Page 50 of Savage Elites

“Mrs. Benazir prepared some handouts for the meeting.” She gestured at a box on a table in the far corner of the room. “Miss Evergreen, could you give the board members a copy each?”

I brought over the box and handed out green, glossy dossiers decorated with the same Brittas Academy emblem as the one on our blazers.

After I had handed out the last dossier, Miss Claymore gave a shaky speech on the quality control methods she employed to maintain a high level of education at the academy. I furrowed my brows and glanced at Cormac, who gazed at the deputy head with concerned eyes. Hadn’t Mrs. Benazir briefed her on the financials?

One of the female board members hissed. “What is the meaning of this?”

I glanced in her direction. She pulled out photo after photo of the same nude woman in different positions. A man on her right flipped to the back of his dossier and found a similar array of naked pictures.

One of the board member’s head snapped up. “That’s you!”

My mouth dropped open, and all the blood drained from my face.

“You’re the girl in the photos.” The bald man from earlier held up a picture of me lying on my side, seemingly asleep. My wet hair was splayed out on the grass with some strands falling into my face, but the photo was unmistakably me.

Angry chatters broke out around the boardroom table, and everyone who hadn’t already perused the dossier snapped it open.

Cold, blind, numb panic overtook my senses, and the box slipped from my hands, spilling all kinds of nude photos of me across the floor. They’d all been taken at night, all been taken on the same patch of grass, and all been taken while I’d been unconscious during Ashley’s initiation.

“W-wait, I can explain!” Words tumbled from my mouth. “Some girls abducted me from my bed and forced alcohol down my throat. I didn’t agree to any of this, and t-they nearly killed me. The police are treating it as a sexual assault, and they’re investigating—”

“Police?” one of the women screeched.

“Bloody hell!” bellowed a male board member.

I clutched my tightening chest, shaking with the force of the palpitations. Cormac placed an arm around my waist to keep me upright.

Mr. Byrd glanced from the photos to me and back to the photos again. Then a tiny smile curled his lips, and he winked.

Miss Claymore whirled on me, her dark eyes burning with fury. “Get out. And report to Mrs. Benazir’s office tomorrow after classes.”

I backed out of the room, on legs that trembled so much, they barely hold my body weight. Mr. Byrd shook his head in mock disapproval, plucked the dossiers of the two outraged women at his left and right, opened up his briefcase, and placed them inside.

Ice filled my veins. He would probably use those pictures at a later point to blackmail me into dropping the charges against Bianca.

Chapter 13

Despite Miss Claymore’s screeched demands for me to get out of her sight, I collected as many of those prospectuses as I could with Cormac’s help, but Mr. Byrd denied slipping three copies into his briefcase. I would have stayed to fight my case, but the deputy headmistress grabbed my arm, dragged me out of the room and slammed the door in my face.

Clutching the box of prospectuses, I stood out in the hallway and stared at the door. Nausea swirled in my belly, and prickly heat spread across my skin like an army of fire ants. This had to be the work of Bianca. Or Geraldine. Or both.

Someone turned the door handle, and my heart jumped into my throat. I bolted into the east wing stairwell, still holding the boxes to my chest. Right now, I couldn’t cope with one of the board members demanding further answers. Especially if it was Mrs. Brunswick or Mr. Byrd.

“If this is what goes on in the academy after your initiatives to curb bullying, it’s not surprising that a girl committed suicide the year before!” a shrill voice echoed.

Sympathy squeezed my heart. That governor had brought up Corrine’s death without considering the effect it might have on Cormac. I took the stairs two at a time up to the sixth-year boys’ hallway and knocked on Prakash’s door. Sweat gathered on my brow, and I had to brace an arm on the doorframe to keep myself upright.

Leopold answered the door. A wide grin spread across his features, then his face fell, and his brow furrowed. “Willow, what’s wro—”

The tight fist of control I held over my emotions loosened, releasing everything in one rush. Shame and anger at having been stripped and violated by those girls, frustration at Ashley’s refusal to have those boys punished, the gut-wrenching despair from the loss of my family. It felt like acid seeping out of my heart and burning me from the inside, out.

My knees collapsed to the ground, and a prospectus slipped out of the box, spilling those terrible photos across the parquet floor.

Prakash walked around from the other side of the room and picked up a photo. He sucked in a noisy gasp. “Where did you get these?”

“The Board of Governors,” I whispered. “Someone wanted them to see.”

Leopold set me onto my feet and guided me to the leather sofa. He wrapped a warm, comforting arm around my shoulders.