5. Carey
Carey
“Hey, Crim! Hungry?”
I automatically looked up at the sound of my nickname just in time to see an entire poached egg sliding off the end of a fork from the overpass above me. I dodged it, but not quickly enough to avoid part of the egg white splattering on my hair.
Jasmine Briarwood smiled sweetly down at me from the overpass. “Oops!”
Over the past two weeks, I’d learned through multiple encounters that she was the reigning Queen Bee at Babylon Prep. In fact, I knew it the first time I ever saw her, with her impossibly pretty face, perfectly styled blonde hair cascading over her shoulders, piercing blue eyes that surveyed every space like a royal perusing their kingdom, and long manicured nails that looked like they could slit someone’s throat. On top of all that, she simply radiated an aura of entitlement and superiority.
“Seriously?” I glared up at her, nostrils flaring. “You’re throwing food now? Are you in fucking kindergarten?”
I was pretty sure this was exactly why she’d decided to hate me so much since my arrival on campus. Even though she was supposedly the ruling girl at this school, sending other girls skittering away from her in the halls like terrified deer, I was completely unafraid of her. If she made a nasty comment to me, I talked shit right back to her. If I saw her acting like a bitch to some poor innocent freshman, I called her out on it.
What was the worst she could do? Make up some awful rumor about me?
That didn’t matter at all, because every possible nasty rumor about me had already gone around the school three times, thanks to Maverick and his minions. Jasmine would only be adding to the already-gargantuan pile of shit if she tried.
She sneered down at me. “I just thought you might be hungry, that’s all,” she said. “I heard people can’t really afford food in Oakfield, and I guess it must be true, because your body is so malnourished it forgot to grow a pair of tits.”
Her minions giggled around her, as if she’d said the funniest thing in the world. I was about to snap back at her when Zach Roberts-Smith spoke up beside me. “Grow the fuck up, Jasmine,” he said, glowering at her. Like me, he was unafraid of her and her cronies. “Oh, and we all know your tits are fake, by the way. Your surgeon has pretty loose lips.”
Jasmine scoffed. “If I knew your name, I might actually care about your opinion. But I don’t, so…” She trailed off, flipped her hair dismissively, and flounced away.
I grinned at Zach. “Thanks.”
“No worries. I’m so fucking sick of her. She was horrible to Abby, too,” he said, lips thinning. “Someone really needs to teach her a lesson. I just wish I knew how. If I did, I’d totally do it.”
Zach was one of April’s best friends, and he’d quickly become my friend too. He and April had grown close after her sister’s death—he was Abigail’s long-term boyfriend before it happened—and now they ran a drug awareness program together, mostly aimed at the freshman and sophomore kids.
“She’ll move on to another target soon,” Brooke chimed in, gently pulling a stringy piece of egg white off the left side of my head. “She’s just going after you because you’re the new girl.”
Brooke was April’s other best friend. Chemistry whiz, bookworm, and also my lab partner in bio. She was just as sweet and kind as April, although she was a little shyer and quieter.
Zach rolled his eyes. “That’s exactly what I mean about her needing someone to teach her a fucking lesson. She’s always got a target. It’s totally fucked up.”
“I know. But what can we do?” Brooke asked, wiping off her eggy hand with a napkin. “It’s not like anyone would ever listen to nobodies like us. We might as well be invisible.”
“Hey, I’m actually glad we aren’t super popular,” April chimed in. “I like blending into the background. That way no one ever notices me and goes after me.” She paused and cringed. “Sorry, Carey.”
I gave her a small smile. “It’s cool. It’s not your fault things have been so shitty for me here.”
“Fucking Maverick.” She shook her head and took a small bite of the ham and cheese croissant in her right hand. Through her mouthful, she added, “He’s such a dick for starting all this shit.”
“Language, missy,” a familiar voice called out.
We turned to see Professor Garrick looking at us from the hedge-lined pathway that ran behind our spot.
“Ugh, Dad! Stop interrupting us at lunch!” April said. “This is the third time this week!”
“Your lunch spot is on the way to my office. You know that, sweetie, and you still choose to sit here every day.” He flashed her a good-natured grin and took a few steps closer. Then he turned his gaze to me. “By the way, Carey, I was going to wait until our next class to give this to you, but seeing as we’re both here now…”
He trailed off and riffled through his messenger bag. Then he smiled again and handed some papers over to me. “Your essay on the Count of Monte Cristo,” he said. “Congratulations. You got an A+.”
My eyes widened as I looked down at the cover page. True to his word, a big ‘A+’ was scrawled at the top in purple pen. “Oh, wow. Thanks!”
“You have some interesting thoughts on revenge. I’d love to read a few paragraphs to the rest of the class, if you’re okay with that.”
“Sure.” I held the essay out to him. “I guess you’ll need it back, then.”
He waved a hand. “It’s okay. Just bring it on Friday,” he said. He looked at April. “Don’t worry, sweetie, I’ll get out of your hair now.”
He continued on his way down the path, and Brooke gently elbowed me. “That’s one good thing for you, right?” she said. “You’re doing great here. Academically, I mean.”
“Yeah, I guess I’m doing pretty well, huh?” I said softly. Perhaps the people who created my scholarship were correct after all—if someone on a wayward path was simply given the right opportunities in life, they could really excel.
Then again, grades were never my problem. Getting involved with the wrong people… that was my problem. Babylon was a fresh start for me, though, and judging by my new group of friends, I was already making much better decisions about who I chose to hang out with.
The rest of the day drifted by in what had quickly become a familiar haze—abuse shouted at me in the hallways, whispers all around me in my classes, and nasty notes slid inside my locker, all followed by leering gazes on the staircase as I headed for my dorm in the boys hall after a long study session in the library.
With a heavy sigh, I unlocked my door and glanced over at Maverick’s side of the room. The school maintenance staff had hung two curtains in the end—one surrounding my space and one surrounding Maverick’s, leaving a narrow open pathway between the entryway and the other side of the dorm, which led to our shared bathroom.
Maverick’s curtain was currently open, so I could see him reclining on his bed, reading something on his phone. He didn’t look up when he heard me enter the room, which I viewed as a small mercy. It was always better when people ignored me at this place. Especially people like him.
I opened my own curtain and promptly screamed bloody murder. Dangling from the light fixture above my bed was a crude effigy of me, dripping red all over the duvet from the throat area as it swung in slow circles.
“Shit!” I placed a hand on my chest, surprised my heart hadn’t jumped right out of my ribcage from the shock. “God, Maverick, you’re such a fucking asshole!”
He appeared next to me. “Huh? What the—” He stared at the effigy, eyes wide. “Oh, nice. That looks cool as fuck.”
“Cool? I almost had a heart attack!” I snapped, narrowing my eyes at him. “Although I guess that’s what you wanted, right?”
“I didn’t do this.”
I scoffed. “Are you seriously going to pretend it wasn’t you?”
Over the past couple of weeks, Maverick had made my life at Babylon hell. He’d spread a ton of nasty rumors about me, destroyed my already-tenuous reputation, and made numerous threats about reporting me to the school administration for plagiarism and cheating—which he couldn’t prove, because it wasn’t true—but this was the first time he’d taken things this far, with what essentially amounted to a death threat hanging over my bed.
“It wasn’t.” He folded his arms. “It was probably your friends.”
“Huh?”
“Your friends,” he repeated. “They were here earlier.”
“Bullshit. April, Brooke, and Zach were all with me in the library until five minutes ago.”
Maverick sneered. “Not them. Hudson and some other guys. Can’t remember their names.”
My heart froze. “Hudson Calloway?”
“Yeah.”
“He was here?”
“That’s what I said.” Maverick rolled his eyes. “He knocked earlier and said you guys were supposed to hang out, so I let him in. He and his buddies hung out in your section for a while, and then they said they had to go. I figured they were going to find you.”
“You didn’t hear them doing anything while they were in here?”
He scratched his jaw. “Uh… I heard them laughing.”
“And that didn’t tip you off that they might be doing something like this?”
“No.” He lifted a brow and cocked his head. “Most people laugh with each other when they hang out. Maybe you’d know that if you didn’t have a stick up your ass all the time.”
I gritted my teeth. “Listen. Hudson Calloway is not my friend. Don’t ever let him in here again. Okay?”
I assumed Maverick would smirk and make some comment about being allowed to do whatever he wanted in his dorm. Instead, he casually shrugged, face settling into a neutral expression. “Okay,” he said before turning away and heading back to his side of the room.
I wasn’t sure I trusted that ‘okay,’ but I figured it was better than the alternative.
Before I could formulate another thought on the matter, someone rapped on the door. I headed over and tentatively opened it a crack, worried that Hudson and his cronies were back for more. Instead, I saw Jasmine, tapping one foot impatiently on the floor as she waited.
“Uhh… are you here to apologize to me?” I asked.
She looked genuinely surprised by my question. “Apologize for what?”
“Never mind. Stupid question,” I muttered. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m here to study with Mav, obviously.” She pushed past me and stomped over to Maverick’s bed. “You know, I can’t believe that dirty little bitch is still here,” she went on loudly enough for me to hear as she pulled the curtain around their section of the dorm. “My parents complained to the school about her criminal history, but they don’t seem to care.”
I couldn’t make out Maverick’s muttered response, but I didn’t care. I closed the door, strode back over to my side, and began the arduous process of cutting down the horrible effigy of me from the chandelier. After that, I scrubbed as much of the ‘blood’ off my duvet as I could—it smelled sickly-sweet, so I guessed it was actually corn syrup—and then I whipped my curtain back around my section and settled at my desk to get started on some research for a history essay.
I put some headphones on so I could listen to music while I browsed journal articles and web results, but that didn’t stop the occasional noises from drifting over to me from Maverick’s section. For the first fifteen minutes or so, it was mostly just Jasmine’s annoying voice cutting through, but eventually I heard loud moans and grunts through my tunes.
I rolled my eyes and turned my music up, but the moans grew louder and louder, peppered with the occasional gasp or scream. It all sounded unbelievably performative. Clearly, Jasmine and Maverick had decided to have extremely loud sex just to bother me.
I kept turning my music up in a futile attempt to drown out the noises, but then I couldn’t concentrate on my work. Finally, after a particularly loud, drawn-out shriek, I snapped and shouted toward Maverick’s section. “Can you fucking stop?”
The noises abruptly ceased, and Maverick called back to me. “What?”
I ripped off my headphones, stomped over to his section, and yanked the curtains back. Jasmine was hiding most of her body under the blankets, and her hair was mussed. “Um, can we help you?” she said in a snide tone.
“Yeah, you actually can help me, by shutting the hell up. It’s obvious you’re totally faking it anyway.”
“What are you talking about?”
I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. “Listen, Jasmine… you might like bouncing on Maverick’s dick, but everyone else in the building is sick of hearing it. Especially me. So please, shut the fuck up.”
She batted her long eyelashes at me. “We weren’t having sex. We’re just studying.”
“Sure.” I snorted. “That’s why you’re hiding under the blankets.”
She pushed the duvet off herself, revealing that she was fully clothed. “I only got under here because I’m cold, and I know Mav isn’t a total creep who’ll try to touch me,” she said. “You really have a dirty mind, Crim.”
“So what the hell was that noise, then?” I asked, eyes narrowing. “I know what I heard.”
“Oh my god, who cares? It wasn’t that loud.”
“Yes, it was,” I snapped. “I had noise-canceling headphones on at my desk, and it still sounded like I was working at a porn shoot.”
Jasmine sighed. “It’s a horror movie, okay? We’re watching it for our film studies class. See?” She paused and grabbed a laptop from the end of the bed. Then she turned it to face me and hit the space bar on the keyboard.
She wasn’t lying. Onscreen, a crying girl was crawling through the mud, letting out the occasional moans and screams as a killer slowly stalked her, dragging an axe by his side.
“Right,” I muttered, feeling stupid. “Whatever.”
She batted her long eyelashes. “So… you want us to turn it down?”
“Yes!” I threw up my hands. “That’s literally all I want right now. Some damn peace and quiet.”
“You got it.” She smiled sweetly at me and lowered the volume. Next to her, Maverick stared at me, lips turned upward in a smirk.
I turned away, and Jasmine called out to me. “It’s totally obvious, by the way.”
I looked over my shoulder. “What?”
“Your crush on Mav,” she said in a taunting tone. “It’s so obvious. Why else would you be making up these crazy jealous scenarios about him fucking other girls right next to you?”
“Oh, sure,” I said, voice dripping with sarcasm. “You caught me! I totally have a thing for annoying, entitled assholes!”
With that, I strode back over to my side and whipped my curtains back around my section so hard that they almost came off the temporary rail. My face felt hot, and my legs were trembling.
As much as I hated to admit it, Jasmine was partially right. Obviously, I didn’t have a crush on Maverick, because he was a total prick, but I was attracted to him. Only in the most private way, of course. I would never admit to him or anyone else that he was the sexiest guy I’d ever seen. I would never act on the attraction, either. His shitty personality rendered him utterly undatable and unfuckable.
The evening finally rolled around, and I went to the dining hall to meet up with my friends for dinner. When I returned, Maverick wasn’t in our dorm, and his curtain was open all the way. He didn’t return while I watched TV and TikTok for the rest of the evening, and by the time I went to bed at eleven, his side of the room was still unoccupied.
I woke up several times throughout the night to pee—I drank way too much water during dinner thanks to the spicy Madras curry I’d enjoyed—and each time, I noticed Maverick still hadn’t come back yet. For once, I was sleeping alone in our shared space.
That was fine by me. With him out of the dorm, there was no chance of him harassing or annoying me.
At three-thirty in the morning, I settled back into bed after my fifth bathroom trip and lay my head on the pillow, letting out a deep sigh of relief. My alarm wasn’t due to go off until seven-thirty, and my bladder finally seemed to be empty, so I could enjoy another four hours of uninterrupted sleep.
Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. Just after six, my phone started going off. Groaning, I picked it up to silence it, sleepily thinking that I must’ve set the alarm wrong. I spotted a flurry of notifications instead. Someone had tagged me in something on Instagram, and people were commenting on it like crazy despite the early hour.
I blinked slowly, wondering what the hell was going on. A second later, a text from April came through. Don’t look!