by Rachel Angel
“You have a little sister still back home? Is she with your parents while you’re here?” Lina asked.
“No, she’s at another Academy. And my parents aren’t with us anymore.”
“Oh,” Lina said. “I’m so sorry to hear.”
“So, Lina, since you’re new and I’m new, let’s stick together. If anyone picks on you, tell me. And vice versa. I took a class back home in public school about bullying. It only takes a couple of people to stand together against a bully or bullies to help make the bully stop what they’re doing.”
“That makes sense,” Lina said. “I’m afraid I don’t have much experience being in a school or with kids my age. Being tutored and kept in a palace doesn’t help train you to become a good monarch one day. That’s why I had to convince my parents I needed to go to school with everyone else.”
“Uh huh,” I said. “I so agree with you. Right choice.” My eyes had noticed a movement at the corner of my eye.
I quickly gobbled down my meal and stood up. “I just remembered I need to do something before I see Ms. Turlington. You have a phone on you?”
“Yes,” Lina said. She gave me her number.
“Here’s my number. Text me if you need me.”
I grabbed my bling backpack and headed out of the cafeteria where I had thought I’d seen a movement.
A hand clamped over my mouth and I was pulled into a private area in the garden patio, away from the cafeteria. The size and strength of that hand felt so familiar to me, and if he didn’t take off his hand soon, I would bite it off.
He took it off, and I was looking into silvery blue eyes. Full luscious lips and white spiked up hair. Even without his masquerade-like mask, I knew it was him. The White Night.
Chapter 4
“Tell me you recognize me,” he said. “I’d recognize you anywhere, with or without your purple mask,” the White Night said.
He was still pressed up against me, as his silvery blue eyes searched my face. His lips were so closed to mine.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, pushing him away.
“Tempest Storm,” he said. “You’re that Tempest. Who else could it be?”
“No, you’re mistaken,” I said. I turned to go.
“You have to be,” he said, almost longingly.
“Probably if you wish hard enough, tap your heels together, I might be…” I walked away before he could dig deeper.
“That night, I was crushed,” he yelled. “A beautiful girl beat me, and I haven’t stop thinking about her since.”
“Sorry! Wrong person,” I said, heading to my room.
So the White Night was one of the K3s.
He was a crown prince?
What was he doing masquerading as an underground fighter?
As if the universe wanted me to know, a text scrolled across my phone.
Lily: Tempest, guess what? It was exposed that one of the underground fighters was a Prince. And guess who? The White Night. The forums are all abuzz on it. His real name is Orion, but he goes by Ori. He’s so dreamy. Guess what? He goes to your school. Can’t believe it, Temp. You fought a Prince, a crown prince of a country in Europe.
Having met some asshole royals at Kingsbury already, I wasn’t as enthusiastic as she was about the fact the White Night was a crown Prince. Lily wanted me to go to Kingsbury to marry a prince. She was probably shipping White Night or Orion with me right now.
Me: How’s Skylark? Like it?
Lily: Love it. I’m already the Queen at school. It’s because of my superior intelligence.
Me: Good. Don’t let it get to your head.
Lily: How’s Kingsbury?
Me: Like nothing I expected.
Lily: Saw the photo of your room. So nice!
Me: I missed our trailer though. Although we’re not privileged like these kids now, we had a great life before this. We made it a great life.
Lily: True. Oh Ori…he’s part of a group of guys who are the most elite at the school. They’re all crown princes. Ori is one, then there’s Hunter, who is already well-known in the Art world. He’s had his paintings displayed at the top art galleries in Asia. He plays all kinds of instruments, and he has a couple of albums out. He’s a crown prince of a country in Asia.
Me: Lily, how do you know all this? I couldn’t find anything on Kingsbury.
Lily: That’s why I’m smart. I know where to find things. Oh, oh. Tell me if you see Kaz. He’s the leader of the group. Kazuo or Kaz. He’s so beautiful, he had made the People’s Most Beautiful list since he was a toddler. He is known for his amazingly blue eyes, and extreme intelligence. He’s the crown prince of an island country.
Me: I’ve seen them at school. Apparently they don’t like the idea of a non-royal here. Will keep you posted. In the meantime, take good care of yourself.
Lily: Too bad. They’ll love you, though, Tempest. They’ll all fall madly in love with you, and you’ll have a hard time choosing.
Me: You read too many romances. But at least you read.
Lily: That’s a given. Love you Sis!
Me: Love you!
What timing. Why did I feel like I needed to go to my room at this moment? Sometimes I felt I had a kind of sixth sense or intuition that had often proven me right.
I walked to my door, unlocked it, and noticed everything was trashed. I ran over to my photo album containing the only printed photos I had of my parents, of my parents’ company, me growing up, and of Lily. Someone had pulled out the pictures, and ripped them into pieces.
My clothes were in a heap in the middle of the living room, covered with smelly rotten food and garbage. My suitcase was ripped open and the hinged torn apart. But what was worse, was when I went into the bathroom and found written in red, “Leave Kingsbury Now Alive or Go Back in a Body Bag”. I wiped the letters and smelled it. Copper scent. Fresh. Blood.
I reached out and pulled my phone out, snapping photos after photos of everything. I filmed myself in front of the mirror and said, “So I got this wonderful welcome note from someone here at Kingsbury. It’s written in blood. Apparently someone thinks that’s funny. I don’t.”
I opened the windows to let out the stinky rotting air from the garbage.
I pulled off the sheets from the bed. Finding even more filth hidden inside the pillowcases. More rotten food. I almost gagged with the smell.
I took more pictures including another video of me saying, “Dirty rotten dreams apparently with real rotting food found between the sheets of my once beautiful room.”
I didn’t want to get Helen or Mr. Nichols worried so I didn’t send them the videos. I kept it on my phone.
I continued filming and said, “I would like to see who thought this was funny. Let’s see.” I went to the desk next to the dressing table and reached underneath to pull out a camera I had set up before leaving for lunch. I rewound the camera to check for footage. There it was, a group of students I didn’t even know or have met rushing into my room in masses, tearing through my things, ripping my family album apart, and smearing the blood threat over my bathroom mirror. I played the footage for my phone to record. “Caught on camera at Kingsbury,” I captioned it.
Unable to take the stench any longer, I left my room and headed straight to see Ms. Turlington.
She was seated behind an ornate oak desk in a room that looked like it had been converted from a chapel. An elongated stained glass window illuminated the room. It gave her almost a mythical appearance. “Oh Tempest,” she smiled getting up out of her chair and approaching me. “Here are your uniform. You have all the sets, the blazer, the cardigan, the vest, shorts, pants, skirts. Even hair ribbons and ties with the Kingsbury plaid.”
“I love it,” I said cheerfully, focusing on the positive. Yes, I plan on wearing them because I was staying on in Kingsbury, despite the stupid lame ass attempt to scare me away. Juvenile.
“Glad you love your uniform. Most of the kids do.” Ms. Turlington then handed me a box full
of books. “These are your textbooks,” she said. The box was heavy.
“Ever thought about digitalizing the text books so all we have to do is go online to read them?” I asked. “Carrying these bricks around could hurt our backs.”
“You’ll find that some things are slow to change, Tempest. Kingsbury is notorious for resisting change.”
“I know,” I said. “Ms. Turlington, any chance I could change rooms?”
“Why?” Ms. Turlington asked, looking at me with concern.
“If not, I’d like to get my locks re-keyed. Someone broke into my room while I was at lunch and trashed my room, vandalized my personal belongings and even wrote a death threat to me on my mirror.”
Ms. Turlington frowned. “Unbelievable.”
“Come on, I’ll show you. You have to see it for yourself.” I walked out of her office leading the way to my room.
When I opened the door to my room, my mouth dropped open. My room was clean. No dirty clothes on the floor. No broken luggage. No filthy sheets and pillowcases. And no blood threat message written on my bathroom mirror.
Ms. Turlington followed me around my room. “You were sure your room was vandalized?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ll show you.” I pulled out my phone, and scrolled through the photos. My fingers kept scrolling. “That’s strange. Where are all my photos and videos?”
Ms. Turlington patted my shoulders. “You must’ve been exhausted from your trip, Tempest. Sometimes when we don’t get enough sleep, we begin to hallucinate.”
“I didn’t hallucinate. It was right here. All of that filth and rotting food was in the middle of the room.”
“Do you still want your door re-keyed? We can do that for you so you have peace of mind.”
“Yes, I do!” I was looking around for all my belongings. They seemed to be intact. Even my photo album. The photos seemed to be untouched. I shook my head. Did I really hallucinate?
“Tell you what, Tempest. Since you’ve just arrived. You don’t have to attend any classes today. You need to rest. You must have changed so many time zones, your head is spinning.”
“You’re so nice,” I said. “Thanks for understanding.”
“No problem, Tempest,” she said. “Remember, I want you to stay and to succeed. I’m on your side.”
“Sure,” I said, suddenly feeling exhausted. I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer. I laid down in my bed and fell asleep.
I was still half-asleep when I heard voices in my room. My eyelids were so heavy, I could barely open my eyes before they would close again.
“Smart thinking about drugging her,” one of the voices said.
“It was easy. She picked the iced tea and it was an open container.”
I felt someone touching me on my shoulder.
“She’s really asleep?”
“Seems like she’s knocked out.”
I felt someone tugging up my skirt. “Dang, she’s so beautiful.”
“Stop thinking with your dick. We have to break her, make her get out of Kingsbury.”
“You’re the one thinking with your dick. If it was up to me, I’d knock her out and fly her out of here on my private jet. I wouldn’t pussyfoot around it.”
“I want her out of here as much as everyone else.”
“Good, then let’s do it.”
I felt my jacket zipped open and my shirt shoved up to expose my bra.
“She is such a goddess.”
There was some groaning and some slapping before more groaning.
There were more voices in the room and more groaning and tugging up on my skirt.
“What’s going on?” I groggily asked.
“Shit! Shit! Shit!”
I opened my eyes and sat up.
There were five guys in my room. Guys I’ve never seen before, but were wearing the Kingsbury uniform.
I looked down to see my skirt pushed up and my panties pulled down. The worst case scenario of this was that I was…I was up before any of the guys knew it.
My feet to the neck of one guy, while my fist grabbing the shirt of another. I maneuvered my way to my door and proceeded to lock it.
“No one is getting out of here alive until you tell me what the hell did you do to me!” I roared.
All the guys in the room gulped. I recognized one of them as a guy who sat close to me in the cafeteria. He must have slipped something into my iced tea.
“We fucking fucked you, you peasant whore,” the guy who slipped something in my drink said.
Something snapped in me. Anger. Pure rage. The need to make them pay.
“Too bad I’m not a virgin, Asshole,” I said. “You’ve taken nothing from me. But you are dead to me.”
I walked over to the leader, grabbed his shirt and looked him in the eye. “Whore!” he spat at me. “Go back to your trailer park and your menial nothing jobs.”
“And who are you? Whorefucker, ass wiper, small weenie man who needs to feel big for drugging out a girl just to be able to fuck her? Would I go for you if I wasn’t drugged out? Probably not, because,” I grabbed his balls and twisted it hard until his face turned blue. I squeezed so hard I must have broken his balls, busted it. Yes, I busted his sack. “You’ve been castrated.”
The guy fell to the ground in unbelievable pain.
I kicked him on my way to the next guy, who was trying to run. “Tell me, what fucking happen or you will all be castrated. Got it?”
I grabbed the guy closest to me and pulled him to me. “You have 1 second or you lose your balls.”
“I…”
I snapped his balls in half, and he screamed in high-pitch before fainting.
A guy was trying to crawl out of my open window, but I stopped him by slamming the window down so hard on his fingers, his fingers were smashed flat like an accordion while I locked the window, his fingers still stuck underneath the closed window. He howled in pain before he fainted.
I found one of the guys trying to hide in my closet, huddled into a ball, shivering in fear. “Did you and your messed up asshole friends rape me?” I was filled with seething anger as I approached him. “Because if you did, not only are you dead, but I will find your nearest relative, your girlfriend, your nursemaid, and even your fucking butt-wiper whatever you royals good-for-nothing- you can’t even wipe your own butts servant, and I will make sure they eat your dick!”
“No! We didn’t,” the fifth guy said behind me. He was standing but I could see he was trembling.
I looked down at the used condoms on my carpet. “No? Then what are those?” I picked up a couple of them, still filled with cum. “Lollipop wrappers?” I shove them into the guy’s mouth and he gagged, looking so disgusted.
“He’s telling the truth,” the guy in the closet said. “We didn’t really rape you. We wanted you to think we did so you’d be so scared, you’d leave Kingsbury right away. All those condoms are real though. We did jack off to your naked Goddessness into the condoms to look like we fucked you.”
“Well Rotund Jollyballs, since you’re the only one brave enough to tell me the truth, I’ll be lighter on you. Strip down.”
He stumbled out of my closet and began stripping down. “Good. You and condom-mouth there huddle together. Your butt against his cock. Condom-mouth, slap him on the buttocks. Rotund Jollyballs, look like you’re enjoying it.” I took out my phone and snapped a photo.
I walked up to them and said, “Count yourself lucky you still have intact balls and you can someday have children with it because if I ever catch you doing this to anyone else, to any poor girl; I will hunt you down and cut off your balls and make you eat it until you’re shitting it out the next day. Got it?”
They both nodded shaking with fright.
I unlocked my door and kicked them out, Rotund Jollyballs still stark naked and Condom-mouth still gagging from the condoms.
I took snapshots of everything. My room, the fainted guys in my room. The guy still stuck in the windowsill.
What a crazy sight. What a crazy day. I haven’t even attended my first class yet, but I’ve already had one murder attempt on my life, vandalism, and a staging of a fake rape scene.
“Dammit,” I said. “Will this day ever end?”
I got dressed and headed to Ms. Turlington’s office.
“How was your nap?” she asked. “Feel like you can at least try out one of your classes today?”
“Well, Ms. Turlington, I’ve had another incident in my room.”
She got up and walked with me to my room.
This time, the three guys were still there.
Ms. Turlington looked around and said, “What happened here?”
I played the audio of Rotund Jollyballs confessing to attempted gang rape of me.
Ms. Turlington’s hand flew to her mouth. “I’m so sorry this happened to you, Tempest. Those boys...they will be expelled. What they did was criminal and unexcusable.” She was visibly upset. “You just got here, and…”
“There are some bad seeds at Kingsbury Prep, but there are some good ones,” I said. “I don’t want Kingsbury to get shut down as a school if any of this gets out. In the meantime, the bad seeds are coming out of the woodwork. One by one, if they try to pick on me again, I’ll expose them to you. Just promise as the Administrator that you will do what is right rather than get bullied by their wealthy or powerful parents into letting things go.”
“I’ll uphold that, Tempest,” she said. “I’ll also get your room re-keyed. Or switch you to another room right away. That’s a faster alternative.”
“Sure, two incidences in this room in one day is enough for me.”
“I happened to have the key for another room down the hall. You still get the garden view.”
