in waves, but he’s too pressed and neat in his tailored uniform to last a round in the ring.
“Mackenzie.” He rasps my name under his breath, quiet enough only I can hear. There’s a finality to his tone, like a wizard speaking a curse.
(I also watched Harry Potter this weekend, just in case Stonehurst turned out to be a wizarding school. Can’t deal with any surprises this year.)
I glare at Coal-Eyed Wizard. “What do you want?”
“You should have stayed hidden. You should never have come back.”
His shoulders square, and the hatred in his eyes is so deep, so dark, that a shiver of fear runs down my spine.
“An eye for an eye, Mackenzie Malloy,” he hisses, and my blood turns cold. “You took something special from me. I’ll take everything from you.”
7
Mackenzie
That was a day.
I trudge through the small wood running between my house and the neighbors’ perimeter wall to my secret entrance. I keep the front gates locked (and will continue to do so, now the police paid to replace the broken gate) to continue my ghost facade. The longer we can hold off on the press getting ahold of my story, the better. My house contains a ten-car garage on the first floor, with a car lift that can drop a vehicle into the basement where they exit down a concrete tunnel under the garden onto a private road at the rear of the property. The maintenance shed for the lift, the security gates, and the house’s extensive electronics and networking has an external door to allow staff and repairmen to come and go. It’s this door I unlock now and duck inside.
I hurry between the racks of switches and into the tunnel. It’s pitch black inside, but I can find my way in my sleep so I don’t bother with a light. The clop-clop of my heels echoes along the length, rising with the slope so it almost sounds as if I’m chasing myself. Mrs. Foster expects me to be in regulation shoes by the end of the week, but Mackenzie Malloy doesn’t give a shit about the rules when an extra three inches of height are involved.
I clamber up the spiral staircase into the garage, cross between the rows of dusty vehicles, and reach for the door that connects the garage to the house. I kick off my heels with such force they hit the wall and leave a black scuff against the pristine white paint. My right big toe stings from the stiff leather pinching them all day. One must suffer for beauty.
Queen Boudica sits on the rug, her black fur gleaming from the shadows, her head cocked to the side as if she’s been waiting there for me all day.
“Meow.” She stomps one foot on the rug, demanding to know where I’ve been.
“Don’t give me that shit. I’ve had a bad day.” Too tired to drag myself upstairs to the media room or across the house to the ballroom, I flop into one of the uncomfortable chairs by the French doors that look out over the pool.
Big mistake. A black paw jabs me in the ribcage as Queen Boudica – sensing a lap has been created – climbs up and settles in. Cat gravity officially in effect. Now I can’t move. And I have homework to do.
Homework. What the fuck? I thought rich people didn’t have to do homework. Isn’t that the point of being a rich asshole – you get to make the rules, and the rules never include algebra.
I stroke Queen Boudica’s fur as I gaze out across the ruined pool. Sunlight gleams off the puddle of murky water in the deep end. Weeds choke the filter and dangle over the cracked tiles, snagging a deflated unicorn floatie.
I allow myself to imagine how inviting it would be tidied up and filled with clean, azure water, how good it would feel to dive in and let the water wash away the stench of today.
Maybe one day, if I can make it through this year, I’ll be able to do what the fuck I want with the pool. And the whole house.
If I finish my homework.
But I don’t move. I stare out at the pool and think about everything I have to lose. Sitting by these windows is a risk I don’t normally indulge in, even with the tinted windows and the high perimeter wall. If someone sees me here, during the day, looking less like a ghost and more like a pissed-off brat,