Elle
More than angry at what I’d just allowed Gant to do.
More than furious, disgusted, and repulsed at enjoying it, I’m utterly confused.
I don’t get it.
I don’t get what kind of game Gant’s playing anymore.
Having the senior class bully me because of his demented logic? Understood.
Spewing me with bodily fluids and making me strip to defile and humiliate me? Got it.
Shoving me into the lake for a cruel laugh? I could follow the twisted logic because he genuinely didn’t seem to know that I couldn’t swim.
“But I want to make something very clear. I don’t want you dead. Not literally. Because then I’d have to follow you into the afterlife to exact my revenge.”
But still, making me orgasm? Wanting to fuck me? The girl who, by his account, ruined his entire life? I just don’t understand his attraction if it’s based on sheer hatred.
You don’t understand yours either.
I grimace at the thought. If someone told me I’d be slowly falling into lust with my tormentor, a bloke that pissed on me, I’d have laughed in their face. I’d have crowned myself Miss Clown Cunt, the ruler of all the stupid bitches who think men like Gant are worth a second of their time. I should be plotting my revenge, my defence, when he pulls another stunt. Not cumming on his fingers.
Yet here I am, newly crowned because my growing lust is something I can’t ignore, as Gant politely pointed out on my leotard. Still, lust is simple enough to understand. Despite Gant’s terrible personality, he’s like a devil dressed up in the world’s finest suit. He’s charm and gorgeousness personified, and he’s showing an interest in me. My brain can’t differentiate that that interest is cruel. It just categories it as attention and combined with the devil’s good looks wrapped in a thin layer of darkness, it’s no wonder my body’s grown feral.
It’s not my fault my body is so irrational.
So then maybe that’s Gant’s line of thinking too?
But that’s where my confusion lies. My lust and Gant’s lust aren’t comparable. One, I’m not boxer-brief melting gorgeous to inspire such an obsession. Two, I’m not lusting after someone I genuinely believe destroyed my entire life by killing my mother and almost killing me.
But didn’t he nearly kill you too? In the lake?
Yet you still can’t stop thinking about him.
Dreaming about him.
Maybe he has a point with that primal comment?
Maybe he brings out something feral in us…
I wish there was an off switch for your brain. I’m so tired of it bouncing between logic and nonsense, especially when it doesn’t benefit me.
The point is, I’m not some revenge-driven psycho looking to fuck his enemy. Nor do I have some primal kink, like he implied. I’m just a girl who maybe wants to explore freakier waters, especially after my public orgasm last class. I hated myself for enjoying it but I did. I never came that hard on my own fingers or my poor pillow I subjected to random rubbings.
I’m just a late bloomer with a recent sexual awakening via the first boy who showed me a crumb of attention, good or bad. All my late-night fantasising about his fingers against my throat. All the replays of my tongue against his lips as I’d kissed him, marked him. All my secretly saved GIFS of boys who resembled him. It’s all just horniness and desperation.
Plain and simple.
That’s why I let him do it. That’s why I let him touch me.
All I have to do now is find a new muse. A new somebody to break the concentration I have on Gant because that’s the problem. He’s been dominating my time at Beaulieu. That’s the only reason I can’t stop thinking about him. I just need a shift of sexual focus.
Maybe that’ll get the point across to Gant that no matter what he says, I’m not his.
The problem is, what brave knight would go against the king?
“After you,” a voice calls, and it’s like the heavens have opened as I break my neck to look up at a boy who’s holding open the studio door for me.
I’d gone to the water fountain before shoving my crotch beneath the girl’s hand dryer in the bathroom before the advanced ballet class began.
His voice is cold, icy, but his face hasn’t caught up to his intonation. Yet.
He’s still too cute in a boyish way with round cheeks still padded in a twinge of baby fat that’ll be gone come summer. His shoulder-length windswept, white blonde hair and crystal grey eyes match his voice perfectly though, like a Nordic Viking that should be swathed in furs at all times.
His eyes are so clear that it seems impossible they could hold the dark twisted secrets that Gant’s can, and yet, that somehow makes me think he’s worse. Like, despite the clearness, it’s all an illusion. Just a thick layer of ice that keeps everything encased and frozen. For now.
I internally shake the thought. Being stalked, mocked and harassed by all the seniors has made me so jaded that I’m making up strangers’ personalities in my head before ever speaking to them.
I’m just paranoid.
But what’s playing into my paranoia more is the fact that he looks familiar. So familiar and yet so different from this vapour of a person I can’t conjure in my mind’s eye.
It prods at my subconscious naggingly, but there’s no way I’ve ever encountered him before. He’s not the type of person you can forget. And yet, I have the irritating feeling that I have.
“Thank you,” I say and it comes out as a whisper because I’m truly in awe that anyone’s doing anything halfway decent for me. To be fair, the girls harass me, but the boys merely ignore me, and laugh when appropriate, which is the majority of the time.
For a second I think he’s going to slam the door into my face and break my nose, so I quickly push on it too, and dart inside the studio, breathing a sigh of relief when it turns out I was wrong.
“You can relax around me. I’m not on Gant’s roster,” he calls after me with an easy smile that I can’t help but mirror. No one’s smiled at me since I’ve been to Beaulieu.
Well, except Gant, but his smiles are mockingly cruel.
Curiosity gets the better of me. “Why not? Isn’t he Beaulieu’s king?”
He snorts. “I haven’t bent the knee. I’m a small independent kingdom.”
My heart soars at that. Finally, someone who isn’t a minion.
Finally, someone with their own brain.
“Plus, I’m not a senior.”
Oh. A baby. Or at least, that’s my way of thinking when it comes to boys even a year younger than I am.
Still, there had to be other, older, decent boys around. Even though ballet is my sole focus and I don’t have room for an entire boyfriend, I could have room for a few kisses. A few sessions like the one Gant just gave me in Stretch class. I just need to find someone who isn’t a minion. Someone who doesn’t think I’m a murderous dove panty blackmailer.
Because now that I’ve felt someone else’s fingers, mine won’t do.
“Good to know. So you’re in advanced ballet?” I ask, though it’s obvious. Everyone else present is inside of senior year.
He nods.
“So you’re a bit of a prodigy?” It’s pretty unheard of for Beaulieu to advance dancers, seeing how fierce the competition already is. There just aren’t as many clear standouts as at my old public school. Everyone’s damn near perfect.
“I guess. My mother was a ballerina.”
So he’s more like Gant than I thought.
Why am I comparing him to Gant at all? As if Gant is some standard to uphold anyone to.
“I’ve been practising since I could walk.”
I smile tightly, but it’s just to hold in the rising bile in my throat as my mind quickly begins the dance comparison game again. Today I would finally see first-hand how much I don’t fit in with the other dancers. But by how much?
I make an excuse and slink off into a corner where I catch sight of myself in the floor-to-ceiling mirror and cringe.
“Why the fuck are you wearing something so small?” Captain Obvious’ words ring in my mind.
He wasn’t wrong. The leotard had been a loan from Aria, of all people. I’m still surprised she came to my rescue when she noticed me searching the bushes around the dance studio for my duffel bag. It’d gone missing just like my chairs and stools in most classes.
The problem is Aria’s a narrow size two with a ribcage the same width as my thigh. That aside, my torso’s longer so the crotch digs painfully into my pelvis. Maple House was too far to fetch another leotard before class started, and if I didn’t show up in dance attire, I’d be kicked out of class and hit with a brutal detention. Not just one, but a series of them. That’s how strictly the dress code and time management are enforced.
Still, it’s a catch twenty-two. I avoided a bad first impression with the instructors and detention, but I’d still embarrassed myself by wearing something borderline inappropriate.
“She looks like a sausage trying to escape its casing,” Rin says to her gaggle of geese as they all eye me.
“More like a bird,” Kesia says with a laugh. “You know, because she looks so—”
“Cheap, cheap, cheap,” they chirp like the little bird brains they are in unison.
“Does she think that double wedgie will get the boys to pay her any attention?” Another girl with dark wavy hair asks. “Just how desperate is she for someone to like her?”
“Are you really surprised?” Rin asks. “She knows her scholarship is fake, and she still has the audacity to stay. She’s beyond desperate and past shameless. Whatever Gant’s big plan is, I hope he executes it soon so that bitch can return to the other side of town where she belongs. Back in the kennel with all the other bitches that can only get a crumb of attention if they show off their labia.”
Say something witty.
Something as equally bitchy as they are.
“But you know what’s truly sad?” Rin goes on. “I bet she’s trying to get Gant’s attention. Well, she already has it but you know what I mean. She wants his attention down under.”
The girls gasp and giggle again.
“Why would Gant want some big pussy bitch? It doesn’t even fit in her leotard,” Boots, or rather Kesia, says blatantly staring at my crotch. She’d been the second one in the hall to dump her food tray on me. “He’s had the top girls in our year. Including me just this summer.”
My stomach sours and roils at the thought of Gant with Kesia, of all people, though I have no idea why. They’re equally heinous and yet a delusion I didn’t even know I had, consumes me.
The delusion that Gant was, is, only obsessed with me because that’s all I’ve seen in my time at Beaulieu. But that’s ridiculous. There was a before me and there will be an after me the moment he gets bored. Like he said, I’m just his little doll, and dolls always get shelved at one point or another.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that he liked such a cunt. He is a dick, after all.
I mean, he clearly has questionable tastes. He likes me, and he thinks I killed his mother, so…
But Gant doesn’t like me. He wants to fuck me and throw me away just like he has Kesia because I’ve never heard him mutter so much as an acknowledgement in her direction.
In fact, Stassi and Aria aside, I haven’t seen Gant talk to any girls.
He’s too busy fucking with me.
For now.
Kesia smiles smugly, tossing her platinum blonde ponytail. “Gant would never stoop so low. He has standards.”
Rin eyes me up and down. “So did Beaulieu. Gant or no Gant, they still let her in.”
“What are you saying?” Kesia lifts a brow.
“It seems like standards are slowly becoming a thing of the past.”
Kesia snorts. “Well, if Gant knows what’s good for him and his noble reputation, he’ll keep his dick away from the peasants.”
The wavy-haired girl sneers in agreement. “There’s no way I’m following a king that gets on his knees to worship trash. I don’t care if he is an Auclair.”
Rin looks thoughtful. “Uprisings over bitches aren’t as uncommon as you’d think.”
“He wouldn’t dare,” Kesia says, shaking her head. “There are more girls than boys in our year. He knows how that’ll turn out. He isn’t stupid.”
“But he has a dick,” Rin mutters. “And it always thinks for itself.”
I think that’s the smartest thing I’ve ever heard Rin say. Or at least the most useful.
So his minions think their lord and saviour is so far above me? Maybe I should show them the stark reality. Gant Auclair wants me, regardless of his twisted reasoning.
Say something.
Anything.
Don’t let them just talk shit like you aren’t standing right here.
But as Rin sweeps her silky hair up into a bun, exposing her long elegant neck, and Kesia begins to stretch her perfectly arched feet on the barre, no witty reply comes to mind. Just burning embarrassment and humiliation as I tug hopelessly on the leotard’s neckline and gaze down at my feet.
The only reason I still have my pointe shoes is because I’d been resewing on the detaching ribbons when my bag went missing. That’s the only positive because there’s no way I’d be able to shove my feet into Aria’s spare slippers like I’d done with my body in her leotard.
As the ballet instructor enters the room, however, thoughts of my attire drift to the wayside as the class begins.
It’s the same instructor who’d whispered into Ms Cardot’s ear in the theatre. She’s tall and willowy and not a day over seventy-five. Despite her age and cane, though, she walks with a regalness that only a ballerina can possess.
“So,” she says dramatically. “We’re back and with no time to waste.”
Polite laughter echoes around the room, camouflaging the sound of her clicking cane as she makes her way to the front of the studio.
“For any newcomers, I’m Mistress Errard. You may address me solely as Mistress.”
“Good morning Mistress,” a chorus breaks out.
“I trust you all practised well over the summer. Well, those who have any hopes of securing a leading role in our midterm production.”
“Has the ballet been selected already?” Rin asks, her eyebrows flying up.
Mistress nods teasingly.
I straighten at that. We were talking about productions already? At my old school, we had a month before showtime to prepare. Mid-term break is still two months away. Then again, what did I expect from such a professional school as Beaulieu? Their elaborate stage sets alone were Royal Opera House worthy. The props department probably needs more time than the dancers.
Everyone waits on bated breath, the room growing deathly silent and Mistress is enjoying the tension because she pauses for effect before saying, “This year, we’ll be performing Cinderella.”
Cinderella was the play that got me interested in ballet in the first place. Sure, I’d been happy for the Nutcracker and Carmen, two plays that my instructor had chosen a dozen times over, but I’d never performed Cinderella before.
Just being at Beaulieu felt like a Cinderella story.
My heart pulses to the excitement buzzing around the room.
“Cinderella?”“My favourite.”
“Which version though? There are two popular choreographies.”
“I hope it’s—”
But I never get to hear which version a petite brunette prefers because Mistress is already cutting on the music.
“Get into position. We shall discuss more about the play later. For now. Let’s see how miserably, or how well you’ve maintained your skills.”
At that, we transition into an intense stretch routine that’s borderline brutal.
Still, I managed to keep up decently with the class, much to my elation. That is until we’re split into rows of three for Mistress Errard to analyse every position, leap, and turn with a magnifying glass.
The boys go first, and my eyes are immediately drawn to Gant, who dances like a dream. Of course, he does. He’s prima ballerina Pelliot’s offspring, so why did I secretly hope, no wish, he’d be anything but polished perfection?
His body is like one of those ancient statues, carved and chiselled immaculately. His lean muscles, so visible through his tights, flex and retract powerfully, effortlessly with every moment. That’s what he is, powerful effortlessness and suddenly I find myself adding a new emotion to the dozens that already encompass Gant Auclair. Envy. I’m envious of the jackass.
I’m bitter about how he moves and lands so gracefully, so quietly, and yet his presence still commands and dominates the entire room. The independent nation, Platinum Blonde, comes in a clear second, and étienne in third.
I’m envious of the way his inky locks fall into his eyes with every turn, adding to his mystery and intrigue.
I’m jealous that all eyes follow him around the room, including Mistress Errard, who can’t pry her eyes away long enough to offer much critique to anyone else when Gant’s on the floor.
That is until it’s my turn, however.
“Eloisa!” Mistress Errard shrieks for the third time in the past ten minutes. “Are you an aeroplane?”
“N-no miss,” I say, wondering what I did wrong this time. The fifteenth time, to be exact.
“Then why are you leaning forward in your arabesque like you’re about to take flight?” She pushes on my stomach hard with her cane, forcing me to straighten.
“More like Big Bird,” Rin sniggers to Kesia.
With each new position, my critiques grow worse.
“If you sickle those feet anymore Eloisa, you’ll be able to harvest an entire wheat field.”
“Are you doing a frappe or stomping grapes for a new merlot?”
“The box kind,” Rin had sniggered.
“Bend those knees when you land from a jump or I will bend them for you!” WHACK!
Not even midway into the class and I’m already a whole litany of things and none of them are good. The more Mistress draws attention to me, the more I get inside my head. My anxiety’s bubbling so severely, it physically cripples me, and my silly mistakes quadruple.
Beaussip’s words spring to the front of my mind, “a mediocre delulu dancer”. Everything else the article said hadn’t bothered me, but ballet is my haven, my calm, my peace. I’m in my element when I dance. At my old school, it was the one thing I was good at. Here, it’s obvious that I’m the worst in the class, at least a level below everyone else.
Even Aria, a figure skater, outperforms me, and she and étienne only take ballet to help with their flexibility, grace, and posture on the ice. For the second time in less than three hours, Aria takes pity on me again, mumbling some corrections under her breath before Mistress can call them out or Rin and her cackling crew can squawk.
Not that I could ever snigger back. Rin’s one of the best female dancers in the class, light on her feet and technically superior to almost everyone else. Her beauty only aids in her performance and I’m not the only one to notice. Across the room, Bae’s eyes haven’t left her form once.
My annoyance at her gracefulness only doubles when I remember how close I’d been to catching her the other night. But catching her doing what is the question?
As the class tortuously drones on, more questions bombard me. How had I been delusional enough to think that I could get into Beaulieu without some sort of intervention? Did I really think those pointers Gant gave me two years ago and all those YouTube instructional videos sufficed between my public classes?
Suddenly my hatred toward Gant for ‘tricking’ me diminishes by half. I’m the one that tricked me.
“Eloisa, a word,” Madame Errard says as the students file out of the studio nearly two hours later.
Panting and sweaty, I approach her near the sound equipment, not even remotely surprised by the callout.
“Look,” she says, lowering her voice and taking off her sleek glasses. I’d never had an instructor lower their voice for me before. Normally, they were only too happy to have the entire class overhear my berating. But Mistress seems a brush softer now that it’s just her and I. “Like everyone else, I’ve heard the rumours surrounding your entrance into Beaulieu too.”
That’s the last thing I expect her to say.
Didn’t teachers have an unspoken rule of pretending the inner conflicts of the students simply didn’t exist while knowing about them full well?
I can’t meet her eyes. Instead, I stare at the skinny black cane she’d swatted at the back of my knees because what am I supposed to say to that?
I knew I didn’t belong ever since my cheap loafers set foot on campus. Now I know from one dance class that I really don’t belong. It hurt more than getting food dumped on me, and wreaking of garlic for days. It stabbed at my heart more than the chants of ‘murderer’ every time I walked down corridors. Heck, it even hurt more than my lungs filling with water.
Don’t they say the pathway to hell is painted with good intentions?
I’d say it’s delusions. Delusions that have propelled me halfway there. To hell. Because this must be what it feels like.
So what does Mistress want? Does she want me to acknowledge that I’m a giant fraud? Isn’t it enough that we both already know that?
“But even if I hadn’t,” she goes on. “I still remember your audition tape vividly.”
My eyes fly to hers, then in shock. “Y-you do?”
She must’ve watched thousands of tapes.
“All three of them. You applied every year.”
She… remembered me? And not just one audition, but all three???
“I saw your considerable progress each time, but more than that, I could see your heart.”
“My heart?” The dead organ in my chest thuds back to life.
“To dance ballet beautifully, it takes far more than just technique, which you lack. It also needs your heart and soul. It needs a certain amount of expressiveness that only comes from within. When you danced in your audition tapes, no instructor could deny how passionately you performed.”
My brows crease in confusion. Given her earlier critique, I assumed I danced like an injured pigeon trying to take flight.
“But passion cannot trump technique. Although I’ll say it’s better.”
Better?
“I don’t understand.”“Technique can be learned, expression, emotion, is harder to teach. Either you have it or you don’t. Either it ignites and shines through or it doesn’t. Take Rin, for example. She executes every move with perfection. It’s why I make her do so many demonstrations for the class.”
I bite my lip and taste blood. Just the sound of Rin’s name makes the mark on my breast burn and my fist itch to punch something.
“But she could never be the lead in any of my plays as she imagines she will be for the midterm production. Though we still haven’t picked a title yet…”
“Because she lacks expression?”
“Correct! And that’s something I can’t teach her. Though I have tried since year ten, the girl’s soul is dead when it comes to dance. It’s why she’s so frigidly good at ice skating.”
“But you can teach me about technique?” I ask, my hopes soaring.
Her expression falls. “Only to a point. This is advanced ballet. I don’t have time to go over basic positioning with you every class. That’s what beginner and intermediate ballet are for.”
That’s where Stassi, Hale, and Zedd had headed. It helped with their ballroom dancing, but they never took it as seriously as Aria and étienne nor Rin and Bae, who apparently skated in the singles categories.
“But college scouts don’t even look at those classes. They don’t even get cast in the plays as leads, only as background dancers.”
Lately, my emotions have been swinging like a pendulum. One second, when I’m splintering, an intrusive thought crosses my mind to march to the office and ask for Gant’s refund. The next, I’m grasping at Beaulieu for dear life.
“But you’d get the best instruction there.”“No,” I shake my head so quickly that the blood rushes around and my eyes nearly cross. “I can’t leave the advanced class.”
“I’m afraid that’s not up to you. I can cut students from my class and knock them down a level if they’re dragging behind and I’ve done it before. It’s for everyone’s own good.”
“But it would defeat the point of me staying here despite everything.” Despite me not deserving a position. Still, I’d gotten it, and the only way I can redeem it is to not waste it. “I have to get in front of those college scouts.”
“You really do have heart…” Mistress laments. “Well, you have until midterm to change my mind. I suggest you find a student from the class to tutor you. Intensively.”
I nod quickly. “Aria.”
I don’t know why I blurt that out. Aria’s barely my acquaintance. Still, maybe the offer of her spare leotard is a step towards friendship. Ok, maybe cordialness.
“She’s my roommate. I’ll ask her if she can—”
“She cannot,” Mistress interrupts adamantly. “Her focus is on ice skating. She doesn’t eat, sleep and breathe ballet and while she keeps up excellently with the class, I don’t think she has what it takes to mentor you. Even Rin’s interests are split.”
I’d quite literally eat cat shit before I ask Rin for help.
“Then who do you suggest?”
“Mr Auclair, of course.” She nods over my shoulder at the corner where Gant is leisurely taking sips of water, his eyes trained on us.
It’s as if the skies have opened up and a chorus of “We fucking hate you, Eloisa Ginhart!” rings down on me. Because of course, it’s Gant.
It’s always Gant fucking Auclair.
“You said you heard the rumours,” I whisper, my heart thudding in my throat. “If you have, then you cannot seriously suggest—”
“I’m not one for gossip,” Mistress Errard says, suddenly superior as she grabs her cane. “I’m solely interested in producing the best students upon graduation. Gant Auclair, like his mother, is the best. If he can’t help you, no other student can.”
Help me? This is just the opportunity he’s been waiting for to devour me.
“You have until midterm,” she says, grabbing her bag. “Oh, and Elle? We don’t body shame our students, but we must be open if we feel something is impairing the student’s performance. In this case, it’s your leotard. The seams are begging for a reprieve, my dear.”
Sliding on her sunglasses, she saunters away with a click of her cane and I’m left staring at her back until it disappears around the doorway.
What the fuck am I going to do?
To my surprise, Gant and his shit-eating grin don’t approach me. It’s Aria, waiting just outside the studio doors that does. She’d freed her curly hair from its sleek bun and it blows around her face almost ethereally in the breeze.
My scalp pulses in response to a tension headache, but if I take my hair out, it’ll look like greasy red straws given the copious amount of gel I’d used that morning. Given all the nicknames I’d already acquired, I didn’t need more added to the roster.
“What did Mistress say?” Aria asks, and for a second time, I’m surprised by her care.
Is she actually interested? Or just nosey? Then again, who am I to turn down a conversation as of late? Besides Gant and Sovereign Leader, Platinum Blonde, no one bothered to talk to me. About me where I can clearly hear the conversation, sure. But never to me.
“That if I don’t get a tutor, she’ll kick me out of the advanced class by midterm. She suggests Gant, despite knowing our backstory.”
“Damn,” Aria blows out a breath. “So when do your private lessons start?”
I nearly choke on the water I’ve just taken a sip of. “Never.”
“You’re going to risk getting demoted because of your pride?”
“Would you seriously beg the person who despises you, humiliates you, bullies you, for some one-on-one alone time? I can’t even eat in the hall because of him.”
I eye the dining hall now that half the class is heading to. The ones that don’t give a fuck that they reak, while the other half head to the showers first. Over the weekend, I’d resorted to sprinting to the hall, so I was the first in line. I’d dump the food from the porcelain plates into the plastic-lined pockets of my hoodie before booking it back to the dorms.
But making it to the hall unscathed was easy on the weekend. No one got up early or rushed to the hall if they didn’t have to. With the bells back in place, there’s no way for me to avoid the crowd. I’d have to make do with the saltine cracker packets left over from yesterday’s soup.
And no, I’m not being cowardly. I’m being smart. Resourceful.
I don’t have enough shampoo to deal with another gnocchi and clam chowder deep conditioning treatment courtesy of the senior girls.
If only I could afford a cosmetics mini fridge like Aria and Stassi, I wouldn’t have to deal with starving all day.
If only I had a job, I could buy myself nonperishable food to hide beneath my bed.
If only Gant Auclair didn’t despise me, I could simply exist.
But you wouldn’t exist here at Beaulieu if he didn’t either.
“If it meant getting what I wanted,” Aria says, bringing me back to the present. “My ultimate dream.”
“I still have every intention of getting my dream. I just don’t need to risk my life with Gant to do it. I still don’t know what he ultimately wants from me. It’s not like I can undo time to make things right in his eyes, so I’m convinced nothing will appease him. Besides, he isn’t the only good ballet dancer on campus.”
I eye the back of Platinum Prince now. He’s a close second to Gant.
Aria notices. “No, but he is the best. And with his mom’s methods, he’s a great teacher.”
Madame was a good instructor, just not for me. Still, I remember how helpful Gant’s pointers were two years ago.
I shake my head. “He’s planning something. It’ll be a trap. That’s the only way he’ll say yes in the first place. It’d be the perfect opportunity to slaughter me.”
“You know, if you’re worried about being caught off guard, why don’t you just get the upper hand first?”
“How?”
“Offer him something you know he wants, so it’s a fair exchange. Gant’s a lot of things, but he’s honest. It’s probably his only good quality. Offer him a fair trade and he won’t go back on his word.”
Why’s Aria offering me advice?
A shiver goes through me as I peer down at her. It must be the pale blue of her leotard, making her blue-green eyes appear so icy in the sun today. Still, the sight of them freezes my blood. Could I even trust her? She’s friends with the horsemen while we’re barely acquaintances.
“I don’t have anything he’d want,” I say, trying to choose my words carefully.
“I can think of a few things,” Aria says, zoning in on my crotch. “You can keep that leotard, by the way. I’m not interested in being slick sisters.”
My face burns with the intensity of a thousand suns as I nervously sip from the disposable water bottle again. So she’d overheard our exchange. All of his crew probably had, so what’s the use in feigning ignorance? “You’re seriously implying that I should fuck him for lessons?”
“No. I’m saying play with him to stave off the inevitable of whatever the hell it is he’s cooking up. Like an interlude. A pause that you can use to your benefit to figure him out. To keep inching ahead while he’s busy in blissful pleasure. Think about it, he won’t do anything brash while you’re giving him what he’s desperate for, because if he does, he knows you’ll stop giving in.”
I look toward the dining hall. Then the locker rooms. If Gant was entertained enough by me ‘playing back’, could I at least get through meals and showers without being harassed? Even if it’s only temporary? Even if I’d have to find a way to get ahead before he inevitably grew bored and bloodthirsty again?
A distraction…
If we take an interlude, that would mean Gant would have to cool his orders about harassing me to his minions…
If the king is distracted, occupied, he isn’t paying attention to his kingdom…That means his people will feel vulnerable. Neglected. Betrayed.
Rin and her bitches’ earlier conversation come zooming to the forefront of my mind again because they’d already planted the seed in my brain and now it’s beginning to sprout.
“There’s no way I’m following a king that gets on his knees to worship trash.”
“Uprisings over bitches aren’t as uncommon as you’d think.”
But is that true? If I let Gant get on his knees to worship my pussy, would his minions really abandon him once they find out? Are they really that fickle? And if they are, and he’s suddenly all on his own, I wouldn’t have to spend the rest of the school year in utter hell because they won’t keep bullying me. No, because then it’d still benefit him.
And without his army of bitches, he’s just one person barring his untouchable lackeys. Still, even they can’t be everywhere at once. At least in the all-girl spaces, I could relax. I could get off my one-woman defence team for a few hours.
Dethrone him. A king is only as strong as his army.
“You already know it’s going to blow up in your face at some point. Just try to stay ahead so it isn’t so disastrous. Let him eat you. Just don’t let him devour you so you lose your head. It’s just borrowed time so you can figure out your next move.”
“Why are you trying to help me?” I blurt. I can’t help it. Even if she lies, I still want to hear whatever bullshit reasoning she comes up with. “First the leotard, now the advice?”
“I’m tired of the war. Stassi is too.”
Really? We’re they starting to feel sorry for me?
“Because it’s affecting us. You stink up our room with that shit people throw on you, and you waste all the hot water trying to clean yourself and your uniform up constantly. I can barely sleep with your stomach gurgles and I’m sick of people constantly passing by our door to catch a glimpse of Gant’s zoo animal.”
Oh… Well, that sounded plausible, at least. Reasonable actually.
“That aside, I just don’t see the logic behind getting kicked out of class and ruining your chances at college, especially after all the bullshit you’ve been putting up with. What would be the point then?”
She had a point. Again.
“Use Gant to keep the peace. Then dispose of him before he can toss you away first.”
As she strolls to the dining hall and I split for the dorm to snack on crackers, my phone pings and I roll my eyes as I look at the notification. I’m in no fucking mood to see what Beaussip’s running her mouth about now. My day’s already fucked as it is. I don’t need to relive some other humiliating event she managed to snag pics of. I’m about to swipe the notification away when I see that it’s not about me at all, her favourite topic for the past month. No, it’s about Zedd.
It looks like Zaddy Zed-
I gag.
There’s audio of Zedd and the girl’s exchange, but no pictures of the pair. Just a GIF of Zedd emerging from the greenhouse and storming away. From the angle, I can tell it’s taken from the bushes opposite the greenhouse, on the other side from where I was standing.
That’s where she was hiding.
That’s why I hadn’t seen her.
A slow smile splits my lips like the Cheshire cat because, for fucking once since I’ve stepped on this campus, I’ve caught a break.
I gotcha, bitch.
That’s what Rin was up to. She’s Beaussip. Now I just need undeniable proof because suddenly I’m not so irritated by Beaussip’s interruption.
In fact, I think it’s the start of a beautiful, mutual friendship.
“Oomph!”
The air whooshes from my lungs as I walk into a tall wall of muscle.
Platinum Prince.
“S-sorry,” I say, catching my breath as his hands shoot out to stabilise me. “I didn’t see you.”
He smiles coyly. “Really?”
Okay, in hindsight, I guess that does sound like an excuse. He’s over six feet tall, with long hair that shines nearly white in the sun. He’s impossible to miss.
“No,” I lie. “Actually, I was hoping to talk to you.”
His smile broadens. “What about?”