by Elle East
There’s room for four each—four Kings and four Queens. These Kings are kind of unusual compared to the previous ones because there’s only three of them and it’s been like that for the last two years, this will be the third year. They all became Kings in their freshmen year and at that time there was another one, a senior named Kevin, but after he graduated there was never a fourth.
The Queens, like I said before, are ruled by Victoria, even though they aren’t supposed to have a leader. She’s swapped different ones in and out over the years. That tall one with the black bob, the one who looks like a model, that’s Claudia Chow, she’s the newest Queen. We’ll see how long she lasts. The other one is Jayla Coombs. Jayla is Victoria’s little sidekick and will do whatever Victoria says. She’s just as mean as Victoria but not particularly bright. Nobody thinks she should be a Queen, and normally she wouldn’t be, but she’s one because Victoria wants her to be.”
I looked at Jayla who wasn’t ugly but she wasn’t pretty either. She had long light brown hair that was kind of limp and eyes that seemed kind of dull. Compared to the others she didn’t seem like Queen material. I immediately felt bad for thinking that. I didn’t know her and it was wrong of me to judge her based on her looks.
“How do you know all that?” I asked Cecily.
“Everyone knows about them, but Cecily especially knows,” Ava said with a grin.
“It’s like studying real-life anthropology,” Cecily said defensively. “I find it fascinating. All the old traditions and the social responses they illicit, the adherence to hierarchy… fascinating, absolutely fascinating.”
“What is it again, Ces? Is it… fascinating?” Ava joked.
“Oh, shut up!” Cecily laughed.
My mind was kind of blown. The guys were leading these complicated lives full of power and old traditions which I knew nothing about and barely understood—but I guess they had known nothing about my life for the past seven years either, not until I came back into their world and they had creepily found out everything about me.
We had all changed so much. We were no longer those little kids anymore and could never go back to the way it had been. I felt a bit sad and overwhelmed with all the new information I had just learned, and also from seeing the guys again. I wanted a few moments by myself to catch my breath before I had to head to my first class ever at Crestmoore.
“I’m going to head back to my room for a bit to unpack,” I told the table as I stood up with my tray in my hands.
“Do you need help finding your way back?” Cecily asked.
“No, I’ll be ok. I’m pretty sure I remember.”
I actually wasn’t completely sure that I could get back to the Bell Tower on my own. We had taken a lot of turns to get to the dining hall, but I wanted to be alone. And Cecily had been so nice to me I didn’t want to bother her anymore if I could help it. I’d have to figure it out on my own.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“Positive,” I said as I turned and stepped away from my chair and—fell to the ground, landing face-first into my tray of half-eaten food.
Pain burst from my elbows as they took the full impact of my fall. Pasta dripped from my face and salad leaves clung to my dark hair. I felt dazed. It took me a couple seconds before I realized that the roaring in my ears wasn’t the blood rushing to my head but actually the sounds of all the students in the dining hall laughing and it echoing off the vaulted ceiling.
Confused, I tried to stand up but I couldn’t. I couldn’t let go of the tray. I shook my hands but my palms were glued tight to the handles.
“What the hell?”
I shook harder, but they were solidly attached and not coming apart anytime soon. I looked over my shoulder to see what had tripped me up and realized that my feet were also stuck together. Craning my neck, I looked at my shoes and saw that my laces were tied together.
How the hell did that happen?? I wondered.
“Serves you right for ruining our projects, bitch,” someone said as they walked passed me sprawled on the floor.
“I didn’t mean to,” I sputtered. “It was an accident.”
It felt like I was lying on the cold marble ground for hours, but in reality it couldn’t have been more than a minute before one of the teachers walked over to me.
“If you were wearing the proper footwear, this wouldn’t have happened. I’m giving you detention for breaking the uniform code.”
“Are you serious?” I screeched. “Someone glued by fucking hands to this tray and you’re giving me detention??”
I shook the tray violently for emphasis to show how stuck it was.
“And also for swearing. You’ll want to watch how you conduct yourself, Ms. Baker,” she warned. “Now go get cleaned up and stop making a spectacle of yourself. Ms. Fisher and Ms. Richardson, take Ms. Baker to the nurse’s station immediately.”
I felt two sets of hands go under my armpits and with some difficulty, because I couldn’t use my arms, they lifted me up into a standing position.
“Let’s go,” Cecily whispered as she picked up my backpack.
Ava quickly untied the laces of my shoes and the two of them rushed me out of the dining hall as all eyes were on us. I knew I shouldn’t but I couldn’t help myself; I hazarded a glance over my shoulder.
The Kings were smiling at me like a pack of hungry wolves and I knew right then they had something to do with it.
“Serves you right for wearing those ugly-ass trailer-trash shoes here,” I could hear Archer’s deep voice call to me over the loud sounds of students laughing.
Just when I thought I couldn’t take it anymore, Cecily and Ava dragged me through the doors.
“I’m so sorry,” Cecily was saying as we walked down the hall, the sounds of muffled laughter fading quickly behind us. “I was too scared to help you until Mrs. Wrightward told me to. I’m so sorry.”
“Me too,” Ava added, and she sounded ashamed. “I’m sorry.”
I had thought for a brief, ugly second that they had something to do with it, they had been sitting next to me after all, but hearing how upset they sounded it made me trust them. I needed to trust someone in this fucked-up place otherwise I would go crazy.
“That’s ok. I understand,” I said.
We walked through the maze of hallways in silence.
Down one hall was an unusual door. As we passed by it, I slowed down slightly to look. There was a weird symbol on it, almost like cross hairs but with the lines extending outside the circle and three of the sections inside the circle filled in.
“What’s that room?” I asked.
Both Ava and Cecily didn’t have to look over to know what I was talking about.
“That’s the Kings’ Court,” Ava answered.
“What is that?”
“No one really knows unless you’re a King. It’s like a private clubhouse for Kings only. It’s all very mysterious and I haven’t been able to find much information about it,” said Cecily.
“It’s just so that the precious Kings don’t have to hang out with riff-raff like the other millionaire students here. You know, common folk,” Ava laughed derisively.
I had trouble tearing my eyes away. I was a curious person by nature and suddenly all I wanted to do was find out what was behind that door. The impulse was so strong it was almost painful. I stared at the symbol and the harder I looked I couldn’t help but notice that it looked unfinished.
Chapter 5
By the time the nurse unstuck my hands from my lunch tray, I was already late for my afternoon classes. The nurse said that it looked like someone had used a type of super glue on me. I did not understand how that was possible, how was someone able to put glue on my tray without me noticing? It was right in front of me the whole time and I had carried it over from the buffet without my hands getting stuck so it had to have been after I sat down.
I also couldn’t figure out how my shoes had been tied together without me noticing. But those were mysteries
that I would have to let go for the moment, I needed to concentrate on more important things like getting to class. Ava and Cecily had already left, and I didn’t blame them, no use in all of us getting punished for being tardy.
I hurried out of the nurse’s station and started walking back the way I thought we had come from. I needed to go to my dorm to change out of my food-stained uniform and also change my shoes—I definitely would not be wearing any shoes other than my short-laced Oxfords for the rest of my time at Crestmoore.
As I walked down the halls, anxiety slowly started to settle over me. I was lost again.
The labyrinth of halls seemed to go on forever and nothing looked familiar. How was it possible to keep getting lost in a building, I wondered? It was a physical structure; it had a finite size, but looking left and right all I could see was more identical marble and stone hallways.
Frustration was growing inside me. My nerves were shot from all the shit that had been pulled on me that day and I didn’t want to screw up anymore. I had already been given detention twice, and I needed to make it to class so I didn’t get in trouble again. This school was my ticket out of poverty and it was also how I would get my mother back, but at that moment I felt like it was all slipping from my grasp and I was helpless to stop it.
Most of the students were in class but I tried asking the few of them that were still in the hallways for directions. All I got were dirty looks. The whole school already seemed like they were against me.
I was so frustrated and at a loss of what to do that I charged down a hallway at random.
I came to a dead stop.
At the other end was a beautiful, petite girl standing in the middle of the hall. It was Victoria. It felt like I had accidentally stumbled into the lair of a predator and I needed to get away before it noticed I was there and ripped my head off.
I slowly started backing up, being careful not to let my shoes make any noise against the marble. When I was almost around the corner and back to safety, I turned to start walking and breathed a sigh of relief—that’s when I heard a sweet voice gently call my name.
I froze and my adrenaline spiked.
I couldn’t run away now, she had spotted me. I had to face whatever evil humiliation Victoria would inflict on me. Taking a deep breath, I slowly turned back to her.
She was walking down the deserted hallway towards me. Her small stature seemed even smaller under the high ceilings. Her perfect body swayed gracefully as she walked. The short skirt and tight blazer of her uniform looked like it had been custom made for her—and it probably had been. Her long, straight hair was thick and shiny even in the dim lights. Her bright blue eyes were on me and a warm smile was on her perfect, pink lips. She looked so sincerely sweet and innocent that I was caught off guard. Maybe that look she had given me in the dining hall had been a trick of the light or something, I couldn’t reconcile that cold, calculating look with this innocent face before me.
It felt like an eternity before Victoria finally came to a stop right in front of me. She was so petite and delicate and perfect that when I was actually standing next to her, I felt like an ungainly ogre. I wasn’t particularly tall; I was five foot six—so on the taller side of average—but next to her I felt like a linebacker.
“You’re Madeline Baker, right?” Victoria said in her sweet, soft voice.
“Yes.”
“I’m Victoria Hampton, pleasure to meet you.”
She reached out her hand to me and I paused for a split second before taking it. Her tiny hand made mine feel like the size of a baseball glove.
“Nice to meet you,” I said warily, I had learned from Grayson that even if these people seemed like they were being nice, they probably weren’t.
“I saw what the Kings did in the dining room. I’m so sorry, that was too mean.”
She caught me off guard. I had expected her to say something like nice to meet you… you poor gutter trash person, not confirm that it was the Kings who had done that to me and then condemn them for it.
“Yeah, that sucked. I hurt my elbows pretty bad. I’m not even sure how they did it, I was with my tray the whole time and I don’t think someone could have crawled under the table with no one noticing.”
I mentally slapped myself in the forehead, I was being too honest with her. Victoria seemed to have a weird effect on me.
She gave me a sympathetic smile before saying, “Those guys are so immature and cruel. They give us Royalty a bad name, everyone thinks we are all awful just because of them. I’m sorry you were hurt.”
“Thanks.” I didn’t know what else to say.
“I called to you because you looked lost.”
“Yeah, I’m trying to find the Bell Tower.” I knew I shouldn’t trust her, but I was desperate.
“You’re actually pretty close. If you head down this hall and at the end make a left, then you’ll find it. It’s about halfway down that second hall on your righthand side.” She pointed.
“Thank you!” I started walking. I wanted our interaction to be over as quickly as possible. “Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too, Madeline.”
“I go by Maddy.” Why had I said that?
Her smile widened even more. “Nice to meet you, Maddy.”
“Thanks. Bye.”
I hurried down the hall and quickly took the left. I was suspicious. Victoria might have killed someone, giving me fake directions that caused me to go into a room full of alligators or something didn’t seem that crazy. But sure enough, about halfway down the hall on the righthand side were the white stairs that led up to the Bell Tower.
As I raced up the stairs, I thought about my interaction with Victoria. All the scholarship students seemed terrified of her, but she had just been really nice to me. She must be up to something. There was no way she was randomly being nice to me for no reason.
I made a mental note to be on my guard around the Queens at all times. However, they were close to the Kings so even if the Queens were evil I wasn’t going to burn any bridges just yet. I needed to figure out my strategy first. If Victoria was going to be nice to me, I would be nice back. I knew one thing though, I needed to be more careful.
Chapter 6
The smell hit me before I saw it. When I came to the top of the stairs, I saw that someone had stacked garbage bags in front of my door. The bags were piled high and looked full. I put my hand over my mouth and gagged. The smell was putrid.
I couldn’t believe that someone had done this. This was their idea of a prank?? What the hell was wrong with the students of this school??? They were sick.
I didn’t have time to wallow in my rage; I needed to get to class. I could be mad about this later, but right now I needed to get inside and get my uniform.
I grabbed the bag that was closest to me and almost fell over. Whatever was in there was unexpectedly heavy. I used my body weight to swing the bag to the side before dropping it on the floor away from the door. I gagged again. Moving them had shifted around whatever was inside and was making the smell even worse—I didn’t have time to worry about that though. I grabbed the next bag and repeated the process.
After moving about ten bags I had a narrow path to my door that I was just able to squeeze through without touching any of the remaining bags that were still piled up. I grabbed one more that was leaning against the door and when I went to swing it the plastic ripped and garbage raced out across the stone floor.
I shrieked involuntarily and put my hand over my nose and mouth. The smell was making my eyes water, and I kept gagging. Judging by the stuff all over the floor, the garbage looked like very rotten food scraps. I saw egg shells and moldy bread and I think I saw something small move but I couldn’t bear to look at it to be sure.
I quickly shut my eyes and turned back to the door. Holding my breath, I desperately struggled to put the key in the lock and get out of that disgusting room. The door finally opened, and I practically fell into my apartment. I threw my body back and
slammed the door closed. I took gasping breaths of clean air. Luckily the smell didn’t seem to be able to travel through or around the thick wood of the door.
I raced over to my closet and tore off my clothes, throwing them in the school provided laundry basket. I grabbed my toiletry kit—which was just a plastic bag with shampoo, conditioner and soap—and went into the bathroom to take a quick shower to wash all the food out of my hair.
When I was done I got dressed in a clean uniform and put on my new Oxford shoes—which were indeed uncomfortable—grabbed my bag and raced out the door. The smell hit me like a brick wall, but I held my breath and jumped over the slimy puddle. My dress shoes had no traction, so they slid when I landed on a piece of old lettuce—but I avoided the majority of the trash and didn’t lose my footing so I counted that as a win.
I raced down the stairs and burst into the hallway. As I started speed walking down the hall, I suddenly realized that I had no idea where I was going. Again. I groaned.
I took out my schedule. I had missed my first class after lunch but I still had time to make it to my next one, which was Biology. The schedule said it was in room NEW-304. I had no idea what “NEW” meant.
I turned to the first person I could see. “Excuse me, do you know—” I stopped when I recognized that it was one of the Queens… Jayla? I think her name was Jayla.
“Yes?” she asked.
“Um… do you know where this classroom is?” I was desperate.
She looked over at the piece of paper I was holding up.
“Your class is in NEW, that’s the north-east wing, and your room is on the third floor, 304.”
“Thank you sooo much!”
I was about to rush off when I realized something. “Wait, where is the north-east wing?”
“I’m actually headed there myself, we’re in the same biology class. I can take you there if you want?”
“Yes, please!”
What a weirdly suspicious coincidence, I thought.
