Laney
I gaped at Trina.“Blacklisted? What does that mean?”
The crowd around us was getting bigger. They were all staring at me and my locker. I couldn’t make sense of it, nor could I understand the frantic whispers and mutters, narrowed eyes, and hostile expressions.
“Come with me,” Trina muttered. She grabbed my sleeve and pulled me toward the nearest bathroom. Adam trailed behind us.
As we entered, a toilet flushed in a stall, and a freckled girl came out to wash her hands. She shot a withering look at Adam. “You can’t be in here!” she said shrilly.
“Fuck off,” Trina snapped, glaring at the girl until she skittered out of the bathroom like a terrified mouse.
“What’s going on?” I asked, wide-eyed. “What’s the blacklist?”
Trina and Adam exchanged glances.
“You know how I told you the Princes basically rule the school?” Trina said.
I nodded. “Uh-huh.”
“Well, every so often they paint someone’s locker black. That means they’re blacklisted. Once that happens, they’re screwed. Everyone has to treat them like shit until they leave.”
My eyes widened even more. “What? You mean they get bullied right out of the school?”
“Yes.” Adam nodded, lips pressing into a grimace.
A cold feeling settled into my bones. “And the teachers don’t stop them?”
He shook his head. “The teachers are basically powerless against it. They’d only ever step in if someone was going to physically hurt another student.”
“Why? Part of their job is to protect their students from bullying, right?” I said.
“You’d think so.”
My eyes narrowed. “How could a bunch of fully-grown adults let some arrogant, entitled teenagers control everything like that?”
Adam lifted a shoulder in a tired shrug. “They turn a blind eye to it because they know their high-paying jobs are on the line if they step in,” he explained. “The Princes are all from uber-wealthy founding families, so they can get someone fired with the snap of a finger if they want.”
“Oh my god,” I murmured. I couldn’t believe it. “What about the students? Does everyone go along with it?”
“Mostly. They feel like they have to, for two reasons,” Trina said. “For one, if you refuse to participate or try to defend the person, there’s a chance they’ll add you to the blacklist too. So most people do it out of fear, just to avoid that.”
I swallowed hard. “And the second reason?”
The two of them exchanged glances again, shifting their weight around on their feet. They looked deeply uncomfortable.
“Just tell me,” I said with a sigh, raking a hand through my hair.
“Usually if a person gets blacklisted, it’s because they deserve it,” Adam mumbled. I barely even heard him.
“Deserve it how?” I folded my arms.
“The Princes don’t just pick on people they don’t like for petty reasons. They only blacklist the ones who genuinely deserve it in their eyes,” Trina said. “Like last year, there was a senior trying to sell hardcore opiates to freshman boys and girls. They got rid of him pretty fast.”
“And Brett Weston… remember him?” Adam said.
Trina glanced at him, nodded, and looked back at me. “Brett was a junior last year. He took a sophomore girl outside during the spring dance to ‘talk’. Then he tried to force himself on her. She managed to fight him off and run back inside, so nothing too terrible happened in the end, but it was still bad.”
“Two other students saw everything,” Adam interjected. “So we all knew the girl wasn’t making stuff up. But when she reported it to the teachers and headmaster, things got dicey. The boy and his family lawyered up. Tried to say she was lying to wreck his reputation after he rejected her, and that there was no proof the boy actually did anything. They also accused her of asking the two witnesses to lie for her.”