3
Yo, what the hell? If someone calls an ambulance, we’re all screwed!” Max yells from across the sand.
Whoever pushed me is gone, and sadly so is Max. My chest deflates as my knees burn. Something warm and sticky trickles down my leg.
Of course this is how my night would go. I’m bleeding on the ground, and I think Max might be… well, I don’t think he’s into me. The music quiets to a low hum and everyone turns to stare. Goddamn it.
I stagger to my feet and search around for Celeste, but she’s gone too.
I’ve been left with Sara, who gives me a pitying glance and says, “We should go find you a Band-Aid. I might have some in my car.” I nod, eyes filling with tears, but then I spot Brooklyn, inches away, his gaze snagging on something in the distance. And I hear it—her. Screaming.
I move from Sara’s side, sliding into the cooing crowd. They reach out, ask if I’m okay, but deep inside the circle, Celeste is shouting. It must be for help. I need to find her. Maybe she was hurt too. Maybe—
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” Celeste pokes a finger into one of the stranger’s chests.
The boy is taller than Brooklyn, paler, with long black hair and almost scarlet eyes.
He, like the rest of them, is gorgeous. Breathtakingly so.
Unnaturally so, with a smug smile on his lips made for calculated insults and silver spoons.
He glances at her finger with a scoff, as if he can’t even be bothered to react further to her audacity.
“Hey, dick,” she says, louder still, “you just pushed my friend to the ground. Do you want to try an apology, or are those pretty lips too busy still sucking on Mommy and Daddy’s teats?”
Not good.
I rush forward and loop my arm through hers, tugging. She doesn’t budge. Weighted down like a brick, she stays rooted to the sand.
The strange boy’s gaze falls on me, then my knee. His nose scrunches as though he’s disgusted. “We were dancing. Perhaps she should have watched where she stood.”
A girl at his side steps forward, silky, black hair falling to her waist. Her scarlet-brown eyes match his exactly.
They share the same straight nose and pointed chin, but her lips pull into a deeper frown, her eyes narrowing further.
She looks like a wasp seconds from striking, and the sight sends a ripple of goose bumps up my arms.
Her voice comes out ice cold. “Maybe your friend was too busy drooling over that fuckboy to notice, but this is a party. People dance at parties.” She turns to grimace at me. “Even the ones who aren’t good at it.”
I stiffen. Embarrassment paints me red from cheeks to chest. I try to hide it by shifting away, but I’ve got too firm a hold on Celeste, and she’s making it so that I can’t move either.
“Celeste, it’s not worth it,” I say, wishing the music would restart and everyone would go back to dancing. But they’re all watching, waiting.
Behind the first two rich kids stands a row of about six more beautiful, rich assholes. They all chest up with disapproving glares. I want to hide, now more than ever, but not Celeste.
Especially not when the girl says, “Why don’t you fuck off?” She cracks her knuckles, and the muscles in her forearms tense. The other rich kids follow suit behind her. “Or you can settle this like the badass you think you are.”
My classmates seem to inhale collectively, sharply. For a few seconds, there is only the sound of waves lapping at the beach. There is only the promise of violence before us.
Alarm bells peal in my brain.
Danger danger danger.
These kids have enough money to pay off the cops, buy a new lighthouse, and fund a new wing of the hospital all in the same day. They also look as if they’ve been trained to go five rounds in the Octagon with an MMA champion. If we mess with them, we’ll lose.
I pull and pull, but Celeste still won’t move. She swipes at the sweat on her forehead. It drips faster now, as though anger is raising her internal temperature. “I’m not scared of you.”
“No?” The girl tilts her head, hair cascading over her shoulder and obscuring the gilded crest that hangs from her neck. “You should be. Do you think a skinned knee is the worst we can do?”
“I think you can apologize,” Max says from beside me. I feel his warmth like an anchor—until he says, “You want the cops to come and ruin my party?”
The girl laughs when she notices my face fall, and my goose bumps return, as prickly as knives. Dread burrows into my spine. I manage to shuffle Celeste and me farther away, but it’s still not enough to get her out of their line of sight. I just want to stop being perceived. I want to go home.
The girl isn’t finished with me, though. She’s found a weak spot, and she’s attacking. “Did you really think he would like you? He may be a fuckboy, but at least he’s hot. Look at you.…” She waves to my knee with a flippant hand. “You’re pathetic.”
At that, Celeste lunges, ripping out of my grasp and tackling the girl to the ground.
The crowd parts. Gives them space to wrestle in the sand.
I can barely catch what’s happening. I see fists and nails like claws scratching across cheeks and hear a howl in the distance that might as well be a shotgun beginning their fight.
Celeste screams with all her might, ripping at the girl’s hair.
Brooklyn hurries over, picking her up by the waist to carry her away.
The girl isn’t done with Celeste either, however.
She slaps Celeste across the cheek before Brooklyn can rescue her, leaving a puckering, red welt in her wake.
The scar is jagged and unnaturally large for the size of the girl’s perfectly manicured nails, and deep enough that blood trickles over Celeste’s cheek.
The other kids’ gazes snap to the wound.
Their eyes seem to darken. Maybe they’re waiting for Celeste to surrender, but the injury only makes her kick harder. Scratch more.
“Celeste, stop—”
“Fuck you,” Celeste cries out. Not to me, but to the girl. Her voice is rougher than usual. Brooklyn has her hoisted in the air, using his chest as a backboard for her weight, but it’s almost not enough to stop her. “You stupid, deranged, arrogant assholes!”
“There’s no use,” says the first boy with an apathetic shrug, though his red-brown gaze remains on Celeste’s cheek. “It’s hardly even a fight.”
The girl pulls delicate fingers through her hair, adjusting the silk of her blouse as though she’s merely sandy from a quick run on the beach instead of a literal brawl.
Meanwhile, Brooklyn sets Celeste on the ground with a glance at me—a plea for help—and I join him in holding my best friend back as she bucks violently in our grasp.
I don’t understand why she’s still going. Celeste never fights. Not once has she ever gotten into a physical altercation. This shouldn’t be happening. Something is wrong .
“Celeste,” I say, mustering as much strength as I can to speak up once more.
Her gaze finds mine, and for a split second, I’m looking at a stranger.
I don’t recognize the girl behind her eyes.
The slurred words on her tongue. “You are hurt,” she says, as though it’s as simple as that—she demands retribution for my pain, and they must pay it.
Her chest heaves. The handprint on her face remains, stretching from the corner of her eye all the way down to her chin, with blood congealing in the crevice of her collarbone.
Her hair sticks up in almost every direction, caked with sand and sweat and seawater.
There is an inhuman hunger for revenge in her eyes.
While the other girl—she stands calmly, examining her bloodstained nails with an easy grin. As if she’s pleased.
I could kill her for it. Rage boils in my veins, slowly but no less deadly than Celeste’s, and I hate it. I hate even more that I can’t stop it. “Who do you think you are?” I ask, untangling from Celeste before inching forward. “You don’t go to our school. You don’t know anyone here. Leave. ”
“Who do I think I am?” the girl purrs. “Your worst fucking nightmare.” She flicks me off, and most of her friends howl with laughter. Hatred scorches through me until I, myself, contemplate physical violence.
But then Celeste tugs away from Brooklyn’s grasp, and I spin to make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid. At least nothing as stupid as I was contemplating.
She doesn’t move forward again, however.
She yanks at her shirt, pulling the collar from her neck.
I see the splotches of sweat there too. On her reddened chest. Soaking through her armpits.
Her other hand goes to her stomach, her cheeks flushing so scarlet, it’s as if her head could explode.
Even her hickey looks irritated and raw, bigger than before, dipping below her shirt and spreading farther than I can see.
Like a web of purple ink and black pain. Like a rash made of bruises.
“I… I have to go.” She sprints away, through the crowd and toward the lighthouse.
The rich kids sneer and cackle behind her back, but our classmates form a wall between her and them.
Protecting her. Thank god. Brooklyn and Max stand at the front of the pack, arms crossed and chins raised.
The rich kids are all taller. Wider. More muscular and graceful.
In every single way, they appear better than us.
The mean girl closest to me, with the long black hair and thick lashes, trails her tongue across her teeth. “Be a good little bitch and go chase after your Alpha.”
A different boy—a blond one—reaches out and taps her on the arm. “Enough,” he says. Immediately she falls in step behind him. He opens his mouth as if he’s going to say something else too, but I don’t care to listen anymore. I don’t care about any of them.
Only Celeste.
Max and Brooklyn—the rest of our school—can handle themselves. I chase after my best friend, following the brutal sounds of her retching until I’ve tracked her down.