by Bella King
I turned to look at him, standing for a moment at the top of the staircase. It felt liberating to be towering over them as they had towered over me in the classroom earlier that night. I smiled at the men below me and gave them a salute before retreating into the room. That was an issue I would deal with later. Right now, I was just happy that I had managed to get back to bed alive and in one piece.
Chapter 6
The sun rose too early, waking me up sooner than I would have liked to be woken up. I had managed to get a total of five hours of sleep that night. It wasn’t the worst I had to endure, but it certainly wasn’t the best either.
Eden slapped an open hand on the bed beside my head, shocking me awake. The mattress was so firm that any pressure on it could be felt all over the bed, and my head nearly bounced into the air from her slap.
“Wake up before someone draws on your forehead with a sharpie, bitch,” Eden exclaimed, reminding me that pranks and harassment were everyday things here at Ridgeview. If you didn’t wake up early enough, someone was bound to scribble on your forehead or set your bedsheets on fire for a laugh.
I groaned, sitting up in the bed and rubbing the crust from my eyes. I was wearing an old t-shirt, the only thing I felt comfortable sleeping in after my pajamas had been ditched in the classroom. I was sure someone would find them in the morning, but they wouldn’t know they were mine. AT least, that’s what I hoped.
“Did you leave last night?” Eden asked, giving me a suspicious look. She must have heard me despite my best efforts to stay silent.
I nodded. “I had to pee.”
Eden shook her head. “You were gone longer than that.”
I sighed. Eden was perceptive, sometimes annoyingly so. I looked at her with my eyelids hung low over my eyes. “Don’t ask about it.”
She shrugged. “Just curious. You know, it’s dangerous in the halls at night. The gangs like to patrol their territory.”
I would have liked to know this before I nearly got assaulted twice. You live and you learn, I guess. Next time I would drink less before bed and wait my turn at the dormitory bathroom if I absolutely had to go. Taking risks here proved to be more dangerous than I have previously assumed.
I pushed the sheets away from my legs and got out of bed as Eden made her bed. It wasn’t a school requirement that we made our beds, but Natasha didn’t like it if the dorms were sloppy, and she would patrol the area just like how the gangs patrolled the halls at night. This was her territory, and may God help you if you didn’t know that.
I was always a rebellious type of woman, but the school was teaching me that if you wanted to rebel, you better do it in a group with other strong people and not on your own. Since I didn’t want to get caught up in the drama that came with such groups, I was forced to stay in line. It was uncomfortable for me, but I valued my safety.
Get in. Get out. That was the only thing that I needed to do at this school. I remembered the judge’s smug face as he hit the gravel to sentence me to a year at Ridgeview Boarding School. It was as though he knew what kind of hell I was in for, and that he took pleasure in seeing me suffer.
He wasn’t the only one.
I quickly got changed in front of the other women in the dorm, pulling my shirt over my head and tossing it into the wooden chest at the end of the bed. Everyone had one, and it was the only storage we were giving. That meant we couldn’t have very many belongings, but I was a minimalist by nature anyway. It didn’t bother me.
Eden, on the other hand, was aggravated on a daily basis by the size of her storage chest. I saw her now, cramming in her pajamas and trying to force the top down until it clicked in place so that she could lock it. She jumped onto it, slamming her rear into the lid until there was an audible click.
“Fucking thing,” she exclaimed, kicking it once it was closed.
I laughed. “Maybe you should get rid of some of that stuff,” I suggested.
“I need it,” she argued. “I don’t see how any woman can wear the same fucking outfit every day. No offense to you, but I need more variety than that.”
I looked down at my uniform. It was a requirement that we wore one on the weekdays, but we did get some say in the colors we chose as long as the garments were the same. Every day, I wore a blue or black skirt with matching leggings, and a white blouse. I was simple in that regard.
Today was Friday, which meant there would be a shorter day of classes and then all hell would break loose. That was what Eden had told me. She said that students went wild over the weekend, but especially on Friday. I should expect plenty of drunken dram in the dormitory and everywhere around the school once the final bell rang.
I was alright with that kind of chaos. My ex-boyfriend liked to get drunk, even during the week, and throw parties on the street. People would be snorting lines off collapsible tables in the apartment complex and taking shots until the police arrived to shut it down. They could usually get a few hours in before that happened, and then it was off to the clubs.
Sometimes I would join in, but I was always afraid to do drugs. I didn’t like to feel like I wasn’t able to think properly or that I might do something that was out of control. I clung to the harshness of reality, only escaping into my own head when things got especially bad.
“Hey, do you have a hair tie?” Eden asked, holding a pile of messy brown hair on top of her head sloppily and sticking out a hand expectantly.
I fished around in the subtle small packet on the front of my skirt, pulling out a wad of tangled white elastic hair ties. “Here,” I said, pulling one of them from the bunch and handing it to her.
“Thanks,” she replied, continuing to put her hair up.
I was ready to go. We had showers in the dormitory, but it was always a losing battle if you didn’t wake up early enough for them. By this time, they would be overcrowded, and you would probably be late for class. A lot of the women would come back from their first or second class to take a shower to avoid the rush. I was one of those people.
Who did I have to impress? Nobody but myself. I wasn’t interested in picking up any men during my time at Ridgeview, but they seemed to be hovering around me like flies. I hadn’t forgotten about the words that Andrew had said to me right before I returned to the dormitory last night.
“Don’t think this over,” I muttered to myself as I left Eden behind to go to class. Those were the exact words he had said to me.
I cursed myself again for getting mixed up with those guys. They had made me pledge my alliance to them, and it was unlikely that running through the halls naked would be the end of it. They would want more from me, and the only thing I could do was prepare myself for the rollercoaster that I had just climbed aboard.
I carefully took the steps down from the dormitory. The school looked so innocent now that it was daytime. It was amazing how this place could transform into a gang-ridden underworld with just a flick of the lights in the evening. So many things walk that simple thread between good and evil, needing only a small change to push them over onto one side or the other.
I rushed down the hallway and past the bathrooms that had gotten me into trouble last night. The signs had been switched back to their normal places, which I was a little disappointed by because I had wanted to check out the hiding place in the bathroom today. Maybe Andrew, Troy, and Martin would be using it again. There could be some interesting stuff there.
If I was actually part of their crew now, I ought to ask them about what they had in there. If they had me jump through hoops to prove my alliance to them, then they should also let me in on their operations. Curiosity was quickly getting the better of me the more I thought about it. I should be in the loop.
“Rose,” a voice called from behind me.
I looked over my shoulder and saw a man who I had never seen before jogging up beside me. He was a pretty boy who looked like he belonged in a singing group more than at a school for delinquents. I had no idea what he wanted or how he knew who I was, but I slowed do
wn so that he could catch up to me.
“Hey, I’m Daniel,” he said, reaching out a hand for me to shake.
I refused it. “Daniel?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. He had been the man who the gang had mentioned in the bathroom. He was the one who had hidden the goods for them to pick up.
“Yes, that’s me. I’m tight with Andrew and his crew. He told me last night that you were going through initiation, so I wanted to say hi and introduce myself,” he explained.
Initiation. That was right, and by the sound of it, there would be more to it.
Daniel moved a chocolate-brown curl out of his forehead and grinned. “You’re pretty for a criminal.”
I snorted out through my nose in amusement. “I could say the same for you.”
He chuckled as we walked down the corridor. “I use it to my advantage. I acquire supplies for the group. If you need anything, just let me know. I need like two days’ notice, but I can get you whatever you need. Within reason, of course.”
I looked him up and down. “You can get me stuff? Is it free?”
Daniel smiled, nodding his head. “Certainly is, but don’t expect too much right now. You’re still pretty new to the group. I’m sure Andrew and the rest want to test you out before they let you in on everything.”
“I wasn’t really planning on joining, you know. They sort of made me do it,” I said.
“You’re lucky then. I practically had to beg to get in on their dealings. They nearly broke my arm when I interrupted one of their secret meetings. It’s not my fault they were so obvious about it, but they didn’t seem to like that I knew about it.”
“Why would you want to be teamed up with those guys?” I asked, still surprised that such a sweet-looking guy like him was involved with the school crooks.
“You’re safer with protection. Believe me. I got beat up three times a week before I joined Andrew. Now, nobody touches me,” he replied proudly.
“I guess that makes sense,” I replied, but I couldn’t help but feel like he was being manipulated into doing all this. I mean, that was how I got into it. They had threatened to kill me.
“Okay,” I said as I neared the classroom. “How about you get me some kind of weapon to start with. I almost got assaulted last night.”
Daniel pushed his lips out and nodded, looking impressed by my request “Smart girl. Do you want something sharp or blunt? We don’t do guns here, unfortunately.”
I didn’t see what was unfortunate about students not being able to shoot each other, but I disregarded it. “Something small and sharp that I can carry with me,” I said as I came to the door to the classroom.
“No problem,” he replied, slapping his hand against the door frame and starting to walk away.
“Oh, one more thing,” I said.
He turned around and raised an eyebrow.
“A box of nails,” I said.
He gave me a curt nod, and then he was off, leaving me in the doorway to my first class of the day. I was in too deep now. The only thing I could do was to go with the flow and take full advantage of the resources I had. I had a feeling Daniel was going to be useful.
Chapter 7
“Take these,” a said, bouncing a small box of nails onto Eden’s bed when we arrived back to the dormitory after the first class.
“Woah, where’d you get those?” She asked, picking up the box and examining it.
“Don’t ask,” I said waving a hand. “Just enjoy them responsibly.”
Eden lowered the box and squinted at me. “Have you been stealing?”
I laughed. “I’m not a criminal, Eden. I already told you why I was here.”
That was true. I had explained in great detail to her one day during lunch how I had ended up in the back of a police car after they picked me up from the side of the road. I hadn’t done a damn thing wrong, but the cops don’t care. They were looking for a bust and they got one.
My ex-boyfriend had been arrested as well, which wasn’t a surprise since he was the leader of a statewide drug ring for the last three years. On the night we were caught, he kicked me out of a moving vehicle while he was fleeing from the police with a pound of narcotics in the trunk. It had been a rough tumble for me, but nothing compared to what I had endured when he thought I had been cheating on him.
For the record, I never cheated, but he was paranoid, probably from the stimulants he was always snorting. He locked me up in a cupboard to keep me away from some lanky pothead who he thought I was interested in. Never mind the fact that this guy was hideous and looked like he hadn’t showered in a month. Those were wild times.
At Ridgeview, things were arguably calmer, but it was different here as well. I didn’t understand everything that went on behind the scenes, so it stressed me out more to be in this environment compared to the terrible one that I had been caught up in at home. The human brain doesn’t like change, even if it’s toward something better.
I grabbed a towel out of my storage chest while Eden opened the box of nails, pulling a few out to add to her weapon. I hadn’t gotten mine yet, but Daniel had been alarmingly fast with the nails. He had them to me when I stepped out of my first class of the day. Talk about good service. Clearly, I had joined the right gang.
“I don’t know where you got these, but they’re perfect,” Eden said, holding one up to the light. “Sharp as fuck too.”
I smiled. “I’m glad you like them. You owe me one.”
“For sure. You know I got your back.”
“I know,” I said, but I probably didn’t need her help at this point. She couldn’t save me from Andrew and his gang even if she wanted to. It was my responsibility to navigate their ranks without getting myself killed.
“Fuck, fuck, hide your shit,” Eden said, tossing the nails back in the box and shoving it under her pillow.
I looked down the hall as Natasha came striding down it, looking just as pompous as always, with her two sidekicks. She made eye contact with me, staring me down until she arrived at my bed.
Eden looked horribly nervous, smoothing the wrinkles out of her sheets as though Natasha would punish her for her bed-making skills. I highly doubted it, but she also looked like the type of woman to power trip and end up doing outrageous things.
“Hello Rose,” she said, her voice high and snippy.
“Hey,” I said, refusing to show her an ounce of respect.
Eden shot me a warning look which I ignored.
“I heard a rumor that you were sucking Andrew’s cock for special favors,” she said, her face almost looking distressed as she spoke.
I laughed. “Jesus, you need to fire your informant. It’s nothing like that.”
She rolled her eyes. “Believe me, it’s always like that. If not now, then it’s only a matter of time.”
“And why do you care?” I asked, crossing my arms and pursing my lips.
She grinned. “You could have fallen into ranks with me, and you would have been safe. I wouldn’t fuck with Andrew, if I were you.”
“But you’re not me,” I countered.
Eden looked like her head was going to explode, but she kept her mouth shut. I’m sure she didn’t want me starting a fight with Natasha, but this was my business, not hers.
Natasha sighed. “You’re pushing your luck here, Rose. One wrong move and you’re in for a world of pain. I hope you’re prepared to take what Andrew has to dish out. Don’t come running to me when he tosses you aside like the rest of the whores he gets with.”
“You sound bitter? Things didn’t work out between you two?” I asked in a mocking tone.
Natasha looked like she wanted to strangle me in broad daylight. Her eyes flashed with a moment of fury before dying down. She knew how to control herself better than I did. “Just tell him I said hi, but don’t forget that I warned you.”
And with that, she was off. Her long legs took her far away in a short amount of time, leaving Eden and us alone in the dormitory once more.
“Are you fuck
ing insane?” Eden asked, taking me by the shoulders and shaking me violently.
“Jesus Christ, get over it,” I said, shoving her back. “Natasha is all bark and no bite.”
Eden’s brown eyes were nearly popping out of her skull. “Are you kidding me? She’ll fucking kill you. I didn’t know you were fucking around with Andrew. That’s her ex-boyfriend.”
“I’m not fucking around with Andrew,” I said, shaking my head and letting out a sigh. “He’s fucking around with me. There’s a difference.”
“Oh my god, we’re both screwed,” she replied, placing her hands on her head and clenching two balls of hair in her fists.
“You’re overreacting, Eden. Besides, you’re not involved in this,” I said, shaking my head at her.
“I sleep right beside you. What if she mistakes me for you when she comes to chop your damn head off in the middle of the night?”
Eden was getting frantic, which was my signal to leave for the showers. I didn’t have time to deal with drama before my next class. She should have been happy about the nails and not asked any more questions. My life was complicated enough already.
I took my towel and left Eden with her hands still on her head, her eyes still staring off into the distance in shock at what I had done. She would get over it.
I got to the showers, stripping off my clothes as I enjoyed the silence of the shower room. The room didn’t offer a whole lot of privacy, but that didn’t matter much to me. After running around the school naked the night before, I didn’t care that much about other women seeing me naked.
I hung my towel a few feet away on a heated rack and stepped beneath a showerhead that didn’t look clogged. Something about the minerals in the water at this school made the showerheads clog up over time, and many of them didn’t function very well. It was hit or miss whether you got a good one. Normally, it was too busy to pick and choose, but I had the whole place to myself. I could switch if I wanted to.
I turn the knob on the wall to start the water. There was only one direction that it moved, controlling both the amount of water and the heat. You could keep turning it forever, but it wouldn’t get much hotter than lukewarm, which was a disappointment during my first shower at Ridgeview. Surviving an entire year without hot water would be difficult for a person like me, who nearly scorched their skin off every time they stepped into a shower.
