she brought the admins’ attention to this whole thing, they might try to do something to stop all of this. And none of my tormentors wanted that.
After class, Adena cornered me in the hallway near a case full of trophies, yanking on a fistful of my hair to make me stop. I spun around in a panic, but no one was coming at me with scissors, thank fuck.
The blonde girl shook her head, her blue eyes flashing with malice. “I hope you’re happy, you trashy slut. You could’ve fucking killed Sable.”
I reached up to rub my scalp, which stung like a bitch. “Well, maybe that’ll teach her not to run with scissors.”
She shot me a look of contempt, ignoring the press of bodies pushing past us in the corridor. “You think you’re some kind of fucking vigilante now? Some badass bitch? You think if you just show the Princes how tough you are, they’ll all become obsessed with you again and take you back? ’Cause I’ve got news for you, Idaho trash. That will never happen.”
My jaw tightened. Take me back? That’s what she thought I wanted? For the Princes to enfold me in their fucked up rich kids club again?
I couldn’t even answer, couldn’t force words through my clenched teeth. But Adena didn’t wait for a response anyway.
“Give it up, you dumb slut. Mason and I got back together over the summer, and he told me everything. And trust me, he’ll never let you back in. He fucking hates you.”
My heart lurched in my chest, like it had momentarily forgotten how to pump blood. For some reason, her words twisted like a knife in my gut, and I hated the feeling. After what Adena had done to me last year, jumping me with the help of her fucking minions, it stung to know Mason would still want her, would still take her back.
But what did it matter?
The tall, brown-haired Prince had never been mine, in any sense of the word. And given what I knew about him now, maybe I should be happy he and Adena were together again. They fucking deserved each other.
And who knows. Maybe Mason was the one who told Adena to attack me.
He and the other Princes had seemed shocked and angry after it’d happened, and Elijah had taken me back to my room and tended to my cuts and bruises. But if so many other things last year had been lies, why not that too?
Some part of my mind still couldn’t believe it—couldn’t believe that Mason would’ve deliberately sent Adena after me like that. But that was the part of my brain I refused to listen to anymore. The part that hoped to find goodness in a world inhabited by monsters.
“Good,” I forced out. “I hope the two of you have a long and awful life together. And I hope when you have kids, your demon baby’s horns shred your fucking vagina.”
Adena’s mouth dropped open as her face reddened, and she shoved my shoulders hard, knocking me back into the side of the trophy case. “Watch it, you bitch!”
I pushed myself away from the large wooden case, hands curling into fists as I stepped toward her. But maybe she’d learned a thing or two from Sable, because before I could do anything else, she turned and hurried off through the dwindling trickle of students.
The rest of the day was pretty uneventful, but it hardly mattered, I was more on edge than I’d been even during my first semester at Oak Park, constantly waiting for the next fight, the next attack. Fighting back felt good, but it was also terrifying and exhausting.
The more I pushed back, the harder the Princes and their minions would come after me, and it was just a matter of seeing who broke first.
All week, I’d spent the evenings holed up in Prentice Hall, doing homework or typing away at my computer as I searched for more dirt on the Princes. Leah was still ignoring me, which meant Maggie and Dan were sort of doing the same, and most of the other kids only spoke to me to call me names or threaten me.
Oliver was in my second period Trigonometry class, and he made a point to be nice to me, sitting next to me and chatting me up. I wasn’t quite sure where it was coming from, but considering so many other students seemed to hate me, it was hard to say no to a friendly face.
On Friday, he asked