I narrow my eyes. “I didn’t have much of a choice.”
He laughs, leaning down. He doesn’t touch me, but suddenly I’m ice-cold. His expression could stop my heart if he wanted. “You don’t stand a chance.”
I shake my head, moving to edge around him. His hands slam into the lockers on either side of me, caging me in.
“Margo Wolfe,” he whispers. “Haven’t you heard? I’m the king now.”
He walks away, and I stay frozen against the lockers for a minute. That isn’t the boy I knew. No, he’s been replaced by a monster. And I’m pretty sure he just smelled blood in the water.
2
I open the door. The teacher pauses, glaring at me.
“Sorry.” I pass her the note from the guidance counselor. I found it on the floor after Caleb disappeared.
The teacher, Mrs. Stonewater, scans the note and exhales. “We have a new student. Margo Wolfe.”
There are a few gasps, and the teacher raises her eyes from the note to glare around the room. They lapse back into silence.
“Take a seat,” she says to me.
My gaze catches on Caleb—the bastard left me, and it took me five minutes to figure out where the hell I was going—and the boys around him. There’s an open seat directly in front of Caleb or all the way against the windows. I start to move to the far one, but someone throws their bag on it.
I pause. No more seats.
Slowly, I walk toward Caleb. He raises an eyebrow. I sink down into my seat, my cheeks heating once I register his eyes burning into the back of my head.
When did he get so beautiful? Dark hair and light-gray eyes, muscles packed onto his lean frame. He grew, too. In elementary school, we were the same height. He’s got at least six inches on me now.
And hate.
Where did the hate come from?
“Ms. Wolfe?”
The whole class snickers.
I jerk. “Yes?”
“I was asking if you’d had a chance to read through the syllabus.”
I slink lower. “No, ma’am.”
She frowns, pausing by her desk. “See me after class.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“No, ma’am. Yes, ma’am,” the boy next to me parrots. “Such a fucking saint for a coke-whore’s daughter.”
More laughter.
I sink lower.
Coming back was a mistake. I should’ve insisted on public school. At least that way, the bullies wouldn’t know my history. They would’ve made fun of my secondhand clothes and haircut, but they wouldn’t have picked at my past. My parents.
“You planning on snorting up under the bleachers at lunch?” the boy whispers. “Like mother like daughter?”
I’ve become an insta-pariah.
I try to ignore him, but he kicks the side of my chair. I twist toward him, poised to say something—anything—but the words lodge in my throat. He’s almost as hateful as Caleb was.
I recognize him. Ian Fletcher. One of Caleb’s old buddies from elementary school.
I wonder if they’re still friends.
“Take a picture,” he suggests. “It’ll last longer than your memory.”
Slowly, I turn back around. I focus on the teacher, who starts talking about the Civil War. I open my textbook and try to find where we are, keeping my head down.
Blend in. That’s all I need to do.
And that’s how I manage to stay alive until lunchtime.
I grab the packed lunch Robert had shoved in my hands before we’d left the house, dumping my books in my locker—which, again, took me too long to find. I thought I might be okay since I had been to the elementary school, but this building is a whole different beast.
I roll my shoulders, happy to have the weight off my back, and walk toward the cafeteria. Ahead of me, Caleb and his friends are making their way in the same direction. I automatically slow down, keeping my gaze on them. I hug the lockers and hope they don’t see me.
It’s ridiculous. I’ve seen some tough shit in public school, and with foster siblings, but nothing compares to the sheer arrogance that leaks out of these boys.
Someone loops their arm through mine, pulling me down a side hall. It happens almost too fast for me to protest.
“Wait—”
“Hush,” the girl says. She weaves us in and out of stragglers. “Never go into the cafeteria with a bagged lunch. Are you insane?”
“Well—”
“Rhetorical question.”
We stop in front of the library doors. They’re locked, but she whips out a key and opens it, ushering me inside, then secures it behind us.
It’s silent in here. I’m a little homesick at the sight of all the books. One of my foster families had books upon books, and the mom knew just how to stoke a sense of escapism through the stories. They were just a fleeting stop, but she had given me a book before I’d left. I read it a few times, then handed it off to Claire.
She needed it more than I did at that point.
“You’re new,” the girl says, stopping in front of me. “There are whispers about you.”
I stick out my hand. “Margo Wolfe. Entirely undeserving of at least a quarter of the rumors.”
She grins and puts her hand in mine. “Riley Appleton. Friends call me Riley.”
“Nice to meet you, Riley.”
“Aha! We’re friends already, I see. Come, come.” She leads me farther into the library, waving at the librarian tucked away in her office. There are cushioned chairs in the back, and she throws herself down into one. “So, you caught Caleb Asher’s attention already?”
I frown. “How’d you hear about that?”
She taps her temple. “I told you. Whispers.”
“I knew half of the kids here. I went to school with them until I was ten.” I shift, opening the bag and pulling out my sandwich. “Ian Fletcher seems particularly angry about my return.”
She snorts. “Yeah, he’s a bag full of piss on a good day.”
“What’s your story?”
“Me?”
“You’re intriguing already. A bagged lunch—an apparent no-no—and a key to the library? I don’t remember you from when we were kids.”
She stifles a smile. “You wouldn’t. I’m a junior. And anyway, I transferred in when my family moved here a few years ago.”