by Bella King
I mimicked his stance, placing my hands together and gazing off toward the blank white wall across from me. I couldn’t zone out, so I counted the bricks, making a game in my head where I would have to recount each row three times before I could move to the next one.
I worked my way from the top to the bottom but reached it too quickly. I needed something more interesting to occupy my time. Last time I had talked with Emily, which made the time go quickly. The only person I had now was Trent, and I’d rather die of boredom than go back to his table.
I focused on the wall again, trying to find places where the thick white paint connected the slabs of stone together over the cement used to stick them together. The building was sturdy, but nobody had bothered to make it look nice. The wall had enough odd details to keep me occupied.
…For all of ten minutes. I looked up at the clock to find that very little time had passed since I began studying the bleak wall in front of me. For a woman like me, boredom might as well be physical torture. I had heard of people losing their minds over simple boredom. It can really fuck you up.
I was having a difficult time. I glance back at Trent, who was still sitting like a stoic in the same position as before. He hadn’t moved an inch. It kind of pissed me off that he was having such an easy time in detention. It was almost like it wasn’t even punishment for him. Maybe he even enjoyed the peace and quiet.
Trent, even when he wasn’t doing anything to me, still managed to bother me. I knew that I was ridiculous, but that was in my nature. I had never had to deal with a man like him before, so I let him consume a large portion of my mental energy. It was immature, but I was inexperienced.
The clocked ticked by so painfully slow that I could have sworn that time was slowing down just to get on my nerves. Maybe they had the detention clock set to a slower time. It felt like it was at 80% of its normal speed.
I returned my focus to the wall, then closed my eyes. It was so bright in the room that I could see the red on the inside of my eyelids. I wouldn’t even be able to take a nap if I had wanted to. With Trent in the room, I wouldn’t dare.
I opened my eyes and looked back up at the clock. One minute had passed. At this rate, I would die of old age before the hour was up. I began to stand up, but then sat back down. My mind was going wild inside my head. I wanted to pace around the room, but that would make me look crazy. I couldn’t show weakness to Trent.
Speaking of which, he was still in the exact same position as before, his expression blank as he stared into space. His face was softer when he wasn’t snarling insults at me. He was deceptively sweet-looking, aside from the gnarly tattoos that covered his body all the way up to his neck. If he hadn’t spent so much time getting inked and built at the gym, he would look like a nice guy.
I shook my head and pried my eyes off Trent. It wasn’t good for me to be ogling at him like that. Even if he wasn’t looking at me, he could probably still see my gaze from his peripheral vision. I didn’t want to give him the pleasure of knowing that I enjoyed looking at him.
I told myself it was because he was like a freak show with all those tattoos and muscles, but my body told me otherwise. I always grew excited when I saw him, and his scent relaxed me just as much as he made me furious. He smelled like cotton, cedar, and long nights in the south. In another world, I would have fallen for him instantly.
Bayside wasn’t far enough from reality for me to get sucked into his games, though. I recited the words my father had told me in my head.
“You’re strong, Samantha. You can do this,” he had said.
I cried when they took him away. I was a mess. Being separated from my father three years after my mother died was devastating. I would have sunk into depression had it not been for the fact that I was thrown into Bayside soon after. I was too distracted by survival to think about my father too much.
Now, I was back on the self-pity train, sitting alone in detention for several more hours. First, my mother had passed away from cancer. That had been awful enough, but that’s also around the time when my father started working more, and our wealth grew a lot in the following years. He took work more seriously because it was a distraction from her death. I just didn’t know what his work was. I always assumed he was a regular businessman.
After that, things began to improve. I didn’t see my father as much, but when I did, he was always very loving. He would do anything for me, which made me feel a bit guilty when I got caught with his drugs. I knew that it wasn’t my fault. If anything, it was his for putting me in danger, but that didn’t change the fact that I wanted to blame myself.
Once my father was locked up, and I was on my way to Bayside Academy, I was in the worst state of mind. Sure, I wasn’t as bad as Emily, but I was damn near close. Things actually began to improve once I started school because I had more things to distract me from my thoughts. With Emily’s death and Trent’s constant harassment, it seemed like things were going back to awful. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could handle it.
As much as I hated Trent, boredom won its battle over me, and I got up from my seat. I walked over to him, trying to leave my bitter thoughts behind at the other table. It was better to have company at this point than to get lost in my own head and go insane. That’s what it felt like while I was sitting at the table thinking about my past.
Chapter 3
I slid into the seat across from Trent, staring at him directly in his unfocused blue eyes.
A smirk spread across his face. “I knew you’d be back,” he said.
“No, you didn’t,” I replied.
Trent finally moved his body after being still for the past half-hour, lifting his fingers to press them into his eyes as though I was giving him grief. “I know everything, Samantha. You’re pretty easy to read.”
Me? Easy to read? I didn’t think so. “What am I thinking about now?” I asked, challenging his bold claim.
He squinted at me, his eyes dancing from one of my eyes to the other. “You’re thinking about telling me why you’re here.”
I rolled my eyes. “Nice try, Trent, but I’m not going to tell you. That’s not something you need to know.”
“Why are you at my table then?”
“This was my table until you arrived,” I reminded him.
“My, my, you are entitled now, aren’t you?” He mocked.
“Stop it,” I said, placing my palm flat on the table between us. “I only came here because I was dying of boredom. Don’t make me go back over there.”
“Sure, I was just stating the obvious,” he said coolly. “What would you like to talk about?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
“Well, let’s discuss Emily then,” he said.
I stood up. “I said I wasn’t going to tolerate you doing this.”
“Relax,” he said, motioning for me to sit back down. “You’re going to want to hear what I have to say.”
“I doubt that very much,” I said, but I sat back down on the metal bench.
“I have proof that Emily was murdered,” he said, a devilish grin spreading across his face.
“Bullshit,” I replied, but I felt my stomach tying itself in knots. He didn’t look like he was lying.
“Samantha, I’ll just assume that you’re ignorant as opposed to stupid for now. By now, I would like you to know that I know ninety percent of what happens between the four miserable walls of this school. It’s a closed system, which makes it easy to monitor when you have enough eyes working for you,” Trent explained.
I leaned in, growing curious about what he knew. He had a large pool of power and resources at his hands. One would only need to peer into his mind for a moment to gain value from him. “Go on,” I said, giving him a chance.
“Emily was pushed. Not only that, but she was led up to the ledge that she was pushed off of,” Trent stated confidently.
“By whom?”
“Whom?” Trent asked with a laugh. “I knew you were a rich girl. You can�
��t fool me,” he said, continuing to laugh and shake his head.
“That’s correct,” I said, frowning.
“That’s beside the point, rich girl. Your language is a dead giveaway. Try harder next time,” he said, smiling and shaking his head.
“Just answer my question,” I pleaded.
“Whom pushed her?” he asked, mocking the way I spoke, but doing so incorrectly.
I sighed. “Yes, who pushed her.”
“I’ll tell you, but I need something from you first,” he said, leaning back and crossing his arms.
“My backstory?” I inquired, ready to give it to him if that meant finding out what really happened to Emily.
He shook his head. “Nope, I’m afraid not. I need something else from you.”
“Well, I don’t have any money, like you think I do,” I said, frowning at him.
“Not that either, although I don’t believe you. I want a favor from you,” he said calmly.
“Nothing sexual,” I blurted. My mind immediately conjured up whatever twisted fantasy it could in a split second.
“If you would let me talk, I’ll tell you,” Trent said.
“Okay, talk,” I demanded.
He smiled. “Thank you. As I was saying, I need a small favor from you in exchange for this information. It’s not very advantageous for me to go around snitching on people for no reason. At least, not without some type of personal gain, it isn’t,” he said. “I have a delivery from outside of the school coming in. It’s sensitive stuff, so I don’t want anyone getting caught with it. I need you to get it for me.”
“Drugs?” I asked. I didn’t want to get caught with drugs again. It was a bad look.
“No,” he replied. “It’s not that. I’m not going to tell you what it is, only that you need to get it for me.”
“Why can’t you get it?” I asked, starting to grow suspicious.
“It wouldn’t be a good idea. I need a woman to do it,” he replied.
“Why?” I asked, trying to get to the bottom of this before agreeing to anything.
“You ask a lot of questions for someone who doesn’t have much to bargain with,” Trent said, sounding annoyed.
“I need to know what I’m doing before I get into it,” I replied, thinking back to how my father used me a drug mule without my knowledge. I wasn’t going to let innocence cloud my judgment again. I trusted nobody.
“Alright,” Trent said, folding his hands with his fingers interlaced. “The drop-off location is in the women’s bathroom, because my contact is also female, and the bathroom doesn’t have cameras.”
I squinted at him, searching for holes in his story, but I couldn’t find anything. It seemed basic enough. “How big is the package, and where do I need to take it?”
“It’s small enough to fit in a bookbag that I will provide for you. It’s identical to mine, so we can switch them in the hallway without arousing suspicion. Just set it down beside me when you see me, we’ll talk, then we pick up each other’s bags and leave. It’s easy if you know how to do it,” he explained.
I could tell he had experience with this. I nodded. “I’ll do it. This better not be a trick though,” I said, waving a finger at him.
“No way. I need that package,” he replied. “And, I have the information you want.”
He looked convincing enough, but I questioned myself for siding with the enemy just for the chance of knowing how Emily died. Would it make a difference anyway? She was already gone. Nothing I did would bring her back from the dead.
If I fucked this up, I could be going to jail for a long time. Everyone in Bayside Academy was on probation. That meant that even minor crimes would get us thrown in jail for much longer than are initial crimes had us in for. I had to think carefully before I made a major mistake.
But I wasn’t one to think too long about anything. I accepted Trent’s offer, praying that I was making the right choice. “When do I need to pick this thing up, and where?”
Trent smiled and began explaining the fine details of the pickup. We sat there was a while together, passing the time with over-detailed instructions and advice back and forth. Planning something with him was pleasant because he acted like he was on my side for once. It was a lot nicer than having him harass me.
The time passed quicker while I was talking with Trent. I refused to give him any personal information, but I did find him to be an impressive wealth of knowledge and stealth tactics. I was sure his advice would come in handy in the near future, and not just for the task he had assigned me. This was stuff that would benefit me for life.
“And that’s why you never make eye contact when you leave the airport,” Trent finished, leaning back and crossing his arms with a smug look on his face.
“Interesting,” I said, rubbing my chin.
Suddenly, the bell rang, signaling that classes were over. Finally! Trent and I could get the hell out of detention and head back to our rooms. Bayside Academy was a boarding school, so there was a separate building for each of the genders’ living spaces. We were all expected to be out of school no later than half an hour after the final bell rang. And stragglers would get detention the next day.
The door to the detention room opened with a loud squeal, and the woman who had checked me in made a motion for us to leave. Trent and I stood up, and I followed him out of the door to freedom. Well, as close to freedom as I could get when I was trapped at a boarding school for an entire year.
Chapter 4
Blue sheets, black sheets, blue sheets, black sheets. I counted the alternating beds until I arrived at mine. The rooms at Bayside Academy were like long military barracks with rows of nearly identical beds. Each room housed over fifty women, and there was nearly no care given to privacy. Even the bathrooms didn’t stall doors, which was why most people used the toilet in the school instead of the dormitory.
Personally, I didn’t mind using the doorless bathroom stalls because very few other women used them. I had privacy because nobody was in the bathroom half the time. Sometimes you would get unlucky, but that wasn’t the norm.
I arrived at my bed, throwing down my bookbag onto the neatly made blue sheets before plopping myself down beside it. Today had been long, but I couldn’t say that it wasn’t interesting. After nearly going braindead from boredom, I had found a surprising amount of joy from talking with Trent, even though I still didn’t like him.
He wanted me to pick up his package tomorrow, which was good because if it was much later, I would have already forgotten the details. I had a notoriously bad memory and didn’t enjoy following instructions. Trent would be lucky if I did this right the first time.
Emily’s old bed wasn’t in the same room as mine, but I had heard that someone else was now occupying it. I wondered if she knew that the previous owner had died. Now, I wondered who the previous owner of mine had been.
I was sure that the actual mortality rate at Bayside wasn’t that high, but it had to be higher than a regular school. Students were fighting all the time, which occasionally resulted in serious injury. The administration would let fights break out so that they could put the trouble students in solitary or cart them off to jail if it was serious enough. There wasn’t much interest shown in rehabilitation, but that didn’t surprise me.
“Yo,” a butch woman said, grabbing my attention. I looked up to see her walking up to me. I had never seen her before, but she had definitely scoped me out for some reason.
“What’s up?” I asked, trying to sound relaxed. I was anything but relaxed. I could stay calm at a school where confrontations and fights were just another normal day.
“Are you Samantha?” she asked, holding one hand behind her back. She could have anything back there.
“Who’s asking?” I asked. I could feel my heartbeat speeding up in my chest.
“None of your business, princess,” the woman said. “Are you Samantha or not?”
“Yes,” I answered, intimidated by her aggressive demeanor. It wa
s possible that she had come to attack me, but I had no idea why. If she had a knife behind her back, I wouldn’t have been surprised at all.
“This came for you,” she said, taking a rectangular package from behind her back and tossing it into my lap before walking away.
I was in shock, but also relieved that she hadn’t come to kill me. Who the hell would be sending me a package anyway? I thought that nothing was supposed to come in or go out of the school without serious vetting by the administration. Weird.
I picked the package up from my lap and examined it, twisting it around in my hand. It was roughly the size and shape of a brick, but lighter. It was wrapped in what appeared to be black plastic, like a garbage bag, and secured with so much clear tape that I would probably need a knife to open it. The problem was, we weren’t allowed to have knives here.
I looked around myself for something to use. The easiest thing to do would be to cut through the black plastic and try to avoid the tape as much as I could. I was a little afraid that I would trigger a homemade bomb or something, but my curiosity quickly got the better of me, as it usually did.
I didn’t have anything practical to cut the plastic with, but the metal corner of the bedframe looked like a good place to start. I leaned over to it, toppling my body over into a prone position, then began rubbing the plastic on the edge of the frame. It tore easily, giving me further confirmation that it was indeed a trash bag.
I turned it over once I had torn through a reasonable portion of it to check out the contents. I gasped audibly at what I saw. Through several layers of shredded plastic, I saw what looked to be a stack of dollar bills.
It wasn’t a small stack either. I began to claw around the plastic with my fingers, trying to get a better look at what was inside. I thumbed through the notes, checking the denominations. There were ones, fives, tens, and twenties in there, each secured with their own rubber band. Who on earth had sent these to me?
