by Thorne, Leia
Her torment over me all through high school aside, I’ve witnessed her brilliant and twisted mind at work, and I know I can bring her back to her full glory.
More than my mission, my assignment—that’s what this new member quest is really about. I don’t need a new plaything; I have my pick of any girl or woman in this godforsaken town.
No, I want the Sawyer I fell in love with back—the woman who I’m destined to rule this world with. I’ve been biding my time, playing her fucked-up games, and letting her think she’s winning long enough.
This year, I’m taking what’s mine.
I study Sawyer’s profile as she reads the Remi St. James’ student file. “God, she’s a baby. She’s not fresh blood, Gage, she’s barely a chain of DNA.”
I laugh, taking my phone out of her hand. “Just think of the fun we’ll have, then. I told you, she’s the perfect challenge.” I did edit the file some, omitting certain details of Remi’s life, before letting Sawyer view the file. It will be more entertaining this way, letting her uncover the mystery on her own.
For the first time in months, I glimpse a spark in Sawyer’s green eyes, that fire I’ve missed, yearning to feel it burn me.
“All right,” she says, a smile lighting her face. “What are the stakes?”
I tilt my head. “What do you mean?”
“There has to be stakes, or else there’s nothing to lose, nothing to gain. That’s what makes any endeavor truly exciting. There has to be risk.”
I grip the towel around my neck, thinking. Oh, there are so many things I want from her…and yet, I can’t be greedy. I need to bargain for the one thing that means the most, which will ensure that I get it all.
She studies me closely. “What do you want, Gage?”
You. All of you. “A kiss.”
Her eyes flare. I can see the retreat in her tense frame, the sudden fear. Sawyer has fucked half the football team, and has every male at Brighton Saints on their knees, begging to eat her sweet pussy—but she’s never kissed anyone. Ever.
That’s the one thing that, she says, she will never do. Somehow, like one of those virtuous virgin bitches, she believes she’d be giving a part of herself away. Losing some of her power. I once joked that she watched that old Julia Roberts’ movie too many times, and her answer had been a death glare.
Again, I recall the moment when our lips came so close to touching…right before she fled. Her fear of losing herself to me is what’s kept her off limits to me thus far, and if I have to use a bet to break her, so be it.
She rolls her shoulders back, forcing bravado. “Fine. I have no worries of losing to you, Gage Astor, so be tacky if you want. But if I win, I get to name what I want at that time. Deal?”
I laugh barrels free. “You want me to go in blind?”
She shrugs. “If a kiss is really what you desire, then yes.”
I lift my chin. “Deal.”
She walks around me, stopping to stand in the very spot where I was looking out over the town. The spot where Lesley stood before she went over the railing. “What are the terms?”
This is important. As our goal to initiate Remi into the Broken Saints is one and the same, there has to be a definitive way to prove a winner. “Love,” I say simply.
She spins around, her back against the railing. “Are you serious? How the fuck does anyone prove love?”
I slip the towel off my shoulders. “Fine. Infatuation. Obsession. Limerence,” I say, tossing her words back at her. “Make Remi choose you for the initiation process, and you win. If she selects me, then I win. That simple enough?”
She crosses her arms. “I agree to the terms.” But she’s watching me carefully, suspicious.
“What is it, Saw?” The cool evening air touches my skin, my chest bare to the elements, as I stand stark and open before Sawyer and her critical gaze.
She inclines her head. “You hesitated.”
“What are you talking about?” I toss the towel on the balcony table.
“On the terms. You usually have all the details for your little schemes worked out before you even broach the topic.” She eyes me inquisitively. “You’re never…spontaneous.”
I step closer to her. “She’s a new student. This is spur of the moment.”
“No,” she says, shaking her head blithely. “You put love on the table. As ridiculous as that is, and as trivial as you want this bet to appear…you deem to win. You need to win.”
There’s my sly minx. I turn the tables. “Do you think you’re so undeserving of love that a high school girl would be remiss to fall for you?”
She scoffs. “Oh, please. Stop your psychobabble nonsense. Don’t try to analyze me. Most girls don’t even think of experimenting until they’re in college, when it’s acceptable, even expected. ‘To get it out of their system.’” She makes air quotes. “Trying to fuck with a high-school girl’s mind that hard…” She holds up a hand. “You might scare her off completely.”
I shrug. “That’s why it would be a gamble. But you’re clearly not up for the challenge, so we’ll keep it simple.”
Her stare becomes intense. She’s knows I’m right. Most people try to put themselves in some kind of box. Straight. Homosexual. Bisexual. Bi-curious. Labels make people comfortable.
I don’t believe in labels, or in sexual orientation, for that matter.
The kings and rulers of ancient empires didn’t put themselves in boxes. They ruled the world with their dick in a cunt and a cock in their mouth. They believed in gratification of the senses. Nothing was off-limits. If it felt good, they did it. True hedonists.
People today are so weak. Most of our leaders are spineless cretins that buckle at the first threat of social rejection and judgment.
If you obtain true power, then you make the rules.
And my motto? Fuck the rules.
“I like things clear,” she says, tossing her blond hair from her eyes. “Clear and simple. That’s all. That way there’s no confusion.”
“Okay. Agreed.” I grab Sawyer’s hips and bring her close. “This silly little girl is going to fall so hard for the both of us, it’s going to be like Single White Female on crack.”
Her laugh is sudden and throaty. It dances over my flesh, eliciting a pleasurable crackle of electricity along my skin.
“Corrupt Remi St. James,” she says, clarifying the terms.
“Corrupt the fuck out of her,” I agree.
She strokes a finger along my neck. “You have a filthy mouth, Gage Astor.”
A sinful smile twists my lips. “And soon, my love, I’ll have your sweet pussy sitting right on it.”
Chapter 4
Remi
The halls of Brighton Saints Academy are something right out an architectural digest.
From the Middle Ages.
A cold draft follows me as I head deeper into the school in search of my locker. The clash of gothic stone arches and glass and metal is everywhere, blending the ancient with the modern world.
Stained-glass windows reach up to the second level, like some medieval church. The school crest is present and center in a number of them—a newer addition to the renovated school—but most of the authentic architecture has been preserved.
Wooden benches line the hallway, and at the end of every section, there is a round table with chair. I suppose to encourage students to do work right out in the open? That would have never worked at my old school; kids would’ve used them for hangouts.
My legs are cold; I’m practically freezing. I’m not used to wearing uniform skirts, and the blue-and-dark-gray plaid does nothing for my fair complexion.
I had a guide yesterday—Emry Leighton; a sort of clash himself; lacrosse all-star and highest IQ in the school (he told me more than once)—show me around to my locker and classes, and I swore I wouldn’t need him today. But now I’m starting to panic as I hunt, already late for first block.
I shove my dark hair behind my ear and look down one hallway, then the next.
“Come on…”
“Lost?”
I whirl around at the feminine voice, and my breath catches. This girl cannot be in high school. She’s wearing a uniform just like me, but she’s a freaking model. Tall and slender but with sultry curves in ideal places. A lob of blond layers angled toward her shoulders. Bright-green eyes, and makeup that looks like she just rolled out of bed looking airbrushed.
“Uh, yeah,” I say, checking over my shoulder, just to make sure she’s talking to me, before I pull out my printed schedule and walk toward her. “Can you help me find the C hall?”
She holds out her hand and curls her fingers inward a few times, beckoning me to hand over the slip of paper. I do so, admiring her classic French manicure as she scans the sheet.
“First, you need to think of Brighton as one big, dreary maze.” She digs out a pen from her designer purse. Prada. Then she flips the schedule over and marks the back. “You’re here—” she draws a star “—and your locker is here.”
She continues to doodle up the back of my schedule, connecting the dots and creating a map of the school, and I see what she means. She’s created a maze with my daily route.
“So just follow this line, and stay on course.” She hands me the schedule.
“Wow. Thank you.” I nervously swipe my bangs off my forehead. “I’m Remi, by the way. I’m new.” I roll my eyes. “Obviously.”
One of her perfectly groomed eyebrows arches. “Charmed.”
I bite my lip and toss another look over my shoulder. “Thanks again. I should go…I’m late.”
Her head tilts as her bright gaze turns intense, traveling over me searchingly. “It must be a drag changing schools senior year.”
I practically wilt before her. My chest aches with the reminder of leaving my friends behind. “Yeah, it is.”
“So why Brighton? Now?”
I shrug. “My dad got a new job.” And a fat new inheritance. “So he transferred here.”
She nods, but her eyes narrow, as if she’s puzzling something out. I’m not that interesting, I want to tell her. Nothing to figure out. My father attended Brighton Saints when he was in high school, then—for reasons I’m not privy to—my grandma disowned him. I think it had something to do with marrying my mom. My mother wasn’t from an affluent family and, apparently, to my dad’s side of the family, that’s a deal breaker.
I never met my grandmother, but I knew she was rich. My dad once told me my grandfather made a killing in the stock market before the economy crapped out (his words). So I guess my grandma didn’t completely disown her only son, because she left him everything when she died a couple months ago.
For my father, this is a second chance at the life he “should have had.” For me? I’m a new guppy is an ocean full of beautiful rainbow fish…and a few sharks.
I met the sharks yesterday. A few mean girls on the cheerleading squad who kept talking behind my back during language arts, commenting on my hair. Or, in their words: “dead-ends rat’s nest.”
I easily ignored them. I’ve heard worse, been through worse. Cheerleaders aren’t high on my list of real-world problems.
“Who are you sitting with at lunch?” she asks.
Again, I shrug. I attempted to enter the lunchroom yesterday, but at the sight of the vaulted ceilings and the echoey acoustics…it was just so big and loud. Anxiety took hold, and I ended up at the library instead. The only place I remembered how to get to. “No one,” I answer her.
She nods.
“Oh, but I did have a guide yesterday. Emry. He seemed nice.”
She smiles. “Don’t fuck him.”
My mouth parts. I shake my head, shocked. “I’m…not. I wasn’t going to—”
“I’m just joking,” she quickly amends. “His girlfriend is my best friend, but he likes to flirt. A lot. I just didn’t want it to get around…you know? Make the wrong first impression.”
“Okay. Thanks. Sorry.” I shake my head, not sure why I'm apologizing but feeling the need to anyway. “I would never…do anything like that. Just so you know.”
I feel like I’m suddenly navigating a minefield.
“It’s fine. Here.” She takes the schedule from my hand again, and writes a list on the back. “Here are the main people to avoid if you don’t want to make the wrong impression.” Then she smiles, winks, and walks off.
I’m left feeling like I just passed some test, having no idea what I was being tested on. Okay then. I glance over the list of names. I know none of these people. And I realize that the girl didn’t even give me her name.
I release a heavy breath, then start toward the C hall.
When my father asked if I was all right with starting at a new school amid my senior year, I smiled. I told him that it was fine. That I was excited to attend the same school he had. That I was grateful to have the opportunities an elite school like Brighton Saints would afford me.
In other words, I lied.
I don’t belong here.
And by the scathing looks I’ve been receiving at every corner, I’m not the only one who knows this fact.
* * *
I enter first block six minutes late. It’s the science lab, and the middle-aged teacher seated behind the desk gives me a disapproving scowl before she nods to the double-seated table I sat at alone yesterday.
No partner for the new girl.
The faces around me look marginally familiar. A pang of homesickness hits my stomach as I anchor my backpack to the seatback and dig out my book.
I can do this. Suck it up.
I owe this to my dad. He’s suffered enough over the past half year, and if moving to his hometown and attending his school makes this transitional period in our lives easier on him, I have to do it. One more thing checked off the list to help assuage the guilt.
As I face forward and start to read the task list on the whiteboard, an uneasy feeling creeps over me, tugging my awareness behind me. I make like I’m searching for a pen in my pack and glance toward the back of the room. A guy with gelled, dirty-blond hair and striking features stares right at me.
My heart stutters—caught—and I hurriedly face forward. Shit. He’s beautiful in the way that steals your breath, makes you all dumb and weak in the knees. He’s too beautiful, in other words. Almost painful to look at. I know his type. And he’s off-limits.
Yet, every time I glance behind me, I catch him staring. What—do I have something on my face? A kick-me sign on my back?
When class is dismissed, a wave of relief washes over me. I went completely unnoticed my first day here, and now suddenly, I’m drawing too much attention. I just want to coast through this year.
As I make a pit-stop at my locker, my neighbor peeks over at me. “It’s because you look like her,” he says.
I halt putting my book away and look up at him. Dyed, jet-black hair. Unkempt in that intentional, messy way. Tall—maybe five-ten? And a silver lip ring. If not for the cues that scream emo, he’s built like a swimmer. His gray-and-black uniform molds snuggly against leanly defined muscles “Excuse me? Are you talking to me?”
He slams his locker door shut. “Yeah. Who else would I be talking to?”
“I don’t know… What did you say?”
“I said, they’re staring at you because you look like her.” He nods his head in the direction directly behind us.
I peek over my shoulder quickly. Amid the group staring at me is the girl who helped me earlier this morning and the guy from the science lab, and Emry, my guide from yesterday.
I give my attention to the boy next to me, noticing his slate eyes. “Who do I look like?”
He leans against the blue locker and crosses his arms. “One of them,” is all he says before he bounds off, leaving me staring after him and confused.
That unsettling feeling from earlier tugs harder, making me agitated as I finish swapping out my books. By the time I spin the lock and turn to head toward my next block, the group has vanished.
I breathe a sig
h of relief as I pull out my schedule and navigate my way toward the grand, split staircase. I reach the second landing and glance down either direction, then check the map.
Is it my right, or the other right? Hell. I shrug and bound up the right-side of the stairs, taking in the sweeping view of the wooden rafters and chandelier, and somehow manage to make it to my language arts’ block before the second bell.
I find a vacant desk at the back of the class, while other students talk and laugh at their inside jokes. But at least none of them are in this block. My shoulders deflate as I sag against the seat. I didn’t have high hopes that I’d replace the friends I left behind; I knew starting over this late in the game meant that I’d be a loner.
But what I didn’t expect was to grab the attention of the in crowd. I don’t even need my locker mate to spell it out for me—I can tell just by the air about them that they’re the “it” kids. We had those too at my old school. The rich kids that ruled everything, and it never once bothered me that I was middle-class and average there.
But here? Here, money and the status of that money is everything.
Everyone has money, so it’s just not rich verses everyone else. There are tiers. Levels to that wealth and status.
I do have at least two choices. If some ridiculous bully situation develops, I can always opt to homeschool. Or I can admit defeat and beg my dad to send me back to Camden Heights. I could stay with my aunt; my mother’s sister.
Maybe I should feel ashamed for bowing out before I even try… But really, I have no chance. The first whiff of getting my head dunked in a toilet or clothes stolen from gym class, and I’m out of here.
Weak? Yes. Stupid? Hell no.
I’ve watched enough bully specials to know that adults have no fucking clue how to help a victim. Being the new kid at an exclusive prep school with tightly formed cliques is hard enough. If I’m ousted during my first week, there’s no reason to stick around for the next stage of torment.
