Nowthere’san idea.
“Ah, yes. Ms. Pavone.” Stringer leans back on his chair. “Please, have a seat.” He motions to the chairs next to me.
I shake my head. “Nah, I’m good here,” I say cheerfully. “So, you had some minor issue you wanted to talk to me about?”
Stringer’s eyebrows furrow. “Minor? Ms. Pavone, I’ve been in talks with the heads of other departments. You’re a disruptive presence here at Dyschord. Never mind your own academic failings, and?—”
“There are no academic failings,” I interject. “I got great grades, except for that bullshit biochem class.”
And even that had been a B-. Not amazing, but notfailing. How dare he even suggest that.
“Everywhere you go, chaos seems to follow,” Stringer finishes. “Do you need a list of everything you’re about to be expelled for?”
God, what is he even on about? Everything he says is boring. Half his words are gibberish.
“I’d love to hear your list!” I answer, shifting myself over to the other side of the desk.
Stringer pushes his chair away from me with obvious discomfort. “Sit down in a chair, Ms. Pavone.”
“No,” I say. “Go on. The faster you get this over with, the sooner I’ll be out of your hair. Or what’s left of your hair. You really don’t have enough hair to want me tearing out even a few strands.”
Stringer immediately reaches up for his bad combover before realizing what he’s doing. He squares his shoulders and glares at me through his frankly terrible glasses. I wonder if they wereeverin style, or if he found them on the side of a street somewhere.
“In your short months here, Ms. Pavone, you have terrorized countless students. Your brazenly sexual comments have made your classmates uncomfortable. You’ve threatened students. You broke into the science lab and stole their rats. You caused a scene at a party. You stabbed Mr. Declan Olford. You burned down the Kappa Alpha Omega Sigma house.”
Huh. If he’s been keeping track of all that, why hasn’t he said anything sooner?
“Wow, what a bunch of baseless allegations,” I say instead. “Who complained about me?”
Whose tongue did I need to cut out?
Snitches get murder.
“That’s not the point here,” Stringer says. “It is no longer tenable to keep you on as a student. Your presence is too disruptive.”
Mypresence.
“Funny,” I say, sliding closer to him. “You mentioned Declan. Why wasn’thispresence disruptive? Y’know, on account of how he raped one of my friends.”
Stringer tenses up, and he gets out of the chair to back away from me. “There is no proof of that, and I find your insinuations insulting. Dyschord University is an institution with integrity. Mr. Olford’s family is one with an outstanding reputation, and they’ve contributed to the community in many ways.”
“So they bribed you, is what I’m hearing.” I get up too, my hand going into my pocket.
Something on the computer monitor catches my eye.
There’s an email thread from Keegan Ackley. Subject line:Proof. I ignore Stringer’s protests and click on the thread.
The attachments are all videos.
The thumbnails show a naked woman, limbs pulled wide, words written all over her body.
Cunt. Whore. Slut.
Crazy.
My blood boils up and burns through my skin.
I turn to him. I don’t know how I can smile with the knives sawing through my cheeks, but I do it anyway.
