4. Juliet
4
JULIET
T he second my fist flies for the bitch’s face, the teachers make their move. Guess it’s all right for me to get laid into, but the second I fight back, that’s going too far. I expected as much. Which is why, even when I spot them hurrying toward us and hear their yells, I don’t stop. I take the girl down to the ground and grip her by the throat.
“I tried to be nice,” I hiss into her face. “I tried to tell you to back the fuck off, but you didn’t listen.”
Slamming my fist into her nose, the sound of crunching cartilage flies to my ears. I haven’t gotten to bloody anybody up since I started taking lessons from Cory, so this is a whole new experience.
A heavy weight lands against my back and feminine fingers grip at my sides and arms, one even goes around my neck, as her friends try to pull me off. Nails dig into the back of my scalp as someone grabs ahold of my hair and yanks hard. I ignore it all, letting the pain fall over me and then slide right off. My hold on the bitch’s throat tightens until she’s clawing at my hands and kicking beneath me.
“But thank you,” I say to her face, “for giving me a reason to show everyone here that I’m not going to roll over and let you fuckers take your cheap shots.”
“ Cunt .” She squeezes the word out as black mascara-streaked tears leak down her face.
I roll my eyes and bat away the hand still holding on to my hair, yanking and trying to get me to let up. The girl pulls out several strands. I don’t care. I’ll go bald before I let this one get away without delivering a clear warning.
I punch again for good measure and she cries out as blood pours from her nostrils. “This will be my only warning to you,” I snap. The sound of the teachers’ footsteps is getting closer. “Come after me again, and I’ll break your fucking legs. Stay away and I’ll be good. I’ll keep my fucking head down and I won’t give anyone any trouble.”
She spits at me and I dodge the flying saliva this time before shaking my head and compressing my grip around her throat. The sound of air wheezing from her mouth escapes. Her pulse hammers under my palm. Just a little more and I can completely cut off her airflow. Just a little longer, and she’ll pass out. If she’s unconscious, she won’t be able to spit at me anymore. If she’s dead, she won’t be able to do anything to me anymore.
The silence in my head is overwhelmed by the cacophony of shrieks and curses. I lean closer, lowering my voice as my lips graze her earlobe. “Spread the word,” I tell her. “You don’t fuck with me, and I won’t fuck with you.”
Hard fingers wrap around my arm and pull, but I’m done saying my piece. I let go of the bitch without a fight and let the man holding on to me rip me up from the ground. Turning my head, I take in the bulky figure at my side. Angry brown eyes glare down at me, the same ones that I’d seen in the passenger seat of Alexio Medicci’s SUV the night everything had gone to hell.
Nolan Pierce.
I take a step back, retracting my arm from his grip. He releases me, but before either of us can speak a word, my name is shouted across the cafeteria.
“Miss Donovan!” The same teacher from before—with the graying sideburns—is standing there red-faced and angry. “The principal’s office. Now! ”
“Sure thing,” I say, wiping some of the blood still leaking from my nose away as I turn and snatch up my discarded book. I shove it into my bag before flinging it over my shoulder. Nolan Pierce’s gaze bores into my back as I go, but I don’t give a fuck.
I know who he is and I know damn well why he thought he could step in and stop a fight. Unlike Silverwood Prep, where cheerleaders and jocks are the leaders, Silverwood Public has a different class system. Here, violent assholes and drug dealers are the Kings, and Nolan Pierce is their leader.
As I stride towards the front office, several students hurry out of my way—their eyes wide and shocked. Good. As far as first days go, this wasn’t the worst way to start my senior year. Now, at least, they’ll all think twice before stepping on my fucking toes. I move from the cafeteria to the front hallway, feeling the same teacher’s angry breath on my back as I walk. He follows me to the front office and even takes direction when we reach the door, storming past me to slam it open and point inside as if I can’t find my own way. I roll my eyes and walk inside.
At the front desk, an older woman with short curly white hair sits, wearing a dress that was likely ugly even back in the seventies. Her bespeckled face lifts when the door flies open.
“Coach Danley? What’s this about—” She cuts off the second her gaze falls on me.
“Is Principal Long in?” he demands without answering.
The woman nods quickly, turning her rolling chair back as she looks over her shoulder. “Sh-she should still be in her office. She hasn’t left for her walkthrough yet?—”
“Good.” Coach Danley’s hand falls on my arm and it takes every ounce of my self-control not to rip myself from his grasp as he drags me towards the back hallway to the door labeled ‘Principal’s Office.’
He doesn’t bother to knock. Instead, he grips the knob and twists it open, thrusting me inside. Were this Silverwood Prep, he would be slapped with a lawsuit so fast that it would send his head spinning. But this isn’t Silverwood Prep. It’s Public and these people know I have no power.
The woman looks up from her desk with glasses perched at the end of her nose. Principal Long is one of those women who has a timeless face—she could be in her thirties or her fifties. The only tell are the slight lines around her mouth and the crow’s feet at each corner of her eyes. As Coach Danley storms into her office, she looks up from the pile of paperwork set in front of her and arches a brow at the show of disrespect.
“Coach Danley.” Her tone is even as she says the man’s name. “Is there a reason you’ve barged into my office at”—she checks the clock sitting on her desk—“seven fifty-five in the morning without so much as a knock?”
“ This one has already started a fight,” Coach Danley gestures to me, practically spitting the words ‘this one’ out as if it’s just as hideous as my name.
Principal Long turns her eyes on me, a mixture of colors swarming in their depths. Browns, greens, and a hint of gold. Her slate-brown hair is pulled back into a ponytail, making her face look more severe than the rounded curve of her jawline would suggest it normally is.
Unlike Coach Danley, she doesn’t have any obvious signs of hostility—at least not directed at me. Her irritation is purely saved for Coach Danley.
The principal blows out a breath and sets down the file she’d been reading when I’d been unceremoniously launched into her office. She pinches the bridge of her nose for a moment before pointing to one of the twin chairs in front of her desk. “Take a seat.”
Coach Danley moves forward and she holds up a hand, stopping him. “ Not. You .” She glares at him. “I meant the student .”
Rounding the chairs, I drop into one of them. As uncomfortable as the seat is, unlike the stools I’d seen in the cafeteria, the faded cushion under my ass at least gives some barrier against the hardwood underneath.
“She caused a fight in the cafeteria,” Coach Danley states. “There’s surely security footage to prove it. I recommend expulsion.”
Principal Long looks up at him, her mouth turning down in a scowl. “We do not expel students on the first day, Danley,” she snaps, dropping the coach title. “And if a fight was all it took, you know very well that half our student population wouldn’t be in school.”
“But she?—”
“Where’s the other one?” Principal Long cuts him off with a harsh look.
Coach Danley frowns in confusion. “The other one?”
One eyebrow lifts. “You’re not telling me that Miss Donovan got into a fight all on her own, are you? There should be two students in front of me, Coach Danley.”
“I-I sent Megan White to the nurse’s office,” he stutters out. “ This one ”—he jams his finger at me, using the same tone as before—“attacked her and left her with a bloody nose.”
Long looks at me and then frowns. “Seems like she’s not the only one.” She reaches forward and shoves a tissue container closer to me before pointing to a spot beneath her nose. “You’ve still got some blood here,” she tells me.
I grab a tissue and dab it against my nostrils before glancing back at the coach whose face is quickly growing purple. “It’s interesting that you send one girl to the nurse’s office for a bloody nose but not the other,” Principal Long comments.
“Megan White’s injuries were more serious,” he defends.
I don’t even bother to hide the smile of pride that comes to my face.
The principal sighs and waves towards the door. “Go back to your morning duties. I will handle this,” she snaps. “Next time, unless the other student is unconscious or in need of emergency medical care, you will send them both to my office.”
The fact that at least someone is attempting to be impartial shouldn’t give me hope. It doesn’t. All it makes me feel is the sinister creep of distrust crawling up my throat. I clench my hands into fists and direct my attention forward, not even flinching when Coach Danley turns and storms out of the principal’s office. I tighten my features when the door slams in his wake and the pictures and certificates on the wall rattle with his exit. I’m not sure who my dad fucked in Coach Danley’s family, but I’d bet my last remaining dollar it was someone he cared about.
Principal Long waits a beat. I’m not sure why—maybe to make sure Coach Danley won’t come stomping back in or to give the tension in the room a second to ease. After that beat, however, she directs her focus to me.
“So, first day at Silverwood Public and you’ve already gotten into a fight?” She shakes her head and reaches up, peeling her glasses off and setting them on the scarred surface of her desk. “If I were a gambling woman, I’d have bet it’d take at least a week.”
I shrug. “Guess the animosity of the people can’t be changed in a few short months.”
She snorts. “I was really more relying on the intelligence I know you to have.”
My upper lip curls back. “You don’t know me,” I snap.
Long arches one of those brows at me and the sight of it makes me realize exactly why Coach Danley had gone quiet when she’d done it to him. It’s a strange sort of expression—on someone else, nonthreatening, but on a woman like her? It’s a little unsettling.
Long turns her head, a curl slipping loose from her ponytail.
“Regardless of what I know or don’t know,” she says, sliding into the main conversation with ease, “do you have anything to say?”
I cross my arms. “Does it matter if I do?”
“Of course it matters,” she replies. “I’d like to hear your side of the story first before I track down Megan White.”
“You heard the coach,” I say, pressing my back against the hard spine of the chair. “There are security cameras in the cafeteria. I’m sure you can draw your own conclusions.”
Principal Long eyes me for a moment more. “Interesting,” she murmurs.
My jaw clenches tight. “What is?”
She doesn’t answer for a long moment as we examine one another. Then she props her elbows onto the edge of her desk and steeples her fingers together, resting her chin there. “Why so hesitant to tell me your side of things, Juliet?” she asks.
“I’m not.” Even as the words come out, I know they’re a lie. I don’t want to tell her the truth and listen to her pick apart every piece of my story. It’s what people have done for the last three months—all of them wondering if I truly had no clue about my father’s crimes and schemes.
Long hums in the back of her throat for a moment before rolling her chair back and standing up. My eyes go up and up some more. I hadn’t realized how tall she was.
“If you don’t want to tell me, fine,” she says, shocking me, but then her next words set me on edge. “How about I take a stab at it and you stop me if I get something wrong?” She rounds the desk with her long legs and leans back against the wood, crossing her arms over an ample chest.
“I’m guessing you were approached by the student you attacked, and she said something about the fact that Mr. Donovan is in jail and Mrs. Donovan has seemingly fled town.”
The mention of my parents makes my whole body go rigid in the chair. She eyes me up and down, but despite her incorrect assumption, I don’t say a word. I’m curious to see how far she’ll take things.
“Before I saw you walk into my office here, I knew there would be some trouble considering the last few months. Now, that I’ve seen you?—”
“I’m more trouble than I’m worth?” I guess, cutting her off.
She smirks and shakes her head. There’s a note of sorrow and almost … sympathy in her eyes when she looks at me again. I hate that. I don’t want sympathy. I want to be left the fuck alone.
Instead of answering my question, however, she nods to the blue strands of hair that trail down either side of my face. “Dyed your hair to change your look, huh?”
I shrug. “Just felt like a change.” It’s not a total lie.
Long grins at me. “Sure you did, kiddo.”
I scowl. “Don’t call me that,” I snap. “I’m eighteen. If I’m old enough to take care of myself, pay taxes, get a job, and skip the system then I’m not a kid.”
“You’re also old enough to get arrested for battery.” Long’s statement is delivered with little more than a quirk of her brow and I have no response for it. After a beat, she sighs and turns her head. One long, unpainted nail presses a button on the landline sitting on her desk. “Mrs. Rogers, can you please cancel my morning meeting?”
Above our heads, the speaker crackles as the bell signaling the start of first period sounds. Long returns to her earlier posture as the bell stops and Mrs. Rogers’ reply comes through. “Yes, Ma’am. I’ll make a note and send out an email.”
“Come on.” Principal Long straightens away from her desk and uses two fingers to gesture for me to stand. I ball up the tissue still in my hand and get to my feet. She strides for the door, leaving me to follow behind her. On the way out, I toss the bloodied tissue into the waste paper basket and ignore Mrs. Rogers’ curious gaze as I’m led out of the office and into the now deserted front hall.
“Where are we going?”
Without looking back, Long replies. “You’ll see.”
I don’t like that answer, but short of beating a real response out of her, I don’t think I’ll get anything more. I’ve already punched one person today and made myself more than known to the school. Attacking the principal won’t help. So, I keep following her instead of turning the fuck around and walking right past the added metal detectors at the front of the building and the doors waiting for me.