Page 33 of Twisting Beauty

A teaching assistant slipped into the classroom and bent to whisper something into Powell’s ear. He straightened, glared across the room, and said, “I’ll be right back. No tomfoolery.”

Then he walked out, and the second the door shut, the room loosened like a leash had slipped.

Nuala’s gasp cut through the room so sharply my head snapped up.

Aoife stood with a beaker tipped in one elegant hand, pouring acid over Nuala’s open textbook while the pages shriveled and hissed into a smoking, toxic mess across the marble.

“Oops.” Aoife set the beaker down and flipped her hair, satisfaction dripping from every syllable. “Guess you’ll have to beg for a new one, Charity Case.”

Ciara laughed first. Emer followed. Elias leaned back to enjoy the show.

Something inside me snapped. Whatever thin, careful restraint I had left gave way all at once. Rua’s instincts, Deargán’s plan, my own fear, all of it dropped behind the single, blistering certainty that I was not going to sit there and let this happen.

My chair scraped back hard enough to turn heads before I was even fully standing. Then I crossed the room with every stare in the class snapping to me, my footsteps striking the stone in a rhythm that made the silence around us tighten.

Aoife was reaching for another vial, ready to pour it over what remained of Nuala’s things, looking pleased with herself.

I caught her wrist before she could complete the motion, my fingers digging into her perfect skin.

“Try that again,” I said, holding her gaze while her pulse beat wild under my fingers, “and I’ll make sure the acid melts your plastic face.”

Her eyes blazed with fury and shock. “Did you just threaten me, bitch? You’ll pay for that.”

“Oh no,” I said, sarcasm dripping from my lips, “I’m quaking in my boots.”

She tugged once against my grip and failed, which only made her angrier.

I took the vial from her hand and tipped it over with careful precision.

The acid hit her designer bag with a satisfying hiss, the expensive calf leather warping and bubbling, the gold clasp curling like dying leaves, letting out a chemical stench mixed with burning leather, fouling the air.

“My Birkin!” Aoife made a strangled sound, half gasp, half sob, as she stared as if her very identity was dissolving along with her precious bag. For the first time since she had opened her mouth, she looked genuinely wounded.

The room erupted in shocked whispers and gasps.

“You’re dead, freak,” she hissed at me, voice shaking with rage.

I dropped the vial into the widening crater of her purse and turned away from her like she was already beneath further notice.

Nuala sat frozen beside the ruined textbook, eyes wide and body locked tight with shock.

“There’s a seat next to me,” I said. “Come on.”

She nodded hard and grabbed what was left of her things with shaking hands before hurrying after me. The raw gratitude on her face hit somewhere deep in my chest and made it ache.

As we settled at my bench, I caught Lorcan’s reaction, his jaw flexing, muscles jumping beneath his skin. He hadn’t moved during the entire confrontation, but his eyes had never left me. Not once.

The force of his attention hit me all over again, dark enough to unsettle and hot enough to make my pulse stumble. Whatever had shifted in him while I stood there threatening mean girls and wrecking handbags had only sharpened.

Lorcan’s mouth curved across the room, slow and predatory, and there was nothing kind in it. Pride sat there. Possession sat there. So did a kind of dark approval that should have repulsed me. Instead, it sat like satisfaction in my chest.

Nuala slid onto the bench beside me, and dread climbed straight into my throat.

Shit. I had just painted a target on my own back and tied myself to the one girl in this room who knew I wasn’t who I claimed to be.

But I couldn’t bring myself to regret what I’d done.

Some lines were worth crossing. Some battles were worth fighting.