Chapter 3 Ophelia
No one speaks to me, but the energy shifts the instant I cross the threshold.
Heads tilt; some faces twist with open disgust, others with the bland interest of someone watching a wasp crawl over their food, not worth the effort to swat just yet.
I glance past the faces, never lingering long enough to get stuck in any one person’s orbit.
Honestly, if I hadn’t starved myself all day just to avoid this, I wouldn’t even have come down for dinner, but I was hungry. Unfortunately, this fucked up place holds group dinners like a big, happy family. Everyone sitting in their spots, waiting to be served.
I half wonder if they’d serve me too or have me eat out of a bowl off the ground.
The Feral Boys, as I’ve heard them referred to as around campus, sit on a raised dais, an oak slab of a table reserved for them and their pack.
Five thrones—there’s no other word for them—with wood carvings crawling up the legs.
Caius Montgomery sits at the center, long black hair hanging along his jaw, eyes tracking me as I cross the space.
He does not slouch. He doesn’t need to. He is the axis that spins the whole fucking room.
To his right, Colton—silent, unblinking, with the kind of stillness that looks accidental until you realize it’s anything but.
Rhett to the left, blonde and louche, the kind of beautiful that’s always bored because nothing surprises him.
Bam, at the far end, is already half out of his chair, one tattooed arm braced against the table like he might hurl it across the room just for the sound it would make.
Next to him, Julian looks like he’s waiting to be painted, bored and self-amused, lips always on the edge of a sneer.
Yes, I did make it a point to study each of them today at the library, taking notes on who is who.
Considering they were all at the meeting, I figured they’d be important to my survival here in one way or another.
The five ‘sons’. The chosen ones.
No one invites me to their table, but then again, I wouldn’t fit in even if they had.
My place is at the margins, a perimeter seat near the window, where the drafts are constant and the view is just fog and the vague suggestion of forest beyond the windows.
I sit, making sure not to shrink or hunch.
Posture is one of the only weapons I have.
As I settle, the silence shifts. I feel it ripple from the dais outward. Caius hasn’t moved, but his gaze is dark, pinning me in place. I pretend not to notice, focusing instead on the napkin, the way the thread at the edge is already coming undone. Cheap polyester, not linen.
The tables slowly fill in waves—first the legacy kids, all groomed and gleaming in their school jackets, then the lessers, then the scholarship cases. You can see it in the haircuts, in the shoes, in the way they fold themselves into chairs at my table like they’re afraid to break the upholstery.
Someone giggles behind a hand. Someone else mutters, “Debt girl,” not even bothering to lower their voice. I breathe slow, in for four, out for eight. My hands go flat on the table, knuckles white, but at least they aren’t shaking.
The servers file in, gliding two by two, their robes so dark blue they look black until they pass under a torch.
They don’t look at the students, not even the ones who try to trip them or drop trash into their apron pockets.
At my table, they set down a plate with a single scoop of mashed potatoes and a fist-sized cutlet of something fried, no garnish.
Across the aisle, a girl with a sapphire ring on her pinkie gets a rack of lamb.
She stabs it with a fork and lets the juices bleed onto her plate.
I don’t look up, not even when the skin at the back of my neck crawls from being watched. If I meet their gaze, I’ll give them what they want: a reaction.
The boy at the end of my bench nudges his friend and points. “Looks like she gets the peasant special,” he says. He’s not wrong.
I want to eat, but my throat is a clenched fist. I focus on my food, carving it into perfect pieces, then arranging them in a neat circle. I tell myself I’m building a barricade, not stalling.
From the front, Colton speaks. The noise in the room softens a notch.
“Scholarship case sits with the other losers. Fitting for someone wearing the clothes someone’s dead grandma wore.” His voice is raspy, deep, no real contempt, just the delivery of a fact. He wants me to respond.
I don’t.
But Rhett, of course, can’t resist. “Maybe her family couldn’t afford new clothes. Maybe they rent them out by the hour down at whatever flea market she grew up in.” He leans forward, elbows splayed, like he wants to inhale the humiliation.
I wait for the laugh track, but even here, not everyone is up for open bullying on the first night. The room fills with the tense, carbonated silence of an audience waiting to see if the freak will bite.
I’m not a freak. I’m just very, very alone.
Julian tips his glass toward me, an ironic toast. I imagine his words before he says them, and sure enough: “To the brave, the bright, the utterly unremarkable. May you last longer than the last one.”
Colton is staring, not at my face, but at my hands. I fold them into my lap, then immediately regret it. It’s a tell. I move them back to the table, picking up the fork and knife, and start eating even though the taste is glue and salt.
It’s not the food that makes me gag, but the attention.
Bam yawns, loud and genuine. “Are we done? Can I go beat the shit out of someone now?”
Caius doesn’t answer. He just watches. A full minute passes before he finally moves—a slow lean back, arms folded, one boot angled against the rung of the table. I feel his eyes track every twitch of my face.
I chew. Swallow. My jaw hurts.
Then, without warning, he gives Colton a look. A twitch of the eyelid, so small you’d miss it if you weren’t staring as hard as I am.
Colton stands. He doesn’t raise his voice, but the quality of the silence changes around him, so every word lands clear.
“I believe our new arrival is supposed to be grateful to her benefactors,” he announces. “Tradition demands it.”
There is a script, I realize, and I’m only just now catching up to my line.
My fork is cold in my hand. I don’t want to play, but I also don’t want to lose before the first act.
Colton points at me with a single, precise finger. “Up.”
The table blurs at the edges, but I rise anyway. My legs are steady. I hope they can’t see the way my toes curl inside my boots.
He gestures to the center aisle. “There, on the bench.”
I cross the room, every eye on me. The whisper current gets louder.
She’s going to do it?
She has to, right?
It’s tradition.
I stand on the bench, looking out over the sea of faces. From this height, I can see the glint of the serving knives and the way some of the students have already lost interest, heads bowed over their plates, while others are alive with hunger, eyes wide, waiting for the show.
Colton gives another nod.
I wait for the command.
For a moment, no one speaks. Everyone else at my table looks down at their pathetic meals.
I keep my hands at my sides and force myself not to wipe my palms on my jeans.
I’m still standing, higher than almost anyone else in the room, but it doesn’t feel like power; it feels like standing in front of a firing squad and watching them load the rifles.
Colton clears his throat, but it’s Rhett who takes the spotlight, all teeth and dimples, his tongue flicking at the corner of his mouth as he talks.
“Tradition, tradition,” he croons, standing and pushing his hands out in a sweeping motion. “When a girl of no means is offered a seat at the table, she must show proper gratitude. Not just for herself, but for her entire defective bloodline.”
Laughter, nervous and mean, rattles the cutlery. I set my jaw.
He addresses me directly. “You’re supposed to say it, you know. The Oath of the Unworthy.”
I search my memory. I’ve heard rumors about it, something that started as a joke, now codified into ritual humiliation.
The lines come to me, half-remembered from some gossipy website about legacy schools.
I could refuse, but the only thing worse than performing is not performing, and I already know how these things escalate when you try to fight them.
I square my shoulders, make my voice even, flat.
“I, Ophelia Morrow, daughter of a fuck-up, swear on my poverty and bad genetics to uphold the dignity of Westpoint Academy.” I pause for effect, and a snort comes from the back of the room.
Bam leans forward, fingers steepled under his chin. “Louder, love. The ghosts of the founders are hard of hearing.”
I raise my voice. “I pledge to keep my mouth shut, my legs crossed, and my hands clean, even if I was raised by a whore.” The words don’t fit my mouth, so I spit them out like bile.
The laughter is sharper this time. I catch a look of honest surprise from a girl near the window. Maybe she expected me to crack.
Rhett gives me a slow clap, then turns to Caius. “Your move, boss.”
Caius doesn’t react, not yet. His fingers tap the rim of his glass, one… two… one… two. His eyes are unreadable, but there’s a darkness there that makes me shiver.
Bam is next. He stands, looming, shoulders bunching under his blazer. He lifts a goblet from the table—something viscous and brownish inside. He walks it to me, holding it out. The liquid sloshes, splattering my boots. It smells like vinegar and something worse.
“Drink,” he grunts.
I meet his eyes. They’re cold, metallic, a shade of steel you only see in hardware stores and old wounds. I don’t break the stare as I grab the cup. The room is dead silent now, every breath waiting for me to gag or refuse.
I sip. The taste is chemical, burning. I force it down, counting the seconds until my stomach lurches and decides not to revolt. My tongue is numb, but my pride is intact.