by Eden Beck
“You couldn’t tell?” Heath asks, his eyebrows raised. “I kissed you.”
“Yeah, I remember,” I reply. “I—I’m sorry I lied to you.”
Heath nods with a smile. “Well, you being a girl doesn’t change the way I feel,” he adds by way of explanation when I look at him in confusion. “I hope … I hope you can understand that.”
This is such a different Heath. Shy, gentle, apologetic—none of those were words I would have used to describe him last year. The wolf attack changed his attitude, I guess.
“I can forgive you under one condition,” I tell him. “If you start standing up for what’s right, then I can forgive you for you being such an asshole last year.”
He grins. “Deal.”
“Good,” I say, stepping close to take his hand in mine, just for as second. “Because I was starting to worry I was going to go at it this year alone.”
Chapter Four
The first week of classes goes smoothly, if not a little strangely. At the end of it, the dean summons everyone for another assembly. It’s scheduled at the end of the day after our last class; for me, that’s history with Heath and Beck.
I walk over to their desks when the bell rings. Heath looks up at me with a somewhat shy grin, but his eyes sparkle almost like they used to. He’s getting used to me again—just as I’m getting used to him and this newfound peace between us.
Beck, meanwhile, watches us with a wary look.
“Hi, Alex,” Beck says.
“Beck,” I reply a little icily, trying not to look at him … and failing. When I look at him, I can’t keep my aloof composure because of just how damn handsome he is.
Heath clears his throat as the two of them stand up and Heath reaches out to grab my hand.
“Beck has something to say,” he says, squeezing my hand before releasing it. The touch of him lingers on my skin where he touched me, leaving me rooted to the spot even as Beck’s eyes search my face, looking for something.
Beck nods and shuffles his books in his arms. “I—I want to say I’m sorry for how I acted last year. I want to start over. I want to make it up to you.”
My eyebrows shoot up. He doesn’t seem like he’s lying; I hear real sincerity in his voice … but sincerity isn’t something I’ve come to expect. Not from Beck.
“I do want you to go out with me,” he mumbles, his gaze meeting mine. “But I understand that I’ll have to prove myself first. It was stupid of me to expect anything else.”
I glance at Heath. He doesn’t seem surprised or bothered in the slightest.
In fact, it looks like he put Beck up to this.
I should be bothered. I should be angry. Beck did spend the better part of last year trying to make my life hell, but if what he says is true, that he’s willing to work to rectify what’s he’s done …
It’s not like he’s Jasper.
It’s not like he tried to do the unforgivable.
But Beck also doesn’t seem the type to share. I look over at Heath with a question in my eyes and he seems to read my thoughts. He makes a flippant gesture with his hand.
“Oh, Beck knows I like you, and that we’re dating.”
“We’re dating?” I ask, surprised. This is news to me.
Heath falters. “I mean—if you want—I just thought—”
My heartbeat quickens. What do I want?
Heath must see the look on my face, because suddenly his hand is shooting out to take mine. His eyes lift to me, and I see the same sincerity there that I saw a moment ago in Beck.
He keeps his voice low, but he does nothing to draw back—even when more eyes turn towards us.
This, this is what surprises me the most. It catches me off guard, this display of affection. Of vulnerability, even, in front of the same classmates who stood party to what they subjected me to last year.
I find myself lost for words, and even more surprising still … is the fact that I don’t immediately dismiss the idea these boys have proposed.
“And … you’re both fine with dating me, while I’m dating the other?” I look to both of them, but rather than seeing either of them draw back, I see Heath’s face practically glowing as he realizes I haven’t immediately turned them down.
“Fine with me,” Beck says with a shrug, at the same time Heath eagerly nods his head.
“We’re used to sharing. Comes second nature to us now.”
Eyebrows raise around us, but I ignore them.
“What about Jasper?” I ask, my voice coming out more coolly than I mean it to. “What’s he think of all this?”
What I’m really asking, of course, is did he put you up to this?
Heath’s pleasant expression twists into a scowl. “I’m not speaking to Jasper.”
“Me neither,” Beck growls. “After I found out what he did to you last year …”
He trails off and looks away without finishing, a dark look coming over his face.
So they do care. Jasper, the so-called leader of their little Brotherhood, tried to assault me in the middle of last year. Just because he realized what he was doing and stopped himself at the last minute hasn’t changed the fact that he tried.
And in the process, still left me bloodied and injured.
As it happens, it was Headmistress Robin that found me, bruised and traumatized on the floor of an abandoned classroom, and took me to the school infirmary. It’s what opened the door for her to blackmail me.
Because that’s what the people here at Bleakwood do. They just take and take and take.
But I, it seems, am not quite finished giving.
I know I should hate all three of them. Heath and Beck are just as guilty as Jasper in many ways.
But not, it seems, in the way that counts the most. Because as much as I know I should hate them, I can’t bring myself to.
In fact, the feeling I have … it’s quite the opposite.
I reach out and grab Heath’s hand before I can change my own mind. Butterflies erupt in my stomach, and Heath smiles gently at me.
“Okay,” I say to him. I turn and look at Beck. “I feel like you’ve already proven yourself at least a little.”
Beck’s face lights up with a brilliant smile that, for once, doesn’t look manic. He reaches out and takes my other hand. “So, you want to go out with me?”
“And me?” Heath asks quietly.
“I suppose we could give it a chance,” I reply, grinning. “After all, why not? Whatever happens next, it can’t be any worse than what already has.”
Despite their most recent declarations, golden bliss doesn’t immediately melt away the barriers between us. I think all three of us are a little shy, as we immediately drop each other’s hands when we enter the hallway, though we do walk together to the auditorium and I sit between them—stealing glances with each of them in the moments leading up to the start of the assembly.
It’s an odd feeling, this.
And I thought I felt like an imposter last year.
Rather than fixate on the way I’ve started to itch inside my own skin, I turn my attention to the platform in front of us.
This time, I don’t recognize any of the people behind the dean and Headmistress Robin. It’s a collection of well-dressed men and women with serious expressions, standing sternly in a line at the back of the stage. The dean seems to flinch when he walks past them.
It isn’t until Dean Withers starts talking that, on either side of me, Heath and Beck reach for my hands.
“Congratulations on your first week back,” the dean says with a strained smile. I try to concentrate, but Heath’s thumb strokes the back of my knuckles and I find it impossible to focus on anything else.
Beck squeezes my other hand and brings me back to the present, where the dean’s smile has started drooping into more of a sneer while he still stands at the microphone.
“The review board has arrived, and they’ll be monitoring things from here on out,” he continues. “They’ll enter classrooms and ask
you questions occasionally. You are to be civil to them, and answer anything they ask with complete honesty.”
We knew an investigation was coming, but from the looks of it … it’s more like an invasion. There’s practically as many of them as there are of us.
I raise my eyebrows and glance at Heath and Beck in turn. The way the dean’s voice emphasizes the words makes me think he’s trying to tell us to do the opposite. Lie your ass off, the dean’s eyes seem to say as they scan the crowd.
“He means The Brotherhood,” Beck murmurs in my ear, sending shivers down my spine. On my other side, Heath nods grimly.
“He doesn’t want anyone talking about it,” Heath agrees.
“Why?”
They both look at me with incredulous expressions. Oh. Right. Historically, The Brotherhood—descendants of the schools’ founders—“mark” a person at the beginning of the year to be their bitch, and they bully that person for their entire time at Bleakwood. It’s what happened to me at the beginning of last year.
I was marked. It’s a long-upheld tradition here dating back generations. A tradition that made my last year hell, that nearly broke me on more than one occasion.
I find myself drawing my hands back from Heath and Beck for a moment.
“If the review board finds out the truth of it,” I whisper while the dean talks about grades or something, “it’ll be the last straw. Bleakwood will be closed, won’t it?”
Both Heath and Beck nod solemnly. Their hands tighten on mine. I squeeze them back, even though part of me wants to run away instead.
Looks like I have a secret to keep.
Again.
But this time, it’s not just my fate that weighs in the balance.
Chapter Five
I exit the auditorium for the second time this week, hoping in vain that none of the review board members will try to corner me right away. I know it’s futile to hope any peace I have will last long—I’m the only girl in a historically all-boys’ school. There’s no way they won’t be curious.
“One last thing!” the dean calls from the stage, having rushed back to the microphone as we’ve already started exiting. All around me, people freeze and turn back. “The review board will be inspecting the dorms this evening around five!”
“Shit,” I mutter, immediately trying to mentally calculate how long it’s going to take me to get up how many flights of stairs again?
“That’s in thirty minutes,” Heath sighs, glancing at his watch. “We have to clean our rooms.”
Beck nods.
“You two don’t have roommates?” I ask. “I thought everyone did.”
Well, everyone but me now, anyway.
Heath just shrugs. “They make special accommodations for us. Y’know—Brotherhood. Descendants of the founders. Special treatment.”
Of course.
“And where are your rooms exactly?” I ask, suddenly, realizing I’ve never seen them lingering in the dorm hall before. I’d never thought it unusual before … but that was also before I knew there were other secret dorms hidden in these halls.
The grin on Beck’s face confirms my suspicions.
“The real question here,” Beck says, leaning forward to whisper in my ear, “is how about you?”
My skin races, even as Heath bats Beck back from me.
“Where are you rooming?” Heath asks, however, his own curiously getting the better of him as well. “They can’t very well have you with a boy. Not now, anyway.”
I glance over my shoulder towards the doors now behind us, as if I’m about to share a secret better kept to myself.
“They’ve got me in the old teachers’ quarters. I have a room to myself.”
“Makes sense,” Beck says with a nod. “I’d started to wonder if maybe they were keeping you in a secret dungeon, but old teacher’s dorms makes more sense.”
I let out a snort that draws a few stares, but I can’t help wonder if dungeons would be preferable. At least then just getting to my room wouldn’t be so daunting.
I sigh and gaze wistfully at the throng of students headed toward the dorms. I kind of miss being there, hearing what’s going on, passing boys in the hallway. I feel like an outsider in my big room on the other side of the school.
Even more of an outsider than I already am, of course.
An outsider that is not prepared to have her room inspected, no less.
“I’ll see you both at dinner?” I ask, shouldering my backpack and preparing myself for my multi-floor climb. They shoot me identical grins as they agree. I adjust my backpack once more, turn my back to them, and head toward my own dorm, a sinking feeling in my stomach.
My room isn’t that dirty, so all I really have to do is throw some laundry in a basket and spray disinfectant on any surface that might be worth looking at.
It takes all of three minutes—less than a fifth of the time it took to actually get up here.
These dorm inspections are new, most likely a thinly veiled opportunity to get closer to students. But whatever their reasons, there’s nothing to do but wait now. I sigh and pull some homework out of my backpack before drifting over to my desk. I might as well start on all this now.
However, I’ve barely touched my pencil to paper when I hear a knock at my door.
“Review board,” calls a voice. “Is anyone home?”
I glance at the clock.
It’s not even been close to thirty minutes yet. Just like I thought—an excuse.
An excuse to get close to me in particular, it seems, since whoever is on the other side of that door must have headed up here almost as soon as I did.
“One sec,” I say, then wince. That sounds rude, doesn’t it? I head to the door and open it for an older woman. Her dark hair is swept back, secured behind her head, and graying at the temples. She gives me a warm smile that’s almost motherly, revealing her bright pink lipstick has smudged onto her teeth.
It’s … surprisingly disarming.
“You’re Alex Trevellian?” the woman asks, and I hear the slightest accent. Is it Swiss?
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Would you like me to remove my shoes before I come in?” she asks, indicating her brown kitten heels.
Not “can I come in”, I think to myself. She’s not asking permission to enter—she’s telling me she’s entering.
“Nah,” I reply, stepping back to let her pass, since no good would come of turning her away. She’d just come back, likely with reinforcements or a slip for detention.
“Thank you, Alex.” She walks over the threshold with her clipboard tucked in the crook of her arm and holds out her hand for me to shake. “My name is Ada Schaffhausen.”
I shake her hand and smile politely. She’s definitely Swiss.
“Nice to meet you, Ms. Schaffhausen.” My German is rusty, and I stumble over the pronunciation of her name, but she smiles indulgently at me.
“You can call me Ms. Ada, if it’s easier,” she says gently.
“Ms. Ada.” I narrow my eyes at her as she enters my room and looks around her, her small gray eyes scanning it. I don’t buy her familiarity for a second.
I know, like her lipstick, it’s meant to disarm me. Thought I doubt the lipstick smudge was intentional, the rest of her carefully curated persona certainly is.
“You stay in this room by yourself?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Apart from the other students? From the boys?” she adds, clarifying.
I repeat my earlier response.
She walks over to my desk and smiles. “I interrupted your homework; I’m sorry.” She turns toward my little conversation area, the couch with its matching chairs. “Did you ask for a room this size?”
“No,” I reply hotly. “I didn’t ask for special accommodations or anything, if that’s what you’re asking.”
She smiles over at me, obviously hearing the anger at the edge of my tone. “I didn’t think you did. If you had asked, you could’ve asked for something
even bigger.”
I reel back a bit, though I try not to show it. What is she getting at?
“I’m fine with this room,” I mutter.
“It’s very nice,” she agrees. “And the other students? Do they treat you well?”
Now she’s getting to the point. Just like I suspected, this inspection was never about the rooms.
In fact, I’ll be interested to hear if anyone else is ‘inspected’ at all.
“Yes,” I reply, carefully, watching as she nods and writes something down on her clipboard.
“Are you friends with anyone? A boyfriend, maybe?”
I stare at her without answering—partly because I’m not sure how to, and partly because it’s none of her fucking business. She notices my silence with a patient smile and writes something down on her clipboard.
“Too personal?” she asks mildly, but I hear a hard edge in her voice. She must have been asking for a reason.
“Of course, I have friends,” I say, matching her gaze for a moment. “I’m sorry,” I say, after a second, “I thought this was a room inspection? Or is it something more?”
Her lips press together in displeasure, but she doesn’t ask me any more intrusive questions—even though I can practically see them lingering on her lips.
Instead, she makes a big show of walking around the room and checking out the bathroom, the windows, the space under the bed—all without comment. She keeps sneaking little glances at me as if she’s trying to decide what to make of me.
All the while, I’m just trying to decide what to make of her.
“I’ll let you get back to your studies,” she says, gesturing toward my desk once there’s nowhere left to look without being accused of further intrusion. “Thank you for your time, Alex.”
“Sure,” I mumble, still rooted to the same spot as when she entered.
“I’ll see myself out,” Ms. Ada says, heading to the door. She pulls it open and pauses with her hand still on the knob, smiling at me still. “Take care.”
