They were about to get a monarch.
The cafeteria doors swung shut behind me with a hiss that cut through the chatter like a blade. Every head turned—some subtle, some not. Forks froze mid-air. Phones dipped below tabletops, but the red recording lights still blinked like guilty fireflies.
I didn't head for the usual table in the corner where the broken and the banished huddled. No. I walked straight to the center island, the one reserved for the untouchables: Blair's crew, the lacrosse s, the kids whose parents owned yachts bigger than my house.
Shani flanked me left, her gold chain swinging like a pendulum counting down to detonation. Hayden materialized on my right, sliding in from the side entrance with a tray she didn't need—just backup with a side of sarcasm.
Nadia recovered first, her glossy lips curling into that signature smirk that had launched a thousand subtweets. "Jade Bryan, the prodigal peasant returns. Did community service finally teach you how to use a door?"
A ripple of laughter from her minions. Xavier leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, watching like this was his personal coliseum.
I set my matcha down—slowly, deliberately—right in the dead center of their table. The green liquid sloshed but didn't spill. Yet.
"Funny," I said, voice low enough that the tables around us had to strain to hear. "I thought peasants were the ones whocleaned up after the royalty's messes. Like glue. Like dye. Like the lawsuit your daddy's lawyers are sweating over right now."
Nadia’s smirk faltered. Just for a second. But I saw it.
Xavier stood, all six-foot-whatever of entitled muscle. "You got something to say, Nadia?”
I tilted my head, letting my new bob brush my jawline like a threat. "Oh, she will. But not here. Not where her little fan club can edit the footage to make you look like the villain and her the hero.”
Shani snorted. "Translation: not where she can cry assault when you and Jade verbally eviscerates her.”
A few tables over, someone whispered, "She said what we were all thinking."
I leaned in, close enough that Bianca could smell the mint on my breath. "You wanted me gone. You got your viral moment. But here's the thing about queens, Bianca—they don't abdicate. They abdicateyou."
Her jaw clenched. Good.
I straightened, scanning the room. The whispers had died completely now. Even the lunch ladies were watching from behind the sneeze guards.
"New rule," I announced, loud enough for the cheap seats. "Royal Oaks isn't your kingdom anymore. It's mine. And the first decree? Anyone who touches what's mine—my friends, my reputation, my car—it’s war.”
Chapter 7
LEO
I wasmid-conversation with Xavier and Tristan, half-focused, half-fuming over the newest round of texts about the exposé fallout when I heard the hush sweep through the quad.
The kind of hush that rolls in like thunder. Like awe.
I turned—and forgot how to breathe.
There she was.
Jade Bryan. Not the scholarship girl. Not some easy target with secrets to expose.
She didn’t look broken.
She looked... reborn.
Hair cropped sharp around her jaw. Eyes lined in kohl and shadowed with something fierce. She moved like a girl who didn’t come to survive. She came torule.
“She changed her hair,” Xavier said, biting off a grin. “Bad bitch energy activated.”
“She changedeverything,” I murmured.
And I swear, when she walked past us like we didn’t exist, I felt my fucking knees go weak.
