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Went to rehab at age fourteen.
Father is—
“What the fuck are you doing out here, Idaho slut?”
I jumped at the voice, slamming the notebook closed with a slap and keeping my hands wrapped around it.
Adena narrowed her eyes as she looked down at me. “Scared to eat in the dining hall? Mason had it right the first time. Trash like you really doesn’t belong in there. You’ll probably give everyone food poisoning.”
I tugged the elastic band over the front of the book, securing it closed. It bulged just a little in the middle, where the flash drive was stored. I cocked my head at Adena as I slipped the book back into the side pocket of my bag.
“Here I was going to say Mason was right the first time when he decided to break up with a bitch like you.”
Her expression hardened. “Whatever.”
“And if you guys really are back together, you might want to think about switching deodorant. Because from what I can tell, he doesn’t want to be around you at all.”
Fury flashed in her blue eyes, and I almost let myself smile. The side of my body still ached from where I’d landed when she pushed me down the stairs, and the bitch hadn’t even been sent to the dean for it. Maybe she would if I reported her, but from the sound of it, school admins only knew about the aftermath—about her confrontation with the Princes afterward.
But I knew from experience reporting her wouldn’t do shit.
She leaned toward me, getting in my face, her nostrils flaring like an animal about to attack. “Listen, trash slut. I don’t know why the fuck the Princes are so obsessed with you. I don’t know how you turned them against me. But I know the truth, whether they’ll say it or not anymore. You’re a piece of garbage, and you don’t belong here. You never will. Because all the money in the world can’t buy class.”
I flicked my gaze up and down, taking in her entire form. “Obviously not.”
“You think you’re so fucking cool? So badass?” Her voice was a low hiss, her lips curling back from her teeth. “You’re not. I saw you that day. Crawling and moaning on the ground like a fucking loser. Maybe Mason felt sorry for you or some shit, but you didn’t fool me. I’ll throw you out on the curb where you belong, and when you’re gone, he’ll fucking thank me. He’ll finally get it.”
My hands clenched at her casual reference to the flashback-fueled panic attack I’d had—something she had caused.
“Fuck off, Adena.”
I shoved to my feet and pushed past her, knocking into her shoulder hard as I passed. There was still twenty minutes left in the lunch period, and I’d rather spend it getting my fingernails pried off than staring at Adena’s ugly face.
Adena and a few members of her posse didn’t blindly follow the Princes’ directive to leave me alone. They still found little ways to poke at me, although I knew they were scared to push it too far. I wasn’t sure exactly what had gone down between the Princes and Adena after she pushed me down the steps, but whatever it was, it had been enough for them to get sent to the dean’s office—which was also apparently enough for her to think twice about openly attacking me again.
Not that it stopped her from finding subtler ways to get at me.
I ignored her. Until I could find a way to get even with her, she wasn’t worth my focus or time.
The maintenance man’s key card was kept safe in a drawer in my desk, but after getting trapped under the couch in Cole’s room, I was still working up the nerve to break into the remaining two Prince’s dorms. So for the next week, things actually felt relatively normal. I was able to focus on classes a bit more, which was probably good—my grades improved as soon as I started to apply myself.
Oliver and I went out on another date, but I was thinking seriously about ending whatever this thing was that we were doing. He was pushing to take things farther physically, but the more I tried to make myself feel something, to feel some spark of attraction, the less I felt.
Would that ever go away?
If I broke the Princes, if I tore them down and got the vengeance I’d been craving for months, would their hold on my soul vanish? Be erased somehow?
God, I fucking hoped so.
Then maybe when a normal, nice guy asked me out, I could actually enjoy it.
Part of the reason I hadn’t broken up with him already was because I still didn’t have a lot of friends on campus. Maggie a
nd Dan hung out in the Wastelands a lot, and if Leah wasn’t around, I’d join them sometimes. Dan was sweet and attentive with Maggie, which only made me feel shittier about being attracted to liars and assholes. There’d been a time when he first arrived at Oak Park last year when I’d thought Dan might’ve had a little crush on me. But I’d been so caught up in things with the Princes—first avoiding them and then spending time with them—that I hadn’t really ever looked at him that way.
Maybe it was for the best.
He was sweet, and Maggie was sweet. I wasn’t sure a guy like him could handle all of my baggage.
