Chapter 21
TWENTY-ONE
Lunch is the only meal of the day that’s at a time dictated for me by my class schedule.
Since my drugging episode, I started skipping breakfast and eating dinner at ten p.m., right before the dining hall closes, and I’m usually only ever joined by teachers.
It’s still a risk, and I’m painfully aware that Avery has most of the school staff under her impressive thumb, but there are only so many protein bars I can eat and meals I can skip.
The small amount of weight I put on is quickly disappearing from my body, and I miss my boobs already.
I also miss the French toast with syrup and strawberries that are only served at breakfast. Ugh.
For lunch each day, I select a sealed drink, either an iced coffee or a bottle of water, and a couple of apples and bananas.
It’s barely enough to stop the intense hunger pangs in my empty stomach and I have to listen to the rumbling for most of the afternoon.
To every other student, it looks like I’ve gone on a strict diet, which is common among the female population here.
I know for a fact there are at least five girls I share the bathroom with that are vomiting after their meals in an effort to be supermodel thin.
One of them even confronted me and asked my secret to being so small.
Apparently, the quest to disappear into thin air outweighed the stigma of speaking to Mounty trash like me.
When I answered ‘poverty’ with a blank face, she snarled at me like a rabid dog.
Calorie deprivation can turn even the nicest girls into bitches.
My phone pings as I sit, and I’m careful to keep my eyes on my food while I fish around in my bag to grab it and see what the Jackal needs from me.
You never call to chat anymore.
I stare at the screen for a second while the other students around me eat and talk and laugh like normal teenagers.
What I wouldn’t give to be one of them; to be worried about what my parents think about my grades or what I’m going to wear to the next party I attend.
Instead, here I am trying to decipher obscure text messages from gangster kingpins while planning my next move against billionaire sociopaths.
I need to catch a break.
I wonder what it is about me that appeals to these types of guys.
Matteo hand-picked me out of hundreds of foster kids at age nine to train to someday become the Wolf.
Joey had taken one look at me when I arrived at Hannaford and decided I would make a good game.
If I knew what it was that appealed to them, I could try and snuff it out or at least conceal it.
Instead, I’m stuck dealing with the ramifications of their desires.
I shove my tray aside and tap out a reply. I can use this opening if I’m smart about it. I want to try and clear my winter break from anything Twelve related. I need some goddamn downtime.
I’m fielding a lot at the moment. I’m making some good connections; a lot of future leaders in my classes.
I pick up an apple. I like its wholeness. I can see if anyone has tampered with it, so now I’m surviving on fruit. Lauren sits down across from me and gives me a little half-smile. I return it with a sigh.
I’ve heard some disturbing things about you, Starbright.
Ugh, I hate it when he calls me that. I’m sure he is one of the only people on this Earth that knows my middle name.
He enjoys teasing me with it. Nothing makes my blood boil quicker than hearing the name my doped-up mother assigned me.
Eclipse Starbright Anderson. The second I turn eighteen, I’m changing my name to Claire, or Kylie, or fucking Frances.
Anything normal, anything that people just write down without making a smart-ass comment about.
I’m acing my classes and I’m finally looking like a girl instead of a skinned rat. What’s so disturbing about that?
Avery and the guys walk in and line up for food.
Harley is back to laughing and joking with them all, my drugged night of vomit clearly forgotten.
Avery looks dimmer than her usual smiling-overlord shine.
I watch them all out of the corner of my eye, and I don’t miss the looks Ash sends me. Curious.
Why does Joey Beaumont want you dead?
My stomach drops. So Joey is running his mouth about me so much that even Matteo has heard it all the way back in Mounts Bay?
Rationally, I know the Jackal has eyes here as well and any of them could have passed the information on, but it still makes a shiver run up my spine.
I know how badly Matteo wants to own me, mind and body, so this at least I can work to my favor.
He wants to fuck me. He’s made a game out of it. I have no intention of fucking any guy here, and when I expressed that to him, he tried to rape me. He was unsuccessful and doesn’t take kindly to the word no.
I think the Jackal gets a kick out of the idea of me being untouched. I think he fantasizes about being the one and only person to be inside me someday. I know this is the best card to play. Maybe I am learning how to play the political game.
I will pay little Joey a visit. Do not argue with me on this.
I glance over to watch Joey as he presides over his group of flunkies like he’s their king, and I smile. Occasionally, it’s a good thing to keep Matteo’s dreams about me alive.
I wouldn’t dream of arguing with you, Jackal.
As I grab my tray to head back out of the dining hall, I see Joey frowning down at his phone, and even with the sinking feeling in my own gut, it feels like a victory to me.
“You should talk Avery into taking some self-defense lessons.”
Ash stares over the library table at me like I’ve lost my goddamn mind.
Maybe I have, but I’ve also lost the ability to give a fuck at this place anymore.
I decide it’s sleep deprivation. I only got twenty minutes of sleep after finishing the re-do on my math workbook, but I’m confident I’ll get at least an A-minus on it, so it was worth it.
Another unsuccessful attempt by Avery, but damn, if she isn’t getting closer to my weak points. If I’m not careful, she’ll find the exact right place to slip her knife in and I’ll be ruined. I definitely shouldn’t be as calm about it as I am, but what can I say? I’m a broken girl from the Bay.
Normal shit doesn’t impress me.
“And why do you think I should do that?” He speaks slowly, dragging out the words like I'm very simple.
“Maybe next time your sociopath brother takes a swing at her, she can plant him on his ass like he deserves.”
His eyebrows show the exact toll my words have taken on him. He’s fucking devastated, and my heart drops to see it. I guess she didn’t tell him about Joey’s homecoming. I feel weirdly guilty, like somehow it’s my fault his twin was hurt.
“When did you see that?” His voice is as raw as his face.
I look down at the page in front of him and I realize he’s shaking. Fucking Joey, he ruins everything he touches. Even his siblings have been broken by him.
“Last week. I tried to speak to her about it and she freaked. She should at least learn enough to make him think twice about touching her.”
Ash groans and scrubs a hand over his face, all long, tan fingers I try not to stare at. It’s jarring to see real emotions on his face this close up. He’s usually so reserved, so cut off, that I never see his face without a sneer in my direction. It’s oddly comforting.
“I’ve tried. She said if she fights back, it’ll only make him more violent toward her. We always make sure she has one of us with her.” He groans again and cradles his head in his hands.
There are so many questions I want to ask him, but I don’t want to break the spell that has him opening up to me.
Does his father hit them both, or was Joey lying?
What does their mother think about this?
How much time are they forced to spend with Joey outside the school year?
How does Avery have access to enough money to pay Harley’s tuition, which I know for a fact is over eighty-thousand dollars a year?
Why does Ash lie about needing help with his classwork?
I’m still deciding if I’m brave enough to try and ask him any of these questions when Blaise arrives. We’ve been studying for twenty minutes already, so I give him a look. He’s still doing his best to not glance at me at all, so he doesn’t see it. My temper flares.
“How kind of you to grace us with your presence.” Sarcasm drips from my words. Blaise ignores me, but Ash chuckles from where his head is still pressed into his palms.
“He does what he can for his people.”
“Yes, yes, you’re both so fucking amusing.
I had to re-sit a test for history because apparently Mr. Smithton gets hard over ruining my life.
He called my dad, so now I’m truly fucked.
Why can’t I just drop out and make music and fuck groupies and get fucking blind drunk every night?
Why do I have to learn inane bullshit about dead people? Why?”
“Ah, good. The theatrics have started. Mounty, settle in. We’re going to be here for hours while he gets this out of his system.”
Blaise slumps into his chair dramatically, and I scoff at him.
He looks like a poor little rock star, forced to be a scholar.
He groans and tugs at his hair roughly, so it stands up everywhere.
He has sex hair at the best of times, but now it’s bordering on obscene.
I can’t tear my eyes away from it, no matter how hard I try.
“I hate this place, and I hate my dad’s business, and I hate the expectations he has for me.”
Ash drops his hands and looks over at his friend with fake sympathy, nodding at him.
“Yes, so unfair to be the sole heir to a billion-dollar empire that your father sold his soul to create. So sad. Do you want a drink, Mounty? May as well drown this tirade out while we have the chance.”