Page 167 of Shattered Pieces

“Lukas, Aurora. Nice of you to join us.”

“We were with the headmaster,” I answered, leaning back in my chair.

“Caden did mention that. I’ll mark you both off as present,” she said dryly before returning to her speech about a school play from the theater class that was coming up.

I’d already completed today’s Calculus lesson too, so she gave me new stuff to work on, not that I focused too well. Art went okay, other than Claire glaring at me silently through most of it, until Mr. Gillard wandered off to talk to a teacher in the hallway.

Claire stood and immediately stalked over, her hands on her hips like that would scare me.

“How dare you come back here,” she started, and when Caden went to speak, I waved a hand at him.

“Ignore her.”

“Excuse me?” Claire snapped, but I didn’t reply, pretending like she wasn’t there. “You think you’re so tough, but you’re not. I don’t think you killed your dad, I think you paid someone to like you did for Gunther and Mandy. What the fuck did Mandy ever do to you?”

“What happened to Mandy? Must have missed that. You know, when I was locked up,” I said bluntly, continuing to draw the plant I’d been told to draw. It was a cactus, not that it looked like one. I was terrible at art.

“You had her killed!”

“You need a shrink. I didn’t do anything. Can you go away? I’m working,” I huffed, hearing her screech before she shoved everything off my desk in a fit of rage.

“I know it was you!”

“Hey! What’s going on in here?” Mr. Gillard demanded as he appeared, hearing her dramatics from the hallway.

“She’s having an episode or something. I was just working,” I said, motioning to Claire. “She should go and speak with Mr. Ernest. That was a bit of a violent outburst, and they’re not tolerated here.”

Lukas was trying really hard not to laugh, but the others seemed a little surprised by my calm attitude. I wanted to smash her teeth on the desk, but Mr. Ernest claimed he’d do something about problem students, so I’d test it.

“Miss Davidson, please—” Mr. Gillard started, but Claire had really lost it, grabbing my sketch pad off the floor and throwing it at me, making a frustrated screech again when I just raised an eyebrow at her.

“Are you done?”

She grabbed pencils and threw them, then grabbed one of the girl’s water bottles from the desk close by and opened it, tossing it at me like it was acid that could do damage. At least it wasn’t sticky like the usual drinks they threw over me.

“Miss Davidson!” Mr. Gillard snapped, his patience gone. “Headmaster’s office! Right now!”

“She—” Claire started, but he cut her off.

“She did nothing. Go.”

She stormed off in a huff, and he gave me an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, she’s taken Mandy’s death quite hard, the poor thing. Give her a few minutes to make her way to the office and then I’ll let you go and clean up a little. I don’t want you to run into each other again.”

I nodded and wiped some water from my face, and Caden cringed. “I didn’t think she was going to do that. Maybe you should just smack her.”

“That’s what she wants,” Tyler argued, sliding his blazer off and walking over to me to drape it over my shoulders to stop people from seeing through my now wet white shirt.

“Let her look crazy. The school has to punish her now after Mr. Ernest’s talk to us this morning,” Lukas grinned, leaning back in his chair.

“Fill us in later,” Caden grunted, eyeing my soaked clothes and hair. “C’mon, you need to get changed. I’ll take you.”

“Why you?” I snorted as I stood, making him frown.

“Because I’m the only other person here with a gun and who knows how to use it if you run into trouble.”

“You have a gun?” Tyler hissed, and I shushed him.

“Talk about it later. Holloway, you’re with me,” I said, snagging his arm to pull him after me.