Chapter 6
JADE
They stare like they’ve never seen a girl in black before.
Like I’m supposed to show up crying, still dripping lemonade and humiliation.
But no.
I walk through those stone-arched gates in a tailored blazer, combat boots, and hair so spiked out it makes my cheekbones look sharp enough to cut glass. Like the new me.
Shani trails behind me, just as fierce. She’s not a designer purse. She’s a statement—my hellhound in disguise. And when people see her, they move. Fast.
Let them.
Let them wonder what I’m going to do.
Let them remember the girl they laughed at, drenched in sticky slime under the chandeliers of that decadent Vanderbilt mansion.
Because she’s dead and the new Jade resurrected all in less than five days.
I buried the old me along with the na?ve part of myself that believed in fairy tales and boys with crowns.
It’s Thursday. I told Aunt Susan no remote work… that some business is just better off handled in person.
Leo.
I don’t say his name. Not even in my head. He’s not a boy. He’s a storm I survived.
And now?
I’m the hurricane.
“Damn, Gitanilla,” he murmurs near the lockers.
I don’t turn around. I just smirk. Good. Let him feel the shift in the air.
This isn’t about bouncing back. It’s about burning the throne he thought was untouchable. It’s about making him feel everything I felt—slowly, thoroughly, painfully.
They slimed me. They tried to break me.
But I’m still standing.
Hotter. Smarter. Meaner.
And Leo? He’s just another enemy in a school full of snakes.
He had the crown. He had me. And he watched it happen.
He didn’t stop it.
Didn’t protect me.
Didn’t come after me when I left with tear-stained cheeks and a shattered soul.
So now I’m back. Not to forgive. Not to forget.
But to flip the script.
No more hoodie pulled up. No more eyes to the floor. No more fake smiles and shrinking shoulders. They wanted to break me, humiliate me, send me packing with my tail between my legs.
But I stayed.
And now? They’re going to wish I hadn’t.
My uniform skirt was shorter.
My black turtleneck tighter.
My knee-high boots made a statement with every step.
And my face? Calm. Controlled. Lethal.
I didn’t flinch at the whispers.
Didn’t blink when someone gasped.
Didn’t stop walking when the first round of clicks from hidden phone cameras started.
Let them film. Let them post.
The dethroned girl just got her crown back—and this time, it’s welded on.
Hayden fell in beside me without a word, dressed to kill in thigh-high socks and a gold chain that caught the light like a battle flag.
“Damn, girl,” she muttered under her breath. “You sure we’re not launching a takeover today?”
I didn’t smile, but I did tilt my head. “We are.”
At least ten students tripped over their own feet trying to get a look at me. Teachers stared. One of the office admins dropped her coffee. And still—I didn’t break stride.
This wasn’t a comeback.
This was a coronation.
By the time I reached my locker, I’d already been filmed, whispered about, and probably turned into three TikToks and a Reddit thread.
Let them talk.
Let them wonder if I’d finally snapped.
Let them guess what I was going to do next.
Because for once, I wasn’t broadcasting my next move. I wasn’t playing defense anymore.
I was here to play chess—and this queen never waits to be protected.
A boy I didn’t recognize leaned against the lockers two rows down. Clean-cut. New money, probably. He looked me up and down like I was a dare.
I met his eyes and tilted my head slightly.
He looked away first.
Check.
The bell rang, but I didn’t rush. Royal Oaks revolved around punctuality, decorum, appearances. I took my time, strolling into English Lit five minutes late with an apology on my lips and steel in my spine.
Even the teacher paused.
“Miss Bryan,” she said carefully. “How nice of you to join us.”
“It’s Jade,” I replied, sliding into my seat like the throne it was. “Let’s not pretend you forgot.”
The girl behind me dropped her pen.
A few students snickered.
The teacher didn’t press it.
Because no one wanted a PR disaster on their hands. Not after what happened. Not after the headlines. The screenshots. The legal warnings Tristan and Xavier’s teams had already fired off like warning shots.
This school knew what I was now.
Unbreakable. Untouchable.
And mad as hell.
By lunch, a full perimeter of whispers followed me everywhere I went.
Blair glanced up from her perfectly packed bento box and visibly flinched.
Leo was across the quad, arguing with Xavier, hands buried in his hair, looking like he hadn’t slept. His gaze snagged on me for a half-second.
But I didn’t stop.
Didn’t smile.
Didn’t look back.
Not when Shani handed me a matcha latte and said, “Whole school’s glitching like it saw a ghost.”
Not when Hayden texted Proud of you. Just don’t punch anyone on camera.
And definitely not when I saw the new posters in the student center—“Royal Oaks: A Tradition of Excellence.” Featuring my face, carefully retouched, standing on the soccer field like I hadn’t been driven off it in humiliation just three weeks earlier.
Oh, the irony.
They wanted a mascot now?
They were about to get a monarch.
The cafeteria doors swung shut behind me with a hiss that cut through the chatter like a blade. Every head turned—some subtle, some not. Forks froze mid-air. Phones dipped below tabletops, but the red recording lights still blinked like guilty fireflies.
I didn't head for the usual table in the corner where the broken and the banished huddled. No. I walked straight to the center island, the one reserved for the untouchables: Blair's crew, the lacrosse s, the kids whose parents owned yachts bigger than my house.
Shani flanked me left, her gold chain swinging like a pendulum counting down to detonation. Hayden materialized on my right, sliding in from the side entrance with a tray she didn't need—just backup with a side of sarcasm.
Nadia recovered first, her glossy lips curling into that signature smirk that had launched a thousand subtweets. "Jade Bryan, the prodigal peasant returns. Did community service finally teach you how to use a door?"
A ripple of laughter from her minions. Xavier leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, watching like this was his personal coliseum.
I set my matcha down—slowly, deliberately—right in the dead center of their table. The green liquid sloshed but didn't spill. Yet.
"Funny," I said, voice low enough that the tables around us had to strain to hear. "I thought peasants were the ones who cleaned up after the royalty's messes. Like glue. Like dye. Like the lawsuit your daddy's lawyers are sweating over right now."
Nadia’s smirk faltered. Just for a second. But I saw it.
Xavier stood, all six-foot-whatever of entitled muscle. "You got something to say, Nadia?”
I tilted my head, letting my new bob brush my jawline like a threat. "Oh, she will. But not here. Not where her little fan club can edit the footage to make you look like the villain and her the hero.”
Shani snorted. "Translation: not where she can cry assault when you and Jade verbally eviscerates her.”
A few tables over, someone whispered, "She said what we were all thinking."
I leaned in, close enough that Bianca could smell the mint on my breath. "You wanted me gone. You got your viral moment. But here's the thing about queens, Bianca—they don't abdicate. They abdicate you."
Her jaw clenched. Good.
I straightened, scanning the room. The whispers had died completely now. Even the lunch ladies were watching from behind the sneeze guards.
"New rule," I announced, loud enough for the cheap seats. "Royal Oaks isn't your kingdom anymore. It's mine. And the first decree? Anyone who touches what's mine—my friends, my reputation, my car—it’s war.”