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Miss Amber ignores them and holds out her hand.
“Last name. Nice to meet you. What’s your name?”
I look at her hand for a moment and then back at her face. This is it. This is where I establish my dominance and let her know that I’m not here to mess around with her. I don’t want to be friends with Miss Amber. I don’t want to talk to her. I don’t want anything except to be left alone for the 55 minutes I get in this classroom.
“Pleasure,” I say, but I don’t take her hand. I also don’t tell her my name. Instead, I turn my back on her and head to a desk at the back of the room. She looks down a list on her desk and then back up to me.
“Harrison O’Conner?” She says. My head shoots up as I realize I’ve been caught. So she does know who I am. That’s not good. “Ah,” her eyes soften. “I thought so. Well, Mr. O’Conner, let’s get one thing straight, shall we? Your regular teacher is out all week. It’s just me and you and the rest of the class, and I’m happy to make this week wonderful or horrible, but that decision is yours. Treat me like shit again, and you’ll find out just how awful I can be.”
She grins sweetly at me, but my mouth feels dry and my tongue feels thick and swollen.
Shit?
Did my teacher actually just say shit in class?
She’s acting like it was nothing at all to say those words. She’s acting like it wasn’t a big deal to throw that out to me. The other students wisely keep their heads down.
“Understood,” I finally say, and she nods before turning back to her desk. She sits down and grabs a book. Then she starts looking at it. I can’t tell if she’s really reading or if she just doesn’t want to look at me, but one thing is for sure: I don’t need the new sub making my life worse than it already is.
I definitely don’t need to be pissing anyone off the week before Christmas break.
Chapter Three
Adalee
THE NEXT DAY, I’M SPACING off in math class. I don’t want to go “home” for Christmas. I don’t want to be locked up with Harrison for an entire two weeks. I’m literally counting down the days until the holiday, but it’s not because I’m looking forward to them. To me, this isn’t going to be some normal sort of Christmas break.
To me, this isn’t going to be a holiday where I’m running around and trying to buy presents for the people I love. Instead, it’s a time when I’m going to be hiding from Frank and pretending that everything is fine in our world. It’s going to be stressful and anxiety-driven, and if I had a choice, I’d find some other place to go.
The reality is that I have to keep pretending that I’m obeying Frank’s rules. If he suspects that I’m planning to run off after graduation and never look back, well, then there will be hell to pay. Not only will he cut me off entirely, but he’ll make sure I can’t attend any other school in the state. He’s a powerful man, and I have no doubt that he’ll do whatever it takes to make sure that if I break his rules, he’ll break me.
“Adalee!”
I look up sharply to see the entire class staring at me.
“What is it?” I whisper. The teacher looks beyond pissed. Angry doesn’t even come close to describing it.
“While I’m sure your daydreaming was important,” he coughs. “I’m certain it could wait until after class.”
“I’m sorry,” I say.
The teacher’s eyes don’t soften. He looks just as hard and pissed as he did a second ago, and he does not offer me his forgiveness. Instead, he poses a question.
“Would you like to try answering the question on the board?” He asks.
I look up to see a jumble of words, phrases, and equations carefully spread across the whiteboard, but none of it makes any sense at all to me. Is it supposed to? Am I supposed to understand what’s up there? Algebra has never exactly been my thing, but I’ve also never felt as lost as I do right now.
I know that I’m screwing up when a student beside me sighs audibly. Okay, so apparently, I was spacing out more than I thought I was.
“Miss Adalee, if you can’t answer this question, then how are you expecting to pass your final exams?”
“I’m sorry,” I shake my head, horrified. “I’ll review the homework after class.”
“You can review it after class in detention,” the teacher says, and he turns back to the board.
A murmur of shock and surprise comes through the class.
Detention?
