
18
Claudia
“Soooooo… can we talk about homecoming plans?” George slides her tray across from mine. She’s gone crazy on the desert bar today, stacking three slices of different flavored cheesecakes one on top of each other to form a diabetic Tower of Babel.
“Homecoming?” The word snaps me out of thoughts of Brentwood lying in his bathtub with Malloy pills shoved down his throat. I vaguely recall announcements about a dance, and a line outside the cafeteria a couple of weeks ago that blocked access to my preferred lunching bathroom.
“Yeah. It’s this weekend. I mean, obviously, you know that, because you’re going to be cheering at the big game. I’m not going because…” George gestures to herself. “Obviously.”
“Because you’re intellectually superior and have no desire to waste your precious brain cells intermingling.” I glare at her. “Becauseobviouslythat’s the only possible meaning to your comment.”
George stares at her food. “On Saturday, there’s a cult horror festival at the Beaumont Theatre.Happy Birthday to Me,Tokyo Gore Police,Society,Army of Darkness, Braindead, Suspiria. I thought maybe we could go together… unless you’re planning to go to the dance? You might want to find out if you’re the homecoming queen.”
“Excuse me…what?”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t know.” George flips her phone around to show me the homecoming dance news on the school app. There are instructions for parking at the game, the words to the school song, details about the venue, and a place to vote for the homecoming court. Noah, Gabriel, and Eli are on the list for king. My eyes bug out as I look at the list for homecoming queen. There’s Cleo, of course, and a couple of other popular girls.
