She glances up and then crinkles her brow.
When she sees her brother close behind me, holding a book over his crotch, her brows practically go up to her hairline.
"What the hell are you two doing in here?"
"Discussing how you've always copied me, even as a child." Creed sweeps his bookbag up and levels a devastating glare on his sister. Most people would shrink back from that look, but Miranda barely blinks. She must be used to it.
“Because I wanted my hair cut short when we were five? That's me 'always'”—she makes little quotes with her fingers—“copying you?”
"I'm just saying, the first girl I've ever truly liked and you decide to go after her, too? You're the epitome of annoying little sister."
Miranda chucks a pencil at him, and he dodges, still covering his crotch.
"I'm ten minutes younger than you, you prick!"
Creed sweeps blond hair from his forehead, in the boys' version of a hair flip. He is disturbingly good at it.
"I have to go. Try not to make-out with my future girlfriend while I'm gone." He moves past us, and Miranda tosses another pen at him. This one nails him right in the back of the neck, and he pauses briefly to turn another earthshaking glare on her before he spins back around and gets the hell out of Dodge.
My body is on fucking fire.
Being seventeen sucks.
"What were you two doing in the shadowy aisles, hmm?" Miranda purrs, but I just sit down in the chair with a huff.
"Just kissing," I say, but I wonder … if we hadn't been in the library, and we hadn't been interrupted, how much farther would we have gone?With off-campus privileges restored, it's actually a possibility for us all to take a little trip into town together. I'm so nervous when we meet in the front courtyard … until I spot Zayd pretending to hump the statue of the stag. Or maybe he's trying to ride it? I'm not sure, but I'm already covering my mouth to hold back a snort of laughter when I walk around to the front of the fountain.
"Don't make a bet you know you can't win," Zayd crows, howling with laughter as he scrabbles up onto the deer's back, and gets out his phone. It's Saturday, and I swear, it's like an electronics frenzy sweeps the school when we all get our phones back. The addiction is real. He takes several pics of himself, and then notices me standing there.
"Zayd Warren Kaiser," I say, putting my hands on my hips. I've got on tight, dark skinny jeans, red leather boots that I stole from Miranda's closet, and a tight, corset-like top with little buttons down the front. I feel good today, confident, but now that I'm standing out in the brisk fall breeze, I'm wondering why I didn't bring a jacket. "What are you doing up there?"
"Uh, riding the stag?" he says, and then cringes when Ms. Felton's voice snaps out.
"Mr. Kaiser, climbing the courtyard statue is worth two marks. Get down from there right now." She marches up to the brick half-wall that surrounds the fountain and crosses her arms over her chest.
Zayd hops off the statue, but whatever stupid bet he just made, he's clearly won. Creed is scowling, so I'm figuring he was on the opposite end of this particular bet.
"Miss Reed," Ms. Felton says, noticing me standing there. She glances over at Creed and Zayd, and then pauses as Tristan Vanderbilt strolls in, dressed in black jeans, black boots, and a crisp black button-down with the sleeves pushed up. I do my best not to drool. "Is everything okay out here?"
"Everything's A-OK," Zayd says, swinging an arm around my neck. He presses a kiss to my cheek, and I raise a brow. "We're all friends now."
Ms. Felton doesn't look convinced.
In fact, even Mrs. Amberton pulled me aside the other day to check with me. Because I work so hard to block the bad memories, sometimes it's hard to remember that the entire academy staff saw me humiliated so badly. Nobody missed the Idols throwing my panties onto the stage. Nobody.
"I'm okay, Ms. Felton," I reassure her. Every day I hang out with these guys, I wonder though. What would happen if they betrayed me again? What would I do? But what I've realized now is that I'm so much stronger than I was before. No matter what they do to me, I can survive it. I can thrive.
And they better not because the second time around, my vengeance would be a hundredfold.
"Well, if you ever need privacy to discuss anything, you can see me in my office." She gives Zayd a very stern look and then heads for the doors of Tower One. The Towers are so beautiful, so medieval looking, their white stone sides stretching up into the sky. Twelve floors each, and the home of every single student in the school but me.
