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I was fuming. I was angry for myself, for Hannah behind me, and for life throwing this in my face. For Ray, who had to put up with this bullshit, and for the girls getting trapped in here with sleazy men and sharp-tongued women.
How was any of this fair? Hannah was saying something behind me, but I couldn’t hear her through my fury. Years of suppressed rage, brewing to a boil, now focused on this blonde snake in front of me. She may not be a Kingsnake, but she was a serpent just the same.
I pushed against her shoulders, shoving her backwards. “Who the hell do you think you are, talking to me like that?”
Laura stumbled, but quickly regained her balance. “Your superior, bitch. And you might as well get used to it, because you’re going to be under my thumb for a long time. The first thing you’re going to do is go to Brother Brutus and tell him a mistake has been made, and that we’re switching brothers.”
I took a step closer. “And if I don’t?”
She smiled, her yellowed teeth at odds with the rest of her carefully curated self. “Honey, I’ll make your life a living hell.”
I smiled back. “Good thing it already is.”
I turned to the side, eyeing the other girls watching carefully, and giving Laura a chance to step closer. Once I heard her clattering footsteps, I swung my leg behind her, catching her off guard on her too-tall heels, and she tumbled to the floor with a loud thump of her ass.
Laura glared. “You fucking bitch!” she screeched. “You’ll be sorry for this.”
“Just try me, Barbie. Fucking try me. You’ll be dead before you lay a finger on me.” Hannah was pulling me backwards, telling me to be quiet, but it was too late. We had already drawn a crowd, everyone eager to see who the new girl was fighting with.
Unfortunately, included in that crowd was Brother Tybalt. “What the hell is going on here?” he thundered, scowling at all of us through his heavy bone mask. “It’s not even noon, and I’m having to clean up a fight?”
Laura looked up at me with a knowing glance, and immediately turned to Tybalt with tears in her eyes. “It was all the new girl, Brother Tybalt! I came down for breakfast, and she just got all feral and crazy and told me she was going to kill me!”
God, I had forgotten how well some girls could play the game. “That’s not even remotely true.” But even as the words left my mouth, I knew it didn’t matter. I was standing, Hannah pulling me back, as Laura lay sprawled on the floor. I knew how it looked.
Brother Tybalt glared at me. “It’s your first day, and you can’t even keep it together? Isolation time for you. Maybe you’ll learn to behave on day two.”
He reached for my arm, wrapping a tight hand around my bicep. I immediately pushed him away.
“Don’t fucking touch me,” I snapped. The girls had backed up, giving us a wide berth. At my words, they gasped.
“Excuse me?” Brother Tybalt’s voice was eerily calm. “Did you just speak back to a Kingsnake?”
I wasn’t sure what the rules were here – Hannah and I obviously hadn’t gotten that far – but I was pretty sure I had just broken a big one. It was too late to do anything but double down now. “And if I did?”
The anger in Tybalt’s gaze simmered into something else, something I regretted immediately. He grabbed my arm again, pulling me through the crowd of girls as I dragged my feet, attempting to slow him down.
“I’ll teach you a lesson in respect, that’s what. Brutus will have my head, but it’ll be worth it to enlighten the new girl in how we do things around here.”
“You’re not going to touch me,” I hissed, trying to pull away before he could reach the stairs.
Tybalt turned around, ready to snap something at me, but his eyes widened. I could only imagine what he saw behind me, but I hoped like hell it was enough to save my ass.
“Brother Tybalt, what the hell are you doing with my female?” Ray snarled.
Saved was one word for it.
