My smile is patient. “If I’m nothing, explain why you’re so obsessed with me.”
Mildred’s eyes flash.
She takes a solid step forward, and right behind her, Landon copies it, that step closer to her.
“Really, Mildred.” I cock my head. “Of all the seniors in this room, you are the onlygentrywho has made it the whole purpose of her existence to live for me.” That smile darkens on my face, just like the ugliness of hers stirs into a snarling look. “When you go to sleep at night, do you drift off to the dreams of being me—or beingwithme?”
The silence that follows is absolute.
It hangs over us for a heartbeat, two heartbeats, three heartbeats.
I swear, not even the fires crackle or the coffee machine whirs, nothing but thick, tense silence.
Then a scoff in the background.
Another quick to follow.
A snigger hidden behind a hand.
Then Serena’s perfect laugh escapes the alcove, and it triggers the rest of the laughter through the parlour.
There’s victory on my face, in my slick smile, but my insides are running cold as I watch Mildred turn into the darkest, deepest shade of purple I’ve ever seen.
Cutting through the booming laughs, Eric’s shout is strained, “That’s enough! Mildred, get ba—”
It’s all he manages to say before a gasp cuts through the room—because Mildred lunges at me.
The cry splits me.
I throw my hands up to protect my face.
The cluster of students at my back suddenly scrambles. I stagger back into an empty doorway, a fucking brick wall flying through the air right at me.
But so much happens in that one split second.
Oliver breaks out into a run for us, Dray’s hand lifts, as if about to throw a pulse of power our way, but it’s Landon who gets to Mildred first, because he was right behind her, an inch from her back, waiting.
She makes it a foot through the air before he tackles her right out of her lunge.
Mildred is barelled right into a wooden pillar, so hard that a crack of bone shudders and there’s a muffled shout before they both hit the floorboards, hard.
I don’t hang around to see what happens next.
The moment their bulking, strong bodies rattle the floorboards beneath my boots, I’m twisting around and running through the doorway.
I chase the false safety of my dorm room up the wooden stairs, down the corridor, and come crashing through the door.
I throw it shut behind me.
The commotion is enough to startle the only witch in the room.
Courtney flinches, throwing a startled look my way. Perched on the foot of her bed, curtains drawn, the highlighter pen stills on the pages of the textbook—and she blinks at me.
Then footsteps come pounding up the hallway.
I whip around, eyes wide.
My boots stumble over the floorboards, backstepping until the back of my knees hit the edge of my mattress, and I’m about to lose my balance when the door swings open.
