Chapter 2
TWO
Dropping my duffel bag at my feet, Margot turns to me with the same frosty demeanor she’s had all morning. “This is your last chance to make any requests of the state before I’m signing you off. Then you’re on your own, even if something goes wrong.”
Never in my life have I ever expected to be rescued, least of all by the people with legal power over me. Not my mom, not my social workers, not the cops, no one. The idea of her saying this to me as a threat is laughable, but it only proves just how little she really knows.
No one at the group home is stupid enough to snitch on me, so I should have a little empathy for the clueless woman, but that kind of thing isn’t really my strong suit.
If anything, it’s my weakness, because I’m terrible at figuring out how normal people live and think and move.
I only know about the desperate, the greedy, and the sadistic.
Still, I can’t say I give a shit whether Margot survives the year in her post.
Margot has her eyebrow cocked at me as if I'm being dense for not having anything to say, but honestly, I’m torn between being afraid of saying goodbye to her and wanting her to leave so I can start my new life.
Standing outside Hannaford Preparatory Academy, I’m filled with apprehension about the next stage of my plan for the first time.
Despite the lush greenery and immaculately kept grounds it stands on, the building itself looms over us ghoulishly.
It looks more like a sanitarium than a school, and despite having already researched the building extensively, I can’t help but wonder if it does have a secret past life as an asylum of some sort.
The chill that runs down my spine doesn’t do anything to deter me, though.
I’ve slept in far worse places.
The brochure described Hannaford’s architecture as Gothic, but it looks like a rip-off of a medieval castle, complete with honest-to-God turrets and an incomplete moat surrounding the building.
There’s a bronzed statue of a mounted soldier in the gardens, someone famous for winning some battle that I’m certain no one here cares about anymore.
The school was built in the eighteen hundreds and boasts many presidents and political savants as alumni.
The extracurricular roster includes an equestrian program and an Olympic-level swim team.
It has a near perfect college acceptance rate from the students who have walked these halls, and the waiting list to get in is the stuff of legends.
Compared to my high school back in Mounts Bay, well, they might as well be on different planets.
A tingle runs down my spine at the thought of my old school, and I turn back to my ex-social worker. “I’m fine. I understand all of my rights, I've done the mandatory counseling, and I'm ready to be a big girl out in the world.”
She scoffs, then hands me my case files and the enrollment forms for the head office.
“You have no idea of what the real world looks like. How can you when you’ve always been in care?
Nothing I can do about it now, though. I've left the crisis care hotline number on a card in your files if you do get into trouble, but you're off my roster now. Try to do well at this place and stay off the streets.”
What a glowing statement of confidence.
She gets back in the car and I watch as she drives away. My stomach tightens, but although I’m quick to push it aside, it throws me for a second. I learned to recognize fear and side-step it without stopping years ago, but I’m used to life-threatening situations.
A new school is not life threatening.
Jesus, I’ve been rolling my eyes at Margot’s naivety for weeks and yet here I am, hands shaking with nerves and a dry mouth, over what?
A boarding school with a bunch of other teenagers?
I have a full-ride scholarship that is covering my food and housing costs, as well as textbooks and supplies.
The only rules I have to live by are those set out by the scholarship, and they’re literally child’s play.
My grades have to remain perfect, I have to be presentable at all times, and I can’t engage in behavior unbecoming of a Hannaford student.
This place is practically a five-star resort.
I’ve made it.
Not just through the worst years of my life, but also my hard work has paid off and now I’m reaping the rewards. I’ll just keep telling myself that until the message sticks.
Margot’s car disappears back down the long, oak-tree-lined driveway that takes forever to get back out onto a public road, and I take an extra second to steel myself before I grab my beat-up duffel bag, slinging it over my shoulder.
Everything I own fits inside it, and the surprising weight of it is comforting to me.
My feet are steady on the cobblestone path as I head toward the main building, looming from behind a set of gates.
The garden beds are bursting with color, and there are birds singing despite the heat already threatening to scorch everything it touches.
When I walk past the water fountain, I have to admit that it’s like a fairy tale here, and if I weren’t a Mounty kid from the slums of the Bay, it would probably feel like a good omen.
The moment I step through the gates and onto the school grounds, there are students everywhere and I'm getting a ton of curious looks.
I try not to let it get to me as I walk up to the office, but none of the girls are subtle about looking me over with their critical eyes, or what they think of me.
Clearly, none of them are the Doc Marten and ripped-jeans type.
That says more about them than me.
When I make it inside the administration building, huffing and puffing under the weight of my bag, the office door is being blocked by a group of students standing in front of the reception desk and it’s clear they're closely related. They're all dark-haired, blue-eyed, and their facial features look as though they were carved from marble by a master artist. The older boy is smirking at the lady occupying at the front desk, and the other two, a boy and a girl, are looking at him despondently, glassy-eyed and utterly bored. While I’m quick and thorough in my assessment of them, they don’t spare me so much as a glance.
“Yvette, I really don't care what your policies are, I'm not sharing with Ash. Put Avery in with him. They're attached at the hip anyway.”
The receptionist, a voluptuous woman who is at the very least in her forties, gives him a firm look, but he clearly doesn't care. His shoulders are broad and tight under his blazer. He looks like he’s poised and ready to strike.
I press my back against the wall out of habit, a lesson learned years ago.
When there’s danger in the room, you don’t leave your back unguarded.
“Mr. Beaumont, as you well know, it is against school policy for there to be co-ed rooms, even among siblings.”
Beaumont.
I did a lot of research on this place before I applied. Names of the faculty, the grounds man, the legacy families who've sent generations of entitled, silver-spooned assholes here.
I have never come across that name before.
Interesting.
He sneers at her and spits out, “I am not sharing. Whatever the cost, I will have a single room.”
I scoff at that, but then Yvette is pulling out a ledger and he's handing over a shiny black credit card. This is my first clue that despite the mission statement about integrity and respect, the school’s true moral code is just as corrupt as any other.
That’s weirdly comforting to me.
“And who, exactly, are you?” the girl says without looking away from the car crash in front of us. When there’s no reply to her demand, she turns to point her searing gaze in my direction, and I realize it’s me she’s talking to.
Her eyes widen a fraction before narrowing when I meet her gaze unflinchingly, but even as the silence stretches on between us, she doesn’t repeat her question or offer her own name. Luckily, I’ve already made note of it with my eavesdropping; Avery Beaumont.
Showing any weakness to a girl like this will only put blood in the water, so when I finally break the stalemate, there’s no hesitancy or submission in my tone. “Lips. Lips Anderson. I've just transferred into the junior class.”
A smile dances around the edge of her painted mouth, but her eyes aren’t amused.
It appears that she doesn’t like the fact that I’m not backing down, how easily I’m interacting with her or the fact that I’m listening in on this exchange.
I get the feeling this girl doesn’t like much.
There’s nothing sullen about her however, instead she’s clothed in an arrogant air that can only come from a disgusting level of wealth and influence that began before birth.
Cutting through my thoughts, the boy drawls at me, “What sort of degenerate names their child Lips?”
Weirdly, his voice makes me feel kind of boneless, and something about it shifts my center of gravity so abruptly that I feel like I’ve lost my footing.
When he turns, giving me my first proper look at him, and I almost hit the deck.
Jesus, I’ve been rendered a drooling idiot twice, in two days, from two different guys—what the hell is wrong with me?
But there’s no denying it; he’s breathtakingly gorgeous, definitely the hot brother out of the two, and it’s enough to make a girl do something stupid.
That is until I see the disgust on his face. He looks at me like I'm a venereal disease. I choose not to satisfy him with an answer and, instead, I push away from the wall. Side-stepping the group of them, I slap my paperwork down on the desk with feigned confidence despite feeling kind of shaky.
Is the whole school full of gorgeous, rich assholes? The older sibling looks down his nose at me as well before he turns on his heel and stalks out, presumably to go find his newly acquired single room. The receptionist ignores me and turns soft eyes onto the remaining boy.