“Goodnight,” he says in that same tone, and he walks off.
I take a step toward Avery, and she pegs me with a look of such loathing I stop dead in my tracks. She tucks back into her room and shuts her door quietly, and I’m left with my own thoughts again.
* * *
My head is pounding with an intense headache from lack of sleep the next day. Aside from preparing myself for Joey’s next tantrum at me, I’ve put his little visit with Avery out of my head completely. She didn’t want my help when it happened right there in front of me, so I assumed she still wanted me to stay the fuck away from her—so it was a surprise to arrive at history and find her leaning against my desk.
Harley has a habit of getting to all his classes mere seconds before they begin, so he wasn’t the reason for her visit. I give her a cool look as I take my seat and gather my supplies.
“Something has been bothering me, Mounty, and I want some answers. I own the teachers at this school. I have since middle school, so how is it a lowly little scholarship student could override my instructions, hm? I’ve had a chat with Mr. Embley, and he nearly went into heart failure at my questions. It seems you’re now scarier than I am.”
She’s deflecting. She’s running interference so I don’t question her on her brother or her fucked-up family dynamics. I play along with her little game in the hopes that she’ll leave me alone so I can focus on Joey instead. “Did you know that money isn't the only thing that can influence people? Some people have other buttons, and all you need to know is where they are.”
She smiles slowly at me and Harley walks into the classroom. He frowns when he sees Avery speaking to me and hurries over to us both. “I'm well acquainted with manipulation. What I'm asking is how you did it.”
I drop my gaze down to the assignment I’m due to hand in today and I give it a once-over, even though I know it's perfect. Harley drops his bag onto the floor at my feet and stands over me with his hands on his hips, frowning. I look up and find Avery still staring at me with an expectant look fixed on her features.
“That is absolutely none of your business, but a word of warning: you should think twice about who you target at this school.”
Avery glances between Harley and me, and then smirks and takes her own seat. The teacher arrives and starts calling for quiet, and Harley drops down into his chair.
“The fuck was that about?” he whispers at me, leaning in so I’m drowning in his delicious smell. Would it kill the guy to be average for once and not smell like living ambrosia? Ugh.
“Just discussing tactics, nothing to worry yourself with. Your cousin is fine,” I whisper back as I breathe him in. I hope it’s not too obvious that I’m turning to putty over him again.
He shakes his head at me and goes back to his work, a small frown creasing his brow.
He doesn’t ask me again.
I think that will be the end of the confrontation with Avery, but once again, I’ve underestimated her. It’s another hard lesson to learn.
I walk into the sitting room in the girls’ dorms after dinner and stop dead when I see Avery holding my bag. Gritting my teeth, I curse under my breath at her. I should have known this was coming. I had seen too much and gotten too close to the Beaumont family once again. No good deed at this school goes unpunished.
She holds the lighter up, and I cringe.
It’s replaceable. I did the sums once, I can do them again, but they’re due tomorrow and I’d slaved away at the workbook for weeks. It’s the culmination of months of learning, and it’s worth seventy percent of my overall class mark. I’ll have to pull an all-nighter to have a chance of getting them done in time.
“I’m quickly learning that personal humiliation isn’t the way to get you out of here. I’m tempted to look into what happened to you at your Mounty school to make you so resilient, but who has the time for that, hm? You need a 3.75 GPA or higher to stay here, right? How low do you think flunking math will drop it?”
I shut my eyes and take a deep breath. When I open them again, she can see the resolution I’ve come to.
“Burn it, then.”
The flames eat the paper ravenously. Avery drops in into the bin, and soon the whole thing is engulfed in flames. The smile she gives me as she walks away is infuriating, but I give her my best serene face in return. There are things I know better than most about myself and the ways of the world. A night of no sleep won’t kill me. A week without food won’t kill me. Finding my mother's dead body rotting on my kitchen floor won’t kill me. A bullet to the shoulder won’t kill me. The bullying at Hannaford Prepwon’t kill me.
Chapter 20
Lunch is the only meal of the day that is at a set time for me. Since my drugging episode, I had started skipping breakfast and eating dinner at 10 p.m., right before the dining hall closes, and I am usually only ever joined by teachers. Still a risk, as I know Avery has most of the school staff under her impressive thumb, but there were only so many protein bars I could eat and meals I could skip. The small amount of weight I had put on is quickly disappearing off my body, and I miss my boobs already. I also miss the French toast with syrup and strawberries that are only served at breakfast. Ugh.
For lunch each day I select a sealed drink, either an iced coffee or a bottle of water, and a couple of apples and bananas. It’s barely enough to stop the intense hunger pangs in my empty stomach, and I still have to listen to the rumbling for most of the afternoon. To every other student, it looks like I’ve gone on a strict diet, which is common among the girls here. I know for a fact there are at least five girls I share the bathroom with that are vomiting after their meals in an effort to be supermodel thin. One of them even confronted me and asked my secret to being so small. When I answered poverty with a blank face, she snarled at me like a rabid dog. Calorie deprivation can turn even the nicest girls into bitches.
My phone pings as I sit, and I’m careful to keep my eyes on my food while I fish around in my bag to grab it and see what Matteo needs from me.
You never call to chat anymore.
I stare at the screen for a second while the other students around me eat and talk and laugh like normal teenagers. What I wouldn’t give to be one of them. To be worried about what my parents think about my grades, or what I’m going to wear to the next party I attend. Instead here I am trying to decipher obscure text messages from gangster kingpins while planning my next move against billionaire sociopaths.
I need to catch a break.
