What made it worse was Maria Lopez was queen bitch of my year, and I’d knocked her out of a spot on a team that was training kids to aim for the Olympics.
Because Adam had warned me, I’d worn a swimsuit under my uniform so I wouldn’t need to get naked in the locker room. Kids did the meanest shit, and I didn’t want some nude selfie floating around of me just because Maria was sucking on sour grapes.
So, I stripped off my clothes, shoved them in a locker before I jiggled the padlock to make sure it was secure, and snapped the rubber bracelet complete with key around my wrist.
To be honest, I expected there to be misery by the end of the day, so I’d packed another uniform in my locker out in the hall and had left my phone in there so they couldn’t get to it. Adam was also under instruction to wait for me. We had lunch after practice, and he knew that if I wasn’t out on time, then they’d stolen my uniform or done something to me. He had the key to my locker, too, so he could get my clothes if necessary.
Even to me, the lengths I was going through to protect myself sounded crazy, but I’d been the new girl too many times not to know how people worked. Being vigilant would just stop me from having to wear a uniform patched together from the lost and found.
The school was like something from a dream. There were no shouting kids, no angry security guards scowling at known troublemakers when we walked in. Everyone just handed over their bags and carried on without the arguments there had been at Madison Winthrop. The security guards even smiled at me and wished me a pleasant day.
The grounds looked like they belonged in a gardening magazine, the building like we were in some kind of photoshoot for a fancy TV show, and the kids? Well, hell, this was like Gossip Girl on steroids.
I’d never seen so many designer bags… and these people were under eighteen, for God’s sake.
The money within these walls was obscene, and somehow, I was a part of this madness.
A madness that was loaded with promise.
A promise that I needed if I was going to lead a different life, and I wanted to. I wanted that so much. I wanted to free myself from a past laden with misery and grief. Wanted to change my fortune from that of a traveler into someone with roots, someone who belonged.
That was all possible because of Adam. And these possibilities were made bearable by him too.
So, even though I was arming myself for a war with the school bitches, I was kind of happy also.
How foolish I was.
I’d anticipated the hazing.
What I hadn’t expected?
For the hazing to be as bad as it was.
When Maria took me down, I hadn’t expected it. I’d thought she’d try to humiliate me, not physically hurt me. One second, I was on the floor, my knees aching from where they’d collided when she’d kicked my feet out from under me, and the next, my face was in the water. My head held under.
I didn’t panic. I didn’t need to. I could hold my breath for a long time beneath the surface.
And as crazy as it was, I was calm, calmer than when she let me up. My lungs, sensing I could breathe, began to bellow, and the urge to grab as much oxygen as I could was one that had me gasping long and hard.
Then he appeared.
My savior.
Adam.
Only, he wasn’t. He didn’t save me. He walked toward me, took over the grip on my hair that Maria had, his hands shackling my wrists, and shoved me down, his foot going between my shoulders so he could hold me under without having to exert much effort.
This time, there was no calm beneath the water.
I panicked because this was Adam.
My Adam.
And everything stopped.
My heart.
My brain.
Time.
It all stopped working.
And the damage was done.
THEA
I didn’t have it in me to regret healing Charles Linden even if, the following day, for the 800m freestyle, I felt shaky as hell.
While I was grateful Adam had been there to help me, to get me back on my feet faster than I would have on my own—fate toying with me once again—I wished today wasn’t race day.
He’d helped, but I still felt off. My talent with auras and healing wasn’t something I practiced often, because of