My fist clenches beneath the desk. No. There’s no feeling sorry for the crybaby. She made her choice and now she’ll pay for it.
“It’ll be marked late,” the teacher says before moving on, stopping in front of me. She lifts a skeptical brow. “I suppose you think you’re above the final weeks of school as well, Mr. Wilder?”
“Not at all, miss.”
She blinks in surprise at my response. The teachers here have grown to expect me being a silent dick all the time, but I’m not here for them. I’m only here for her.
Eyes locked with Maisy’s, I hand over my assignment—which is really her paper, reworked a little. If she does manage to remember some of what she wrote and turn her project in, she’ll be flagged for plagiarism and fail. It will be another hard hit to her class ranking and a black mark on her academic record that her college will frown on.
“Well.” The teacher scans the first page and nods. “At least you finally put some effort into your school work. Better late than never.”
That’s right, miss. Maisy Landry does good work.
Not that I give a damn about the grade—it’s just taking it from her that brings me the sick satisfaction I care about. Just like I’ll take everything else away.
As our teacher carries the stack of papers back to her desk, Maisy stares at me. I rake my gaze over her. She huffs and turns in her desk to face the front, probably wondering what the hell happened to her assignment.
This is all petty shit in the grand scheme of things. Compared to what I’ve done when I lived in Thorne Point with Colton and Wren’s crew, it’s nothing. But it’s all according to my new plan. Maisy is a rusted chain, ready to snap. I took care of Holden first, but she’s more satisfying to break, slowly chipping away piece by piece until the fake good girl crumbles before me.
And she’ll know without a doubt it was me crushing her to dust.
Eight
Maisy
This place is descending into madness, I swear. Eyes have burned into me in all my morning classes, eager for the show when I search my bag for assignments due only to find they aren’t there. I’ve never been unprepared for class or turned my work in late once in my life, not even in kindergarten. Missing one paper is one thing, but every piece of homework due today isn’t where it should be in my bag and I’m getting really sick of the muffled laughter behind my back.
At lunch I slip out to the parking lot, avoiding the snarky whispers that follow in my wake. I hope my research paper is there. It could’ve slipped out of my bag in Holden’s Audi and I didn’t notice. Please let that be the case.
Turning it in late is already going to be a hit to my grade point average. I’ll still be in the top five percent, but Mom only cares about me maintaining number one. It makes her look good if I’m Valedictorian when I graduate, and if I lose that spot? Goodbye road trip I’ve been working so hard to convince her and Dad to let me take.
When I reach the car, I open the door and immediately rear back from the smell that hits me. “Ugh! What the hell?”
It’s awful, the entire interior reeks of rotting fruit and sickly sweet soda, baked for hours in the car under the hot summer sun. This has to have been like this for a while, after I got to school. Sam met me at the car this morning and talked my ear off before we turned to walk inside together. It probably happened right after.
The driver’s seat is covered in trash and rotten debris. Banana peels so ripe they’re black are dumped into the cup holders of the center console and apple cores spill off the seat to the floor.
Holding my nose from the awful trash-plus-heat sauna stench, I pick up one of the banana peels and drop it to the ground with a revolted jolt. It’s sticky. I wipe my hand on my plaid uniform skirt and scrunch up my face in dismay.
On closer inspection when I prod the black interior seats, they’re soaked with the soda that was dumped over this whole mess. From the seats to the wheel to the dash, everything is covered in so much soda that whoever played this prank on me must have been prepared with several bottles. And mixed in with it all is a pile of shredded paper. One corner pokes out and through the smeared print, I can make out the title of my research paper.
Now I know where it went
.
Groaning under my breath, I dig around in the back seat for a bag, then hunt down extra napkins from the glove compartment, glad Holden and I grabbed burgers at our favorite place yesterday. My nose wrinkles as I swipe the trash into the bag and clean up the soda as best as I can. It will need to go through a full detail service to really take care of it. Holden’s going to kill me. I’ll be lucky if he ever lets me use his car again. It will leave me completely stranded and at the mercy of others who can offer me rides.
Tears well in my eyes as I dump the trash in the can at the edge of the parking lot, right next to the vending machines where the culprit most likely bought the soda. What did I do to deserve this? Nothing warrants this.
There’s only one person here who hates me enough to come at me like this. After swiping angrily at my eyes, my fingers clutch the braided leather bracelet, nails scraping over the stones woven into it. Stones I love because they’re special to me.
Damn Fox Wilder. He’s not going to beat me. He wants me to break and cry for him, but I’m not running just because he’s put a target on my back.
Trudging back up the steps, past the school sign flanked by the SLHS coyote mascot statues, I head for lunch. As soon as I walk through the door, I stall. Every eye on the room is on me and conversations lull to a stop. It’s weird and disconcerting knowing an entire room full of people were probably talking about you behind your back until you happen to walk in.
At the back corner of the room, Fox sits by himself, scowling at his phone.
My smile is wobbly, but I pull it into place like armor as I walk deeper into the room. The conversations slowly begin to pick up again.