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They were all juniors, and in all honesty, I hadn’t paid much attention to them when I’d been a student here before. The old Cora had been too involved with her elite circle of friends and her social obligations to pay attention to much else. Not that I’d been a bully—I’d just been enmeshed in my own world and hadn’t ventured outside of it to make friends.
And by the expressions on their faces, none of these girls were looking to make friends either.
“Well, well. Look who it is. Little ghetto Cora, from the wrong side of the tracks,” one of the girls crooned. Her red hair was stick straight, cascading over her shoulders like a silk ribbon, and her lips were twisted in a cruel smirk.
I grimaced. If they seriously thought a few taunting words were going to break me, they didn’t know shit. After what I’d been through in the past several months, it would take a hell of a lot more than that to rattle me.
Rolling my eyes at the pack of mean girls, I moved to sidestep them. But as I did, the redheaded girl stepped into my way again. We almost collided as I stopped short, anger flaring inside me.
“You’re not shit, Cordelia Van Rensselaer,” she hissed. “We all know your daddy still deserves to be in prison. And now he’s trying to pretend he’s still fucking relevant when everybody in Baltimore knows what a piece of trash he really is. What trash your whole family is. He thinks marrying you off to a family that’s actually got a decent pedigree will make a difference, but somebody needs to tell him that a polished piece of shit is still shit.”
Acid sloshed in my stomach, and something white-hot poured through my veins like molten metal.
It wasn’t her jabs against my father. It wasn’t even her jabs against me. But the mention of my arranged marriage to Barrett, the fact that the ruination of my life was fodder for this bitch’s entertainment?
No.
Fuck, no.
The thought had barely implanted in my brain before my body was moving. My fist drew back and flew forward so fast she never even saw the punch coming until it caught her on her left cheek, sending her stumbling backward.
Pain radiated up my arm like a jagged bolt of lightning, but just like it had after my mom had slapped me, rage filled my body with a feral sort of strength. Keeping my throbbing hand balled into a fist, I went after her again, sending the rest of the junior girls scattering like leaves in the wind as I caught the redhead on the jaw this time.
If we’d been at Slateview, no one would’ve interrupted the fight—except maybe the Lost Boys. They’d been the ones to maintain order in those halls, ruling by fear and keeping the peace by putting down anyone who overstepped.
But this wasn’t Slateview.
Before I could even get a third hit in, several classroom doors burst open around us, and no fewer than three teachers rushed forward to pull me and the girl apart. I was panting and glaring at her, but the rage that’d flared faded enough for me to realize what I’d done, and I shook my hand out as Mr. Duprey, a political science teacher, glowered down at me.
“How about a visit to the dean, Ms. Van Rensselaer? Now.”
The redheaded girl smirked at me, dabbing at her lips with her fingertips. She reminded me a little of Serena, the girl who’d gone out of her way to torture me at Slateview until the Lost Boys had taken me under their wing. Apparently, bitchiness was a personality trait that transcended wealth or social class.
“Yeah,” I muttered. “Sure.”
Mr. Duprey escorted me personally to the dean’s office, and when the secretary ushered us inside, he explained that he’d caught me fighting in the halls.
Dean Clavier, an older man with a neatly trimmed beard and expensive, stylish glasses, nodded. “Thank you. I’ll handle it.”
As Mr. Duprey left, the dean waved at the chair in front of his desk, studying me carefully as I sat down. I didn’t like the way he was looking at me—as if he thought he knew me. As if he thought he understood me.
He didn’t. I was sure of that.
“Cordelia.” He pressed his lips together, shaking his head slightly. “I wondered if I might be seeing you in my office. After everything you’ve been through, I can’t say I’m all that surprised to see you acting out.”
I gritted my teeth at his simplistic, condescending assumptions about my behavior, but kept silent.
He didn’t seem to require a response anyway. Keeping a firm but patient expression fixed to his face, he continued.
“I know it must be quite a… culture shock to be coming back to our academy after spending a semester in a public school like Slateview. But I have to warn you, Ms. Van Rensselaer: what was acceptable at that institution will not fly here. There are rules that must be followed here, not the least of which is our insistence on decorum and non-violence. Hitting another student is a violation of everything Highland Park stands for.”
I didn’t bother telling him that there were plenty of things that happened inside these walls that went directly against what Highland Park “stood for,” and when I still didn’t speak, Dean Clavier leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk and threading his fingers together.
“I know you’ve been adjusting to being back, so I’ll let you go with a warning—one warning. That’s all you’ll get, and if this happens again, there will be very serious consequences that could affect your future at this institution. So bear that in mind next time you think about getting in a fight.” He sighed, shaking his head. “I know you probably think of yourself as ‘tough’ and want to prove to everyone that you are. Street cred, I think you call it? But you’re going to have to give that notion up if you want to continue to do well here.”
I blinked at him, my face pulling into an unconscious grimace as I absorbed his words.
He was wrong. I didn’t think of myself as tough, and I wasn’t trying to prove anything to anyone.
