by Hannah Capin
another party, another slut down lol
The second-string boy wrote back: get your trophy?
And Connor said, always do.
The second-string boy said, pics.
Connor said, dunc would kill me lmao.
The second-string boy said, dm me?
And Connor said, done.
Here I am, two days later, with his phone in my hands. Standing in their hazed-dark secret place and opening his message to the second-string boy.
He said, u cant tell dunc u know.
And the second-string boy said, bro you were yelling about her all night. Then, pics, u promised.
And Connor said, u think im fukkin high? no phones in the room. dunc’s rules.
The second-string boy said, bet Dunc’s rules say no trophies too.
Connor said, dammm. And then, tru tho. And then, check it out lmao.
He sent a picture, off-center but searing clear: an old St Andrew’s tie, hanging crooked over a bookshelf. The silk scarred with a constellation of earrings. A white pearl, a silver hoop, a gold stud. Half a dozen of them.
The one at the bottom, centered between the points, is gold and crystal and mine. He plucked it off of my ear before we were even in that white-sheets room. Porter, at the door, said something that melted down the walls, so I couldn’t understand it, and Connor said, fuck what Dunc says.
I zip Connor’s phone into my purse. Then I take out the other gold-and-crystal earring, the one still left when they left me.
Connor’s this-year tie hangs halfway through his collar and halfway across his duffel bag. I poke the earring into the bottom of the tie, right between the points. Exactly like the one in the picture.
He won’t even notice.
Poor Connor.
He’ll be the first to die.
When I stand up everything looks exactly how I found it. I take one step toward the door and my phone buzzes. Jenny says, Someone’s coming.
I don’t have time to get out. He’ll see me coming around the corner.
I text, Who?
My eyes flurry around the half-dark. I want to hide where I can see him, but there’s nothing out here besides the benches and the shelves and all their wolf-pack debris.
Summer sends a picture: one lone boy passing her post, blurred and looking over his shoulder. It’s Malcolm, the good-king’s little brother, shorter and skinnier but with the same glittering gray eyes and almost-black hair. The same fucking smirk.
Malcolm, the boy who bought the poison and mixed the drinks.
Mads texts, Get out!
I say, Staying, and I slip around the corner to the showers.
There’s nowhere to hide.
No dividers. No curtains. Just a stretch of smooth white tile, and four showerheads poking out of the wall to the left, and four sinks to the right under a high window where the light bleeds in. And at the other end of the room, two urinals and one stall.
The locker room door bangs open. I fly across the tile, weightless and gliding on my toes so my heels don’t click. Slide into the stall and pull the door almost-shut. Step up onto the porcelain, on just my toes again, left hand balancing me against the wall. Tap my phone over to silent and press the screen against my skirt so it won’t light up and give me away, crouched and waiting in the shadows while a boy I’m not afraid to kill fucks around one wall over.
He’s mumbling to himself. Unzipping a bag and knocking something to the floor.
made the fucking drink myself, said Malcolm on Friday night. Grinning from the doorway, leaning in front of zit-faced Porter.
you know I trust my dealer, said Malcolm, flashing his teeth, flashing a gleam in his gunmetal-gray eyes, you know his pills are always what he says they are—
“Jesus, I called you now, didn’t I?” says Malcolm on the other side of the wall. “In the middle of the fucking game, too. Coach is pissed, and all because you won’t just let me text, or just give me a minute—”
give her a minute, said Banks to Malcolm on Friday night, she’ll be gone—
“Fuck,” says Malcolm right now. “Don’t even read that shit. It’s Connor, man. He’s sloppy but my brother keeps him in line. Sure as hell won’t come back on you when you’re just the fucking dealer. And anyway, the bitch won’t say anything. They never do.” He laughs at nobody and my nails bite into the wall so hard they almost stick. I’m this-damn-close to falling; this-damn-close to knocking the door open and shouting Malcolm’s name—
Or better: whispering it. Murmuring it, a low sweet call. Luring him in.
A room this white needs a little blood to wake it up.
But that’s not the plan. And I’m not ruining the plan for a boy like Malcolm.
I dig my claws in and keep my balance.
He mumbles under his breath. He takes his time, lets his dealer go off, because good-prince sophomores have all the time in the world. Humming to himself, almost. I watch the end of the shower room, the space where his wolf-song bends around the corner, and think, soon, soon, soon.
Not soon enough.
The humming stops. Everything stops, for a dead-bloated second. Silent enough that I could think I was alone again.
Then his shoes yelp on the tile and there he is, a long thin slice of him in the crack between the hinges, ambling over to the second sink and spinning it on to fill a bottle too fast, phone crammed against one shoulder. Humming again. The light from the high window catches in his hair and gives him a silver-white halo.
He’s ten feet away from me. Maybe twelve. Gulping water fast and careless with his dealer in his ear.
Him and me. Alone. And he’s the weakest of all of them—
He stops humming again.
He turns and scans the back of the room. For a second he stares right at me. His eyes linger too long. His teeth chew at his bottom lip, star-bright and unsettling.
I don’t blink. I don’t breathe. I’m predator-still in the shadows, and he’s half-blind from facing the windows, and I know what I’m up against and he doesn’t.
“Yeah, and I’m done with you, too,” Malcolm says into the phone, trying on his brother’s voice. “Yeah, fuck you, too. Later.”
He hangs up and walks out. The door bangs open-shut and I lose my balance and clatter to the floor.
When I’m sure he’s gone I push the door open and check myself in the same mirror Malcolm used. St Andrew’s Prep Jade is still perfect, from her war-paint to her crucifix to her slutty unbuttoned blouse. Not quite tall enough to catch a halo of light, even in my heels.
Good.
My phone lights up. Clear, says Mads.
Clear, says Summer, a second later.
Clear, says Jenny, finally.
I tell them, Done. Your turn.
Prophecy
Our golden wolves win, a victory at the very last second—
—Mack flying down the field so fast not one single Viking can catch him, hurling the ball to Duncan; Duncan slipping through two defensemen and leaving them to crash into each other while he runs for the goal and scores right as the clock runs out. They come in bloody and shouting, right in front of us again. The whole pack shining with sweat and glory.
Lilia breathes out, “Thank fuck.”
The boys push Mack and Duncan into the middle of the pack. The good-king hits Mack hard across the back. “Damn, that was a beautiful assist. Saved our asses from all the shit Connor let by.”
Connor’s lips curl. He hits Duncan harder than he needs to and his almost-black eyes hitch over to the flock-girls and he says, “Luck’s a whore. She fucks us all eventually.”
Then Duncan and Duffy come over and sweep Lilia and Piper off their feet. Lilia’s shoulders go rigid but Piper wraps python-tight around Duffy, her spray-tan against his sweat, his crosse and her sabre swinging.
The rest of the starlings hover around the boys they like best, big-eyed and high-pitched. A whirl of flattery and plans for after until the coach yells at the pack to hit the locker room, and th
en they run off, spinning to look back at the girls, helmets loose in their hands. Connor drags behind. He’s last-place and he knows it.
I keep my eyes on him until he notices. Until he stares back. Until he rakes his almost-black eyes across every inch of me; until his lips curl again.
I don’t look away. The girls flit beside me and behind me, Lilia, Lilia, I’m riding with you, right? It’s my turn, but I’m still and unblinking and watching Connor hold onto the stare for longer than he should. Until the heel of one cleat catches and he stumbles, and his sneer turns to a snarl, and he spits one last narrowed-eye glare at me and disappears after his friends—the ones who don’t trust him.
“Jade, you’re with me,” says Lilia in her smoke-thin voice. But still a command.
Piper sucks air between her teeth and says, “Fucking hell, Lili. When did you start giving to charity?”
Lilia blinks, mascara-heavy hummingbird wings. “When did you start telling me who my friends are?”
The rest of them breathe in the drama so hard their lungs almost burst.
I say, “I’ll drive myself.”
Their shiny bird-eyes flick back and forth, Lilia-me-Lilia-me, waiting for her to knock me back down to where new girls belong.
She smiles, faint. “I’ll text you the address.”
Piper laughs loud and grabs my arm with one quick hand. Her fingers press into the bruises under my sleeve—Duffy’s fingerprints, her next-in-line boyfriend, the one who said on Friday night, shit, who knew there was a bitch out there worse than mine?
“Jade,” says Piper. Just that one word.
“Piper.”
They’re leaving now, the rest of them, gathering up their things and pecking out texts and jostling for the place closest to Lilia. Piper is the only one who isn’t falling over herself to beg for Lilia’s right-hand seat.
She waits until they’re ten steps toward the gate—until Lilia looks over her shoulder and says, “Piper? You’re with me.”
And Piper levels me a hard amber stare. “You know I am.”
She wings up next to Lilia. Their elbows link. The breeze slices across the field and swirls their hair together, blond on blonder, and the sun glints off Piper’s blade. They glow, all of them, brighter than they should.
I watch them go—
—and I wait for Mack.
But first it’s my coven’s turn. Everything has to happen exactly the way I want it.
I text them, It’s time.
Then I climb the bleachers, to the highest row on the right-hand side, nothing behind me and nothing below. I don’t see Jenny or Summer or Mads, but I’m not supposed to. Not yet. And I know they’re exactly where I told them to be, waiting.
The moment bleeds out: golden light playing across the field and shadows growing on the lawn. The air clings close. The last St Andrew’s Preppers are gone and I’m alone.
I slip Connor’s phone out of my purse.
Duncan and Duffy are the first boys out of the locker room, passing almost underneath me, so close I could drop my long knife straight down and sink it into their shoulders. Connor trails behind them, and then Porter.
I find Banks’s texts on Connor’s phone, Bank$ with a dollar sign. The last message Connor sent was Saturday noon, last nite was wild, shoulda got her fukkin number, and Banks wrote back the second he got it: Keep your mouth shut or I tell Dunc. And Connor again: chill.
I text Banks—Connor texts Banks—lost the slut’s earring in the locker room.
The reply pops up with no pause: You better be joking.
I text back, nah.
Banks says, You’re so close to dead.
I say, you too if you don’t find it.
He says, Fuck you.
I say, no thx.
He says, Dunc’s gonna give you hell.
I say, worth it.
And then I scroll until I find Mack further down Connor’s messages. I tell him, show this to banks.
I send the same picture Connor sent the second-string boy: his trophied tie. One text to knot Mack together with the wolves before they all fall apart. One picture to crack Connor’s secrets open.
The screen goes black.
Banks fires back, like clockwork: FUCK you, you’ll pay.
Exactly as furious as I want him to be with boasting shameless Connor.
Malcolm and his second-rank pack walk out, and the last stragglers. Banks and Mack are the only boys left in the locker room.
A minute passes and then another. Past the front lawn, a siren shrills.
Then Mack walks out with Banks. Their heads are conspiracy-close but I catch Banks’s words, high and tight: “—when Dunc gets him alone—”
Mack cuts him off: “I’ll talk to him.”
And Banks laughs, and it echoes under the bleachers. “You don’t know shit.”
They’re almost to the corner now. I set Connor’s phone down and text the coven on mine: Now.
And then they appear, all three of them, almost out of nowhere, and stand three-in-a-row across the path to the parking lot. They wear the same St Andrew’s colors they wore when they hid in plain sight all through the game: Jenny in her blue crop top, Summer in silver, Mads in crisp white.
The same, except for the masks. White satin and jeweled and matching, left over from the party Summer threw last New Year’s Eve. Turning my coven as faceless as the dazzle-smiled boy.
They stand unmoving. In the almost-sunset light their shadows are long and wicked.
Banks stops hard.
They say it together, Jenny and Summer and Mads, their voices floating up to me—
Mack, their time is up
—and Banks takes a step back and says, “What is this shit?”
They speak again:
Mack, your time is here
—and the boys look at each other, and Banks remembers who he’s supposed to be. He bites off a laugh, hard and mocking. But he’s nervous: I can see it wavering on the air like summer heat. “Somebody’s fucking with you,” he tells Mack. “Come on, let’s—”
“Connor will fall,” says Jenny.
“You’ll take his place,” says Summer.
“And then you’ll take Duncan’s,” says Mads.
Banks starts in on another dig, but Mack takes a step forward, shoulders strong and straight. “Who sent you?”
“To the nights we won’t remember,” says Jenny: the words from that Friday-night picture.
“No,” says Summer. “They will—”
And Mads says, burning cold: “She won’t.”
Banks stops laughing.
“Who sent you?” Mack asks again. “Are you—”
“Get the hell out,” says Banks. “Or—”
Tires squeal and Duncan’s white Escalade slams to a stop at the gate and Duffy yells, “Banks, we’re leaving your ass!”
Banks’s head jerks up and he hisses out, “Watch your backs, you and whoever sent you.” And he shoves past them and jogs for the car. The back door swings open for him and he slides in and slams it hard and yells, “Fuck that shit, Mack!”
They’re gone.
I pick up Connor’s phone again and text Mack:
she won’t.
He looks over his shoulder, just the way he’s supposed to. Looking for Connor, even though he knows Connor is gone. Looking for whoever heard the coven’s coiling words.
I stand up, here at the top of the bleachers, and the sun sets me on fire.
My coven disappears as spirit-smooth as they came in, melting into the shadows while Mack stares up at me; while I take each step down the bleachers with the kind of watch-me walk he couldn’t look away from even if he wanted to. While he puts one hand up to shade his eyes even though I’m the one looking straight into the sun.
He doesn’t break the stare and neither do I until I get to the bottom of the steps and the wall at the edge of the bleachers blocks him out. And then I take one spun-out second to let the adrenaline soak in and stay. Let the blood rush ha
rd under my skin but keep the smile airbrush-smooth on my face.
I turn the corner and there he is, closer than before, waiting for me. Golden Mack. Our eyes lock—
My breath catches in my throat.
I don’t fall for boys. Not at first sight, not dancing close, not ever. I don’t believe in love or meant-for-each-other or chemistry, whatever that means, when Summer talks about the look some oily-eyed thirty-year-old is giving her from across the club. It’s called lust, that’s literally it, Jenny told her, two days before the football player drove over the cliff, and I said, exactly, and it’s all you, because it was and she knew it. We all know it, my coven and me, and every girl who’s ever walked into a room and made every head turn: how to make boys think we want them, so then they want us, too. How to make them do anything we say.
It’s power.
And we decide it, us girls, if we know anything about anything.
I decide who wants me. And I’d never be weak enough to want them back. Never be weak enough to want them for anything more than what they can get me. The night I want. Or the answers to the test I didn’t study for because I was running wild with my coven instead. Or the key to ruining all the boys who need ruining.
I decide how it ends.
Every night except one.
But right now—
swimming in the gold-dust light, with my eyes and his locked together, staring into the earnest leaf-green sea-green summer-green and seeing the golden boy I’m supposed to see instead of the wolf he is—
—I could forget that this is all just a plot. Make myself fall for him, if I wanted to. The same way I’ll make him fall for me. The same way I’ll make him fall.
But I don’t forget.
It’s a spell, but only for him. On him.
He’ll speak first. I decide that.
I count it in my head, one-two-three, and then he says, “Jade.” I smile—I let myself smile. And his cheeks go a little red. “Lilia’s friend. Right?”
“Just Jade,” I tell him. I’m nobody’s friend here. “And you’re Andrew.”
“It’s Mack,” he says, even though Piper told me you shouldn’t call him that. Not yet.
“Mack,” I say, and I take one more step, so we’re almost toe to toe. I have to look up to keep the gaze, and I do: a proud chin-tilt that makes the chopped ends of my hair brush back across my blouse. I look straight into his eyes and I say, “You won the game.”
