Elle
Forty-five minutes later, I silently follow both girls down Maple House’s grand staircase and through the sprawling courtyards until we reach the middle back of the campus where a massive stone and glass building looms.
Inside is more of an opera house than a school auditorium, although it’s draped in deep royal blue and emerald green versus red. The stage is illuminated, but the lights above the plush velvet seats are dim, casting everything in shadows. At the head of the room, Ms Trix, who I can only identify because of her hair, looks right at home in a theatre chair amongst the staff. This must be where she directs all the school plays. Notably, Mr. Lexington is missing as I scan the other staff members who are all women. Perhaps he teaches the younger levels only.
My breathing quickens with each step down the long aisle as a few rows of students turn to look at me. No, not at me, at Stassi and Aria. I’m just as surprised as Stassi is when Aria links their arms.
“You’re lucky I lied to éti about where I went last night,” she hisses, before faking a smile and waving at a group of girls.
Just how popular are the pair? Every eye turns to find them and suddenly being beside them makes me realise how much I prefer being invisible. It’s like a spotlight is on me, burning my face and neck. The most intense heat is coming from the right side of the room where the boys sit. The school is coed, but I guess certain occasions call for separation.
Unable to resist the heat source, I stare straight into its centre, and my eyes land on that beautiful boy again, the one from the front steps. He’s staring at me, but whispering into the ear of someone I almost mistake for a girl, given his long, raven hair. But when he faces me, it’s clear he’s all male. His jaw is cut from glass, and his long slanted eyes remind me of Rin’s ethereal ones and they’re looking straight at me. He lifts his hand and gives me a little wave.
Is he waving at me? I look ahead at Stassi and Aria, but they aren’t looking in his direction. Have I finally gone through my metamorphosis era? Mum told me I blossomed this summer but mums always gush about their kids, right?
I gaze behind me subtly. I’m not an idiot to just wave back, but there’s no one there. Just when I get the nerve to at least smile, a different set of eyes stops me dead. They aren’t like the liquid pools of mirth of the long-haired Asian guy, or the hypnotic eyes of the guy from the steps, no these eyes are dark. Like two black pits in a skull. Their owner is the palest of the bunch, with an undercut, and longer inky locks that sweep across his forehead, bathing him in more shadows.
I’d been wrong about the boy on the steps. Despite the dimness, I’m sure this boy is the most alluring man I’ve ever seen. Or, technically not seen but the dark mystery surrounding him makes my heart race.
It’s so damn dark. I squint, trying to make out his features better but all I can see are hollow cheeks and broad shoulders. The boys at my old school were acne-riddled, with awkward hair lengths and hunched shoulders from their overstuffed school bags. Somehow I didn’t see these boys carrying or rolling normal backpacks around campus. They probably used razor-thin laptops in real leather, messenger-style book bags.
Swallowing, I follow Aria and Stassi to the nearest row of free seats. Not wanting to seem so clingy, I go to sit a row behind them instead, but Stassi looks at me pitifully and pats the chair beside her. I smile, but my ass barely grazes the velvet, royal blue cushion before I’m up again.
“I forgot,” I say, my stomach churning faster. “The scholarship students are supposed to sit in the front row.” I look at the isolated seats up front and frown. There are three on the boys’ side and three on the girls’ side, but all six seats are taken.
“You’re a scholarship slut?” Stassi asks, but there isn’t disdain in her voice, there’s..fear?
Wait, did she just say slut? Scholarship slut?
“Damn.” Aria shakes her head.
“What?” I ask, feeling sweat bead on my brow as the girls in the previous row turn around to gawk at me as if I’m some sort of specimen. One of the girls is Rin, her silver eyes sinking into me like fish hooks. Yeah, I preferred my invisibility cloak.
Stassi only shakes her head. “It’s nothing.”
Scholarship slut?! It’s definitely something.
Clutching my speech, I head to the front, conscious of all the eyes following me.
“Excuse me,” I say to Ms. Trix, who happens to be the closest staff member. “Are these seats meant for the scholarship students? I’m supposed to sit with them.”
She frowns and looks at her roster. “All the recipients are already here. It’s Eloisa, right?”
“Eloisa Ginhart.” I nod, loathing the taste my full name leaves in my mouth.
She uses the light from her phone to scan the papers on her lap. “You’re not here. Which scholarship did you receive?”
“The Elaine Hardy Scholarship for ballet,” I say, showing her my acceptance letter with the metallic golden school logo at the bottom. I’d kept it in the same folder as my speech. Seeing the raised emblem of the roaring lion somehow gave me courage.
“Oh, well, you know I’m from the drama department. I’m not very familiar with the ballet sector and the head instructor hasn’t arrived yet. It must be a new scholarship as we get those from time to time. Here, drag a seat up front.”
“Thanks,” I smile gratefully, taking a folding chair from a stack and placing it beside a round-shouldered South Asian girl. She’s staring at her penny loafers, which are identical to mine. She looks as petrified as I feel. Hopefully, I conceal it a bit better and not like I’m about to evacuate my breakfast at any second.
“Young ladies and young gentlemen,” a woman begins from behind the podium on stage. Mrs. Cardot. I recognize her as the school principal from my information packet. She’s tall for a woman, at least six foot two with a broad frame. Her sleek black, French bob and matching tweed set scream polished regality. “Welcome back to your final year at Beaulieu Academy. I expect the summer has seen you well and kept you refreshed and in good spirits upon your return.”
“I missed you, Mrs Cardot!” a boy with tousled, brown hair shouts from beside the pale boy and the room erupts into giggles.
I’m not giggling though because those black abysses haven’t left me, and from this angle, they don’t appear so mysterious. No, they look…murderous.
“Thank you, Mr. Hale Perriot,” the principal says through tight lips. “I assume we’ll have many more detentions together this year.”
I fiddle with the silky ribbon around my neck as Mrs. Cardot goes on with the announcements. Somehow, my tie doesn’t look like everyone else’s now that they’ve changed from their street clothes. In fact, my entire uniform looks different, but how can that be when I purchased it from the school’s store?
Aria’s royal blue ribbon is stripped with the same colour green and gold from the school’s crest, unlike my plain blue one. Stassi’s crest is made of metallic thread, not the dull ones that decorate the left breast of my blazer. Even the blazers themselves are different, with lapels of varying sizes, styles and textures. Aria’s a dull satin while Rin’s is pure silk. Then there are the skirt lengths. Mine covers my knees, but most girls wear knee highs that go all the way up to their exposed mid-thighs. Stockings aside, their shoes range from high-heeled boots to Doc Martin’s, kitten heels and ballet flats with ankle ties carefully knotted into bows.
The differences don’t end with the girls. Even the boys have taken liberties with their customizations, from mandarin collars to ivory turtlenecks in lieu of the school’s polyester button-downs.
In hindsight, it’s obvious who the newbies or scholarship students are with their rule-abiding attire. I look down at my shoes again, identical to all the girls beside me and cross my ankles as if that’ll help hide the fresh meat label even though I’m sitting with all the other scholarship kids. Speaking of, these people don’t care about me, or the fact that I have a scholarship, right?
Then why did Stassi look so grave when she asked about it?
As if on a wire, my eyes are pulled back to the boys’ section. Back to the pale boy, who hasn’t so much as blinked. No matter which teacher gets up next, how many claps resound around the room, or how much laughter erupts, his expression remains the same. Beautifully murderous.
“Darling,” Mrs. Trix says, tapping my shoulder, and I rip my eyes away from the boy’s to hers. “It’s time for your speech.”
Had all the other students gone already? I can’t recall a single speech.
I nod and stand, nervously pulling down my skirt. Not that it’s necessary given its conservative length. The twelve steps it takes me to ease around the podium feel like an eternity. I lean against it for support, sure my legs will give out at any moment.
“Good morning,” I say into the mic, and the feedback that echoes through the room is enough to crawl anyone’s spine. When the high-pitched sound tapers off, I continue, hoping my voice isn’t as shaken as I feel. “I’m Eloisa Ginhart and I received the ballet scholarship. Ballet’s been a passion of mine since I was five years old and Beaulieu Academy has been another aspiration of mine since I was twelve. So when the Elaine Hardy scholarship came along—”
“The what?” Mrs. Cardot asks, interrupting me and lifting a finger. A much older teacher is in her ear, whispering furiously. She’s tall and thin, with sharp cheekbones, excellent posture and lips that look like she’s constantly sucking on a lemon. Is she the head of the ballet department? “I’m told there’s no ballet scholarship by that name.”
I gaze dumbfounded from her to the students and back again, but no words come out.
That couldn’t be right.
I gape like a frog down at my documents where the words Elaine Hardy Scholarship stare back at me, as do all the curious gazes of the students.
“So what? She’s pretending to be a student?” Rin asks incredulously as she stares up at me. “Did you seriously fake a scholarship and think you wouldn’t be found out?”
Laughter erupts around the theatre.
“That’s enough, Ms. Joung. We’ll figure out what’s going on and get Ms Ginhart sorted out shortly. Eloisa, please take your seat. Meet me at the office after the assembly.”
The silence is deafening as I nod and hastily head for the lifeline that’s my chair. I clutch it in time right as my legs give out, and I flop onto the mental unceremoniously.
What’s happening? I rub my arm, pinching my elbow to make sure this isn’t another one of my nightmares. It’s all too good to be true, isn’t it? Didn’t I think that someone was punking me the moment the acceptance letter landed at our door? But how could that be? I went to the office this morning and got registered. There were no issues.
A whisper chain breaks out amongst the students, and I watch as the message carries from the boys’ side, all the way to the girls’. They all stare at me now, as if they know something I don’t. I find Stassi and Aria in the crowd, but they’re furiously whispering to each other with their heads down.
When the assembly dismisses, the staff files out, but all the students remain.
I’m just about to flee my chair and make a mad dash for the exit behind Mrs Cardot when the boy with the staring problem gets to his feet and scrolls towards the stage casually. Towards me. As he draws closer, my lungs draw their last breath as if they already know something I don’t about his commanding presence.
“Don’t you fucking move,” he says, and I don’t have to wonder if he’s addressing me or not, because I’m the only one trying to leave the auditorium.
I freeze at his words, physically unable to move as he inches closer. As he finally passes under a light and his face is illuminated in full, I can see the new fresh hell I’ve landed in.
Gant Auclair.
He looks different. He’s aman now, etched from stone. His lips are fuller, and he’s about four inches taller, with hollowed cheeks and stronger eyebrows. So much more mature than the baby face I’d seen in my dreams.
No, my nightmares. My nightmares that are about to come true.
“Listen up,” he says to the audience, and I gasp as he wraps a muscular arm around my neck, locking me into a chokehold and pressing me against his front. His familiar woodsy scent encases me and it’s like déjà vu, except this time we have an audience.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing? Get off of me!” I choke out, clawing at his elbow, but he only tightens his hold. I buck hard and fast against him, my dancing feet trying to crush his. He pulls, using my neck to suspend me and suddenly, I’m not fighting him anymore. I’m fighting just to remain on my tiptoes.
“Stop moving,” he hisses in my ear, but of course I ignore him. It’s only when he clamps an arm around my waist and pulls my hips against his, do I freeze. Something long, thick, and hard is stabbing me right above my ass crack.
What the actual fuck? Is he getting off on this shit?
“Or don’t,” he presses harder.
My eyes wide and wild search the crowd, but no one’s getting up to help me. No one even bats an eye, as I’m sure my face is turning blue.
“This red-haired cunt is mine. My personal plaything.”
Gasps, giggles and whistles erupt around the room. I sink my nails deeper into his elbow, but his grip is relentless.
“I can’t believe you were fucking stupid enough to fall for that packet,” he hisses in my ear, his lips brushing the shell. “That you thought you were actually good enough to be accepted into the academy?”
Even if I could retort, I’m too stunned to speak, too shocked to do anything but bulge my eyes at this deranged lunatic.
I must look like a proper idiot because the brown-haired boy, Hale, coos, “Awww…She still doesn’t understand.”
“Let me clear it up then,” Gant says, and a strangled shriek echoes from my throat as he shoves me away from him and onto my knees, hard. The resounding crack knocks the air from my lungs and I barely have time to brace myself before strong fingers clamp down on my arms.
Hale Perriott’s to my left, and a dirty blonde’s to my right. They’re holding my arms with such steady force that I can’t get up, I can’t sit down, and I can’t pull out of their grasp. The only thing I can do is look up at Gant’s beautifully murderous gaze as I struggle to catch my breath.
“That scholarship?” he asks, leaning down so we’re just a hair apart. “I created it. Your tuition? I paid for it.”
His words barely compute.
The information packets, the forms, the welcome letter…he created a fake scholarship just for me?
He paid a hefty tuition bill ...just to lure me here?
Just because I leaked that email three years ago to Beaussip?
Beaussip, that must be the school’s gossip column…
Still, there’s ludicrous, then there’s downright unhinged.
“But why?” I breathe.
“Why?” he mocks.
It didn’t make sense. The lengths he went through, and for what? I’m guilty of spreading the email, not of fucking his mum. That’s all Jarett. What the hell did he want with me? Information on Jarett? I have none and even if I did, is that really worth Beaulieu’s six-figure tuition?
“Why?” He repeats, his voice laced with venom. “Because everything wrong with me is because of you.”
Wrong with him?
“Then why would you want me around? If you hate me so much, why would you want to see my face every day?” I ask, tears threatening to fall, but I won’t let them. I meant it. I won’t cry in front of my classmates, even if they were assholes.
“To ensure you suffer like I do. Beaulieu means beautiful place, but I’m going to make it hell for you.”
I swallow.
“You thought you could get away from me without suffering any consequences for what you did to my family? You thought you could fuck off and have your little happily ever after?”
I wouldn’t call homelessness and constantly smelling like bologna happily ever after.
“What I did to your family?” I ask incredulously. “Don’t you mean what your mother did? She’s the one that cheated that day—”
“And you’re the one that killed her that day.”
I blink. What?
Time seems to move in slow motion as realisation trickles over me.
Madame is…dead?
“W-what happened to Madame?” I whisper, my dreadful curiosity overtaking my humiliation. In my peripheral vision, I can see Stassi and Aria charging forward, as well as the other boys who’d been staring at me. His friends, apparently.
But as I focus back on Gant, I can see for one beat, for one second, that he isn’t there.
He’s gone somewhere, and when he returns, it’s with a vengeance.
Before I can breathe, or blink, something shoves my head down so fast and hard that I don’t register what it is, until I blink up at the sole of Gant’s filthy boot digging into my cheek and pinning my head against the hardwood.
“Get off of me!” I attempt to dig my fingers into his ankle, but my arms twist and white hot pain shoots through my shoulder blades and down my spine as each boy digs a knee into my elbows, pinning them to the floorboards. Gant presses harder, crushing my face until my lips part and blood and saliva trickle out.
Through Gant’s legs, I see Stassi gasp beside Aria, but both girls are blocked from view by the boy from the front steps. A silent warning telling them to stay where they are. And they do.
“All this time you don’t know what you’ve done?” he asks, twisting his boot into my flesh with so much torque that I swear he’s broken the skin. “How badly you’ve fucked my life up?”
I can only sputter, and try to lift my head against his heel, but he doesn’t budge.
“Liar. I can see the sins swirling in your eyes and it makes me fucking sick.”
I hear the sound in his throat before I see it. Before I feel it.
Spit, thick and hot, flies from his lips straight into my eyes which squeeze shut a half second too late.
My stomach roils, my body buckling violently in response as my entire soul tries to flee my body. “You fucking animal!”
“Do you know how animals mark their territory in the wild?” he asks, and through the thick, slimy globs, I see him reaching for his belt. Then I hear the zip of a zipper. “Because you are my territory. From now on, you’re mine. Every breath you breathe is mine.”
His cock…his thick, bare cock springs free. Semi-hard, and veined, he points it at me.
“Don’t scream,” the boy with the long hair advises coolly as he steps back, taking a seat on the armrest of the nearest chair.
“I think she should. I think she’s a swallower,” the blonde coos, digging his knee harder into my elbow. He dares to run his fingers through my hair almost affectionately, but he’s only moving the strands to make sure my face is fully exposed.
The motion sends pure ice down my spine.
Hale follows suit with his knee, pinning me harder as his laughter rings in my ear, almost in slow motion.
No. NO!
Between Gant’s legs, I spot Stassi’s horrified face and Aria’s unreadable one peeking around the boy from the steps.
That’s the last thing I see before warm, golden liquid shields them from view.
It splashes my cheek, flying into my eyes and up my nose. Drops seep between my lips because I hadn’t heeded Rapunzel’s advice, and my body’s first reaction is to gasp. To inhale a mouthful of piss.
When it’s over, I lay perfectly still, lips and eyes pressed tight, shutting out the sneering faces and hysterical laughter.
Shutting him out, because what else can I do?
For now, nothing.
“Look at me,” Gant barks, and it sounds utterly deranged.
I don’t obey, staying locked in my mind, in my own world, until his boot lands on my throat and my eyes fly open from the force.
He smiles, temporarily satisfied at the pain and humiliation that he finds in my eyes, as cellphone cameras flash in my face. He’s already tucked himself away. Not that anyone seemed to notice his entire dick was out. They just notice me. The star attraction to his circus.
His plaything, as he’d said.
Seemingly satisfied, he breaks eye contact with me and stares into the crowd. “She’s off limits to any man on campus.”
The boys release me, but I don’t spring to my feet. I roll to my side, desperate to get the liquid off of my face without touching it. Desperate to get some reprieve for my burning eyes.
My ribs throb dully from the pressure. A random reminder of the car that hit me two years ago. Normally it’s the weather that triggers it, but today it must be all the reminders from my past. Of that fateful evening that brought me back to the last person I thought I’d ever see again.
Get up!
You have to do something.
Bile rises in my throat as I watch spit, my own and Gant’s mix with my blood and his piss in a puddle beside my head.
We won’t be a thing anymore.
“Ladies, sic her. You have my full permission.”
Do something!
Anything.
My fingers move of their own accord, suddenly not caring about the grotesqueness of it all. I don’t feel the sliminess as they slip into the mess, as they curl around it, trying to collect every last drop.
The crowd reaches a crescendo for their demon god and his offering. Me.
My fingers rise a centimetre off the floor and then they slam down into the wet, crushed under Gant’s boot.
“And what do you think you’re doing?” he whispers, dropping into a squat and leaning in so close to me that his nose nearly brushes mine.
I smile through the pain, through the tears threatening to fall. With my free hand, I launch droplets that…
Sail right past Gant’s head as he grabs my wrist with bone-crunching force.
I think it’s the pain, the disgust, the desperation to soil him, to do something that pitches me forward. That causes me to press my pissy lips against Gant Auclair’s soft, thick ones.
His eyes are so dark I can’t see the pupils grow wide in shock, but I know they do. And his surprise emboldens me.
“Marking you,” I hiss, pulling back a fraction. We’re still so close my breath bounces off his lips and tickles my chin. “If I’m your territory, you’re my property.”
He wants to act like a fucking dog?
Fine.
I’ll be a bitch.
I press my tongue to his lips and seal that promise with a broad wet lick.