Let them wonder if I’d finally snapped.
Let them guess what I was going to do next.
Because for once, I wasn’t broadcasting my next move. I wasn’t playing defense anymore.
I was here to playchess—and this queen never waits to be protected.
A boy I didn’t recognize leaned against the lockers two rows down. Clean-cut. New money, probably. He looked me up and down like I was a dare.
I met his eyes and tilted my head slightly.
He looked away first.
Check.
The bell rang, but I didn’t rush. Royal Oaks revolved around punctuality, decorum, appearances. I took my time, strolling into English Lit five minutes late with an apology on my lips and steel in my spine.
Even the teacher paused.
“Miss Bryan,” she said carefully. “How nice of you to join us.”
“It’s Jade,” I replied, sliding into my seat like the throne it was. “Let’s not pretend you forgot.”
The girl behind me dropped her pen.
A few students snickered.
The teacher didn’t press it.
Because no one wanted a PR disaster on their hands. Not after what happened. Not after the headlines. The screenshots. The legal warnings Tristan and Xavier’s teams had already fired off like warning shots.
This school knew what I was now.
Unbreakable. Untouchable.
And mad as hell.
By lunch, a full perimeter of whispers followed me everywhere I went.
Blair glanced up from her perfectly packed bento box and visibly flinched.
Leo was across the quad, arguing with Xavier, hands buried in his hair, looking like he hadn’t slept. His gaze snagged on me for a half-second.
But I didn’t stop.
Didn’t smile.
Didn’tlookback.
Not when Shani handed me a matcha latte and said, “Whole school’s glitching like it saw a ghost.”
Not when Hayden textedProud of you. Just don’t punch anyone on camera.
And definitely not when I saw the new posters in the student center—“Royal Oaks: A Tradition of Excellence.” Featuringmyface, carefully retouched, standing on the soccer field like I hadn’t been driven off it in humiliation just three weeks earlier.
Oh, the irony.
They wanted a mascot now?
