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There’s a darkness in Gabriel’s voice as he says, “I long ago gave up on letting other people dictate my life.”
Gabriel’s lyrics fill my head, the chorus to my favorite Octavia’s Ruin song, ‘Dance Macabre.’
You’re the Senator and I’m the slave.
Watch me dance for your amusement.
We’ll have a royal rave,
While Rome burns all around.
When Gabriel sings that song, there’s a bite to his words, a bitterness that seeps into every note. Suddenly, I have to dig. I need to know if what I feel when I listen to his music is real, or if it’s all an act he creates to sell records.
“So how come you’re here?” Our mixture fizzes, but doesn’t explode. I make a note on Gabriel’s table. “Surely you’d rather be in the studio or on tour rather than at school. It’s not like you need a high school diploma.”
Gabriel’s easy expression doesn’t change, but there’s a prickle in the air that wasn’t there before. “I know you’re a Ruins fan, Mac. You must have heard about Dylan.”
“I did. It’s terrible that he died. He was an amazing drummer, and I know he was your friend. But the band’s still together, right? You’ll find a new drummer and finish the album?”
Gabriel hums under his breath as he lights the Bunsen burner and rearranges the test tubes. “I haven’t decided. That’s why I’m here. Stonehurst is as good a place as any to figure out my next move, certainly better than enduring my parents back in England.”
“The music press is talking like you’re already hunkered down in a studio in Paris.”
“Yes. Well, they don’t know everything about me.” Gabriel rests his chin in his hands and stares into the flame of the Bunsen burner. A shadow hoods his eyes. It’s gone in an instant, but too late – I’ve seen it. I recognize it – the mirror image of a shadow that’s haunted me ever since the night Antony dug me out of my own grave.
It’s the shadow of regret and grief and misery so dark and so deep that it’s impossible to see a way out.
I nod. “I can relate to that.”
More than you can ever guess.
Gabriel flashes me that panty-melting smile, only this time it’s tainted by the melancholy in his eyes. And I see him as he truly is – not Gabriel the rockstar, but Gabriel the human raging over the death of his friend – and I understand just how much of his wildness is a mask.
Something happened the night Dylan died, and whatever it was, Gabriel’s here at Stonehurst trying to escape it.
Mackenzie
I balance my lunch tray on my knees and struggle to open my mayonnaise packet. It’s Monday of my second week at Stonehurst Prep, and I’ve got my routine down. I arrive at school just as the bell rings, avoid Eli, avoid Noah, peel pornographic stickers off my locker, nod hello to Gabriel in homeroom, go to class, stare blankly at the teachers as they blather on about stuff I don’t understand, eat my lunch in the bathroom, repeat the blathering and blank staring, sneak through the wooded area at the rear of Malloy Manor to escape the attention of press encamped by the gate, curl up with Queen Boudica and stare blankly at homework, try not to think about Eli, Gabriel, and Noah. Rinse, repeat, blah, blah, blah.
When the stupid tab refuses to tear, I hold it in my teeth and yank. My elbow bumps the tray, sending my fork skittering across the tiles.
“Fuck.” I may be the embodiment of pathetic right now, but no way am I eating with a fork that’s fallen on the floor.
“Here.”
I nearly jump out of my skin as a hand thrusts under the gap in the stall, holding a new, non-gross fork.
What the fuck?
“Shit.” I capture my tray in both hands before it slides off my knees. The fork hangs there. The fingers gripping it are thin, elegant, tipped with black-and-white striped nail polish.
I exit my stall and thump my fist on the next door. “Open up.”
There’s a click, and a few moments later the door swings inward, revealing a girl holding a tray. She stands up as I lean against the door, and I find that even with my medium height, she only just reaches my shoulder. She’s got chin-length hair dyed in streaks of blue and purple, all done in feathery layers, and emerald piercings through her pixie nose. I notice her white socks aren’t the uniform standard, but instead covered with tiny green aliens.
Her eyes widen as she takes me in. She looks exactly like the kind of person I’d expect to be eating in the bathroom. Which also means she’s fascinating to me.
“Um… hi, Mackenzie,” she says in a breathless whisper. “I...I grabbed an extra fork by mistake.”
