by Ivy Clyde
Reaching the classroom, I stood at the doorway and looked all around. My gaze fell on Stella, sitting in the second row. Her head was bowed over a thick textbook. My beating heart slowed down at the sight. She looked unhurt.
“Get inside, Miss Wilson,” said a voice behind me.
Turning around, I spotted the teacher.
“Go on.”
I hurried inside, making a beeline for the empty seat beside Stella’s.
“Hey,” I whispered, sitting down. “Are you okay?”
She gave a nod. “Miranda called Saxon to see her in the cafeteria. He had no choice but to leave. It was a close call though.”
“Does he hurt you the same way as Miranda’s friends?”
She took a moment before replying. “He is more of a molester. Less violence but far more disgusting.”
“That’s sick.”
Our conversation was paused as the teacher began the lesson. My mind churned, thinking about the ways I could keep Saxon out of my way. The easiest way was to hack into his personal files at the academy and find something to blackmail him with but I doubted that kind of information would be available there. How about his laptop? His phone? One after the other, I weighed my options.
By the end of the hour, a plan formed in my mind.
A sharp poke on my arm had me turning sideways.
“Why do you look so lost?” asked Stella with a small grin. “Class is over.”
I looked around, finding the students filing out of the room. We were the last few stragglers who were still in our seats.
“I was thinking about Saxon,” I said, starting to pack away my things.
“Don’t, Skye. He is dangerous. The best thing is to avoid him as much as possible.”
“You already do that, don’t you?” I asked, fixing her with a grim look. “Does he give up?”
Her face fell as she shook her head. “It’s horrible what he’s done to me,” she said in a voice laced with pain. “He hasn’t stopped harassing me and I doubt he ever will. Sometimes, I wish I could just end everything.”
Stella was a sweet person, a rarity among the rich assholes ruling the academy. It wasn’t fair they had to screw her around so badly she was considering taking her own life to end the pain. Taking a deep breath, I said, “Exactly. He’s rich enough to screw around with anyone he likes. The world is his oyster. People keep telling me to stay away from him but that won’t stop him from coming after me. So, I am going to take care of him my way.”
“What will you do?” Stella’s eyes were wide as she stared at me.
“I can’t tell you about it,” I said, getting to my feet. “It’s best for you that way.”
She followed me as I walked out of the classroom.
“I might not see you around at dinnertime,” said Stella.
“Oh? Why not?”
“I have an appointment with my shrink,” she said. “I usually stay back home and come back on Friday morning.”
“I guess I’ll see you in class tomorrow,” I said, giving her a small wave as she hurried away in a different direction. The rest of the afternoon was free for me too. I made my way back to the dorm, hoping all my stuff had arrived. An academy email had come in earlier, informing me of the delivery that had been made to my room.
I wish people at the academy wore as much hoodies as the kids of Kensington High. Hoodies made moving around undetected so much easier. The stiff uniform felt silly, forcing me to be extra careful. The list of people I wanted to avoid was growing. I had to keep a lookout just to get back to my dorm from my class without being ambushed by Miranda or one of Saxon’s guys.
Reaching the corridor outside my room, I found stacks of cardboard boxes piled beside the door. A soft cheer escaped my lips. Opening the door, I carried them inside the living room. Except for the few heavy boxes carrying the CPUs and computer screens, the rest were light enough to be carried to the bedroom area.
I spent the rest of the afternoon setting up my work station. A few helpers had to come in to deliver extra desks needed to house the three CPUs and the four large desktop screens. The look of the bedroom changed completely as the gleaming black of the devices clashed horribly with the pastel décor of the room. The place began feeling more like home now.
I’d already decided to hack into Saxon’s laptop. It was the best place to snoop around for incriminating evidence and if I could turn on the camera on his computer, I could probably get my hands on something better. It would be tricky to do so but I wanted to give it a try, hoping the firewalls on his laptop weren’t too complicated to get through.
Dragging a chair to my new workstation, I began working on a code. My idea was to send an email to him, disguising it like an academy email. It would prompt him to open it and take a look. If he downloaded the file I sent him, the bug would be installed successfully, allowing me easy remote access to his laptop every time he switched it on.
Excitement, like I hadn’t felt in a long time, surged through me as my fingers flew over the keyboard as I wrote the code. The only thing missing was a large cherry soda and a cheeseburger from Tamy’s Burgers and Fries. Even with all the fancy food I was eating at Knightswood, I missed the good ol’ junk food I’d survived on for so long.
Time flew by.
When I looked at the clock at the corner of the screen, it was past nine P.M. Perfect, I thought as the program loaded onto a pen drive. My growling stomach demanded food. It was late enough that I could eat a quick dinner at the cafeteria and then slink off to the library for the rest of my work.
The breeze blowing in through the open windows made me shiver. Nights in these parts of the countryside were chilly. Donning the academy blazer for warmth, I slid in the pen drive in one of the pockets.
The corridors outside my room were booming with a hundred different beats. Sounds of people’s laughter and chatter reached me as I walked down the hallway to reach the elevators. Evenings in the dorms were lively. Thankfully, the walls of the rooms were so thick, hardly any of the noise filtered in.
I made my way to the cafeteria. A few students were still out on the grounds but a glance through the windows of the dining hall told me that most of the crowd was already done with dinner.
All my hopes of eating my meal in peace and quiet disappeared just as I entered the cafeteria. My gaze connected with Andrei Romanoff’s who was seated at a nearby table. Raising his arms, he motioned for me to come to his table.
With an internal sigh, I walked toward him. There was no way to ignore him now.
Reaching closer, I noticed the green-haired guy I’d seen with him earlier that day. They were both wearing the academy uniform even though it was in a much casual state now. Their ties hung low around their necks and their shirts were no longer inside the waistbands of their trousers.
The stranger was sitting opposite Andrei but his light gray eyes were on me. An odd expression crossed his face as his gaze met mine. He was leaner and shorter than his friend but there was a delicate quality to his pale, handsome face.
“I apologize for staring too hard,” said the guy in an apologetic tone. “You look too similar to someone I used to know.”
“It’s fine,” I said, looking over at Andrei. He gestured for me to take a seat at the table. “Thanks,” I muttered, sitting down.
“Are your knees fine?” he asked.
I nodded. “A few band-aids were enough.”
Right then, a waiter approached me to take my order. “Whatever they’re having,” I said, hungry for a thick piece of steak like the ones on Andrei’s and the stranger’s plate.
“I am Mikhael,” said the green-haired guy.
I gave a nod. “Skye.”
He glanced at Andrei before looking back at me. “Have you ever known a girl called Maria?”
A wave of cold spread through me at the sound of that name. Fighting to keep my expression neutral, I shook my head. “Who is she?”
“Mikhael.” Andrei’s low voice held a warning.
>
Mikhael shrugged, offering me a smile. “You resemble her a lot. That’s all.”
They stayed silent after that, neither mentioning her again.
“Aren’t you curious about her?” asked Mikhael after a while. “I’d be interested if someone told me I looked like their friend.”
“Does she go to this school?” I asked, continuing to feign ignorance.
“No.”
“Then, I don’t really care,” I said with a shrug of my shoulder. Mikhael was staring at me, watching my reaction carefully.
“It’s better that way,” said Andrei, looking grim. “Because she is dead. There is no point in bringing her up.”
This time, I let the discomfort show on my face. Mikhael wanted to talk about Maria and how much I resembled her but it was making Andrei furious. Neither he nor Dimitri had mentioned her to me yet. Did her memory bring them pain or guilt?
The waiter placing my plate of food before me stopped me from thinking. The perfectly seared steak looked so good, I could cry. Picking up the fork and knife, I attacked it, stuffing large bites into my mouth. It was served with a side of cheesy mashed potatoes and a green salad with a rich gravy slathered all over it.
“Slow down, Skye,” said Andrei with a sudden grin as I shoveled mashed potato in my mouth. It made a striking difference. For a moment, he looked radiant, the smile lighting up his soft brown eyes from deep within. “You’re going to choke.”
I swallowed thickly before grinning at him. “It’s been way too long since lunch. I am starving.”
“Didn’t the Ivanovs feed you properly when you were staying with them?” asked Mikhael, watching me with an amused expression.
“How do you know about them?” I asked, pausing from eating a forkful of meat.
He shrugged. “Everyone knows. They are calling you the new charity case. We all know you’re here because Nikolai Ivanov forced the school to take you in.”
“Don’t call her that,” said Andrei in a deep, commanding voice. His soft brown eyes had darkened as he glanced over at his friend.
“Sorry,” said Mikhael, his head dipping apologetically.
“The Ivanovs fed me fine but they’re a cold bunch,” I said as my heart pounded in my chest. It hadn’t taken these people two days to find out everything about me. Andrei was making a forceful attempt to make me feel at ease but his friend was clearly curious about me. How long would it be before he became as suspicious as Dimitri?
“They didn’t treat you well?” Mikhael was leaning toward me, his interest in me so great that he was openly defying Andrei’s order.
I took a deep breath and began eating again. “They were just cold,” I said, cutting into the rest of the steak. “No one came to talk to me except for the maid who brought in my food and stuff. I only saw Mr. Ivanov on the day I came here. He just wanted to hand over the information I would need to get started here. Class schedules, dorm room number…that sort of thing. He wished me good luck and sent me on my way. I guess sending a kid to a school like this is no big deal for a tycoon like him?”
Andrei was watching me closely now as well. No matter how much he pretended not to be interested in my background, I could clearly see it in the way he’d stopped eating to listen to me.
“What favor did you do for him?” asked Andrei. He was brooding again, all good humor evaporating from his handsome face. Somehow the change affected me more than I was willing to admit.
“I can’t say,” I said, avoiding his gaze. “You wouldn’t want me to talk about how we know each other either. Right?”
“No,” said Andrei. A faraway look settled in his eyes as he leaned back in his chair. “Is it common for you to help out complete strangers?”
“I wish I could just walk away and save myself the trouble,” I said, thinking of how saving him and Dimitri had changed my life. Even helping Stella had gotten two bullies to come after me.
“Yet, you stay and help.”
“Yeah. Anyway,” I said, swallowing the last piece of my steak. “I am a poor kid who got lucky. I’m not going to deny that fact.” Taking a sip of the iced water the waiter left me, I stood up. “I’m done,” I said, wiping my mouth. “Guess I’ll see you guys around.”
“Where are you going, Skye?”
“Back to my room,” I lied and stepped away from the table. Waving at both Andrei and Mikhael, I hurried toward the exit doorway.
According to the school rules, students were supposed to be back in the dorms by eleven P.M. It was close to ten now. Even if there were people in the library this late, I could just hide out in the bathroom or somewhere until eleven.
“Why are you sneaking around?” said a familiar voice just as I was skulking away toward the library instead of the dorm building.
“I’ve got something to do,” I said, turning to face Christian. He was dressed in jeans and a casual jacket. His ash-blond hair fell messily into his eyes as a strong breeze blew by.
“What exactly do you have to do this late at night?”
“I’m going to the library.”
He fell in step with me as I started walking toward my destination. “Never took you to be a nerd.”
“This isn’t about school. It’s to tackle the bully situation I’ve been forced into.”
Christian suddenly stepped before me, making me come to a stop. “What are you up to, Skye? I told you to avoid Saxon McLaughlin.”
“Just because I avoid him doesn’t mean he’ll leave me alone. Besides, I have a plan to take down both him and Miranda. Besides, they’ll never know it’s me who screwed them.”
“Explain.” He stood his ground, barring my way.
“Come on.” I grabbed his hand and tugged. He followed me, letting me lead the way to the library.
The library of Knightswood Academy looked like an ancient Gothic cathedral in the dark of night. It was illuminated by dim, reddish lights, making it appear like it housed a vampire coven inside. I hurried through the open doorway, taking note of the single security guard who already looked exhausted and sleepy.
I made my way inside, going for the specific nook that housed the computer I always used when I came there to steal question papers.
“How many times have you come in here before?” asked Christian. His hand was still firmly held in mine.
“Plenty of times,” I said, taking the stairs to the first floor of the building that housed computers. The place was empty. Kids at a school like Knighstwood would rarely need to use public computers from the library when they all had the most expensive laptops available to them. It was the perfect place for me to work.
Sitting down at a computer, I fired it up. The codes needed to access the academy’s mainframe were already ready to go. Getting to work, I quickly established a new email by the name Professor Morgan Hofstadter.
“What exactly are you doing?” asked Christian. He sat in a chair beside me and leaned in to take a close look at the screen.
“I am going to send a bug through this email to Saxon,” I said, typing out an email. “As soon as he opens the file, it will infect his laptop and give me full access to it remotely.”
“Confiscated nude photos of Jessica Davis?” Christian’s shoulders shook with laughter as he read the email’s subject line.
My lips curved in a smirk. “That horny idiot is sure to open this link,” I said. “He would love to get a look at his girlfriend’s best friend.”
“You’re a dangerous chick,” he said, staring at me as I waited for the virus file to get uploaded into the email. “I didn’t think you had it in you to be this lethal. So, what do you hope to gain from hacking into his laptop?”
“My friend said you need solid proof to get someone in trouble at this school,” I said, hitting the ‘send’ icon. It was only a few seconds before the email was sent. “Saxon has been blackmailing Stella with a video he took while he raped her. There should be other interesting stuff in there. All of it could be used against him.”
“He
will come after you,” said Christian in a grim tone. “He won’t leave you alone if he gets to know it was you.”
“He wouldn’t know about it. I will use Miranda to report him, though that might be more dangerous than this,” I said with a frown. “I would actually have to steal her phone.”
Christian exhaled a long breath as he turned my chair toward him, making me face him. “You’re playing with fire.”
“Would you prefer he dragged me behind a building and raped me there?”
His face turned to stone at once. His lips pressed together as anger burned in his green eyes.
“You can’t help me even if you saw it happening before your eyes. You and I are supposed to be strangers,” I continued. “Nikolai said I must help myself, that I must act out my part of a pathetic charity case. So this is me…helping myself.”
I matched his angry gaze, refusing to back down.
“I would never step away from helping a girl in that situation,” he said through tightly clenched teeth.
“But you will walk away from me,” I said, switching off the computer and getting to my feet. “You can’t risk helping me, exposing that you know me. Dimitri and Andrei’s pal, Mikhael, are already suspicious of my relationship with your uncle.” I turned away, ready to walk out of there but Christian’s hand grasped my wrist hard, whirling me around to face him.
“I will never let anyone hurt you,” he said, holding me against his hard body. His green eyes looked dark under the fluorescent lights of the room. “Don’t ever say those things to me.”
Heat flared through me as my body molded against his. His rage was both scary and arousing. What the hell am I thinking? Pushing at his chest, I stepped back, breathing hard as my heart pounded in my chest.
“It’s late enough. I am taking you back,” he said, grasping my wrist. Walking out of the computer room, he led the way downstairs and out of the library.
“Slow down,” I hissed as it became difficult to keep up with his long, hurried strides.
Christian didn’t listen, dragging me after him. When we were close to the dorm building, he finally let go of me. “Go in. I am watching.”
