Bully King - J.A. Huss Page 0,33
a staff boat. I gotta go catch it right now.”
“Oh.” I brighten. “Awesome. Can you wait for me? I’ll walk with you.” I’m a little worried about getting turned around in the woods again. It’s not dark yet, but it’s pretty close. I don’t like the idea of walking through the woods alone in the dusk. Not when I know that Cooper, Lars, Ax, Isabella, Selina, and Valentina are all staying the night on this side of the lake.
“Do you have a pass?”
“A what?”
“A boat pass, Cadee.” He takes a laminated ID card out of his back pocket and flashes it at me. “They give these out in the employee packets. They won’t let you on the boat without one.”
“But surely—”
“Listen.” He sighs. “I’ve been here at the camp for three years now. I know how it works. You’re the Fugling.” I wince at the word. “Sorry. I’m not trying to make this worse, but they’re not going to let you on the boat. Usually the Fugling has to sleep here for at least a week. Then they…” He pauses.
“Then they what?”
“Then they make you sleep in the tomb. And torment you at night. I don’t know why you’re here. Maybe someone has promised you something nice if you stick it out?” He shrugs. “But no Fugling ever makes it to the end of the summer.”
“No one?”
“I’ve only been here three years, so maybe they do? But no one has lasted more than three weeks. It’s only going to get worse.”
“What about Lacy Pendleton? And all that bullshit about the scholarship I stole from her?”
“Well.” Victor looks uncomfortable. “Lacy’s different. She’s one of them. She wasn’t going to be the Fugling. But you… you’re not one of us. You never went to Prep. They don’t like outsiders here.”
“I grew up here. I have literally never lived anywhere else but the campus of High Court.”
He just shrugs. “And I know what your next question will be. Can’t we help you? Can’t we do something? But if we help you, Cadee, then they’ll make us a target too. No one will help you. All the staff who have been here before, we took bets last night on who would be the Fugling. Sometimes they don’t target the staff. They choose one of the pledges. And we were all pretty sure it was going to be Mona Monroe once we saw her name on the list.”
I huff. I would’ve picked her too. Then I remember the plan I made last night to get Mona on my side and turn her into the Cygnet. Wow. Was I ever dumb to think that would work. There’s no way she would help me. She has to know she came very close to being the Fugling today. I sigh heavily. “So I just have to stay here? Or am I allowed to leave and go back to the Chairman’s house?”
“I’m sorry?” Victor cocks his head at me in confusion.
“The Chairman. He’s the one who gave me this job. He gave me a place to stay—the old garden cottage on the Prep campus. But I can’t get across the lake.”
“What’s that have to do with his house?”
“He gave me a room to stay there, too.”
“Huh. I don’t know what to make of that. But hell, if I had a room at the Chairman’s house, and I was you right now? That’s where I’d go.”
“Cooper,” I whisper.
“Yeah.” He takes his apron off, bunches it up, and tosses it in to the laundry. The other servers are calling him to hurry so they can catch the boat across the lake. “I know why they’re doing this to you. You dated them. All of them. Cooper, Ax, and Lars.”
“Dated them?” I scoff. “I didn’t date them.”
But wasn’t I just trying to convince myself I did last night?
“I didn’t know you when I went to Prep. But everyone knows you, Cadee. The prissy stuck-up girl who doesn’t go to school here, but gets to take advantage of all the privileges like she does.”
“I didn’t date them. They bullied me relentlessly their entire senior year.”
Sort of true. I mean, they did bully me fall semester. But then… it turned into something else. Something both bad and good at the same time.
“OK.” Victor sighs, clearly tired of me. “If you say so.”
He doesn’t believe me, I can tell. And I can’t say anything else, not without making everything worse. Because I can see how everyone would think I dated them. All at the same