“Wow,” she said dryly. “Thanks. How am I supposed to compete with pine and oak?”
“I don’t know,” said Freddie, cocking his head. Stray dog again. “They’re pretty great.”
She tucked her hair behind her ear and caught Freddie’s glance. It didn’t linger. There was a flush in his cheeks, but it wasn’t all embarrassment. He really did look ill.
“I’d offer you a chair,” she said, tapping ash on the pavement.
“It’s all right,” he said, slumping back against the adjacent wall. “I just needed some air.”
She watched his chest empty and fill and empty again, gray eyes leveled on a low bank of clouds. There was something about those eyes, something present and distant at the same time.
Where are you? She wondered, the question on the tip of her tongue. “Here.” She held out the cigarette. “You look like you could use one.”
But Freddie waved his hand. “No thanks,” he said. “Those things’ll kill you.”
She laughed, soft, soundless. “So will lots of things around here.”
A rueful smile. “True.”
The bell rang, and she pushed off the wall. “See you around, Freddie.”
“Do I need to schedule an appointment?” he asked.
She waved a hand. “My office is always open.”
With that, she stubbed out the cigarette and went inside.
By the end of the day, Kate was untouchable.
Word had obviously spread—at least through the senior class—about her stunt with Charlotte in the girls’ bathroom. Most kept their distance, went quiet when she passed, but a few took a different tactic.
“I love your hair.”
“You have great skin.”
“Your nails are amazing. Is that iron?”
Kate had even less patience for the would-be minions than the Charlottes. She had seen people grovel at her father’s feet, try to plead and con and worm their way into his graces. He told her once that it was why he preferred monsters to men. Monsters were base, disgusting things, but they had little interest and less talent when it came to gaining favor or telling lies. They were hungry, but that hunger had nothing to do with ambition.
“I never have to wonder what they want,” he’d said. “I already know.”
Kate had always hated monsters, but as half the school steered clear and the other half tried to make advances, she began to see the appeal. It was exhausting, and she was relieved when the last bell finally rang.
“Look,” she said to Marcus when she reached the black sedan. “Not expelled.”
“It’s a miracle,” deadpanned the driver, holding open her door.
Shielded by the tinted windows, she finally let the cold smile slide from her face as the car pulled away from Colton and headed home.
Home, that was a word that took some getting used to.
The Harkers lived on the top floor of what was once the Allsway Building and was now known ostentatiously as Harker Hall, since her father owned it from sidewalk to spire. Marcus stayed with the car, while two men in dark suits held open the glass doors and ushered Kate inside. Classical music wafted through the air like perfume, fine in small doses, but quickly becoming noxious. The place itself was decadent: the lobby vaulted overhead, the floor a stretch of dark marble, the walls white stone with gold trim, and the ceilings awash with crystal chandeliers.
Kate had read a sci-fi novel once about a shimmering future city where everything was glamorous on the outside but rotten to the core. Like a bad apple. She sometimes wondered if her dad had read it, too (if so, he’d obviously never read to the end).
A dark suit fell in step behind her as she crossed the lobby, which was brimming with men and women in lush attire, many obviously hoping for an audience with Harker. One—a gorgeous woman in a cream-colored coat, tried to slip an envelope of cash into Kate’s hand, but she never made it past the suit. (Which was too bad. Kate might have taken the bribe. Not that it would have made it to her father.) Instead she kept her eyes ahead until she reached the golden elevator. Only then did she turn, survey the room, and offer the edge of a smile.
“People are users. It’s a universal truth. Use them, or they’ll use you.”
Another line from Callum Harker’s manual for staying on top.