Page 120 of Depraved Boys

“Then you’ll think I called you out here to be my charlady.” He poured an unholy amount of milk in each mug then added boiling water from the kettle. “You know, Corrine used to make fun of me all the time. She said I couldn’t make a cup of tea to save my life.”

I glanced at the pale drinks. “She might have had a point.”

Cormac bumped me on the shoulder. “You’re just saying that.”

“Do you need another teabag? This is more like watered-down milk than tea.”

He beamed, and the expression made my heartache. I expected that his sister always complained bitterly about his tea-making skills.

We sat side-by-side on a threadbare sofa, enjoying our tea. Cormac balanced a plate of chocolate hob-nobs on his lap and kept nudging me in the side to take one. I shook my head. Since Mom and Dad died, I’d lost my appetite for chocolate.

Maybe it was because Mom and I used to buy bars of Dairy Milk and dip them in our tea. I wasn’t ready for another reminder of what I had lost.

“Cormac,” Two boys from the year below flung open the door and barreled into our common room. “Something is going on!”

Cheers and raucous laughter from further down the hallway cut through the peaceful atmosphere.

Cormac placed his plate on the coffee table and stood. “I’d better see what’s happening.”

I set down my tea and rose. “It sounds serious.”

As we walked toward the door, some first years followed after us, their eyes alight with curiosity.

“Stay in here, where it’s safe.” Cormac’s voice hardened. “I mean it.”

The younger students returned to the chess game, and we stepped out of the common room into a hallway filled with cheers and catcalls and closed the door behind us.

Cormac clenched his teeth. “The noise is coming from the sixth-form common room.”

I gulped. “Right.”

The last time I had been in that room, Geraldine had offered all the boys a ten-thousand pound reward for taking my virginity. But I doubted that she would give me any trouble now that she knew I was pressing charges for assault.

Cormac and I stepped through the doors of the sixth form common room, and a gust of freezing air blew over our skin. Instead of the fight I expected, everyone gathered around the open windows. Some even hurled down open cans of soda from the wall of vending machines.

I spotted Leopold on the far right window, rushed to his side, and grabbed his elbow. “What’s going on?”

He spun around, face shuttering. “Nothing. Let me walk you to your room.”

I tried to walk around him, but he blocked my path. “What’s happening outside?”

A group of girls rushed around the window spot he had occupied and roared with laughter. Whatever they murmured to each other was obscured by the roars and bellows from some of the male occupants of the room.

“You don’t want to see this.” He grabbed me by the shoulders.

I stood on my tiptoes. “Leo—”

“Willow.” The hands around my shoulders tightened, and Leopold fixed his panicked, aquamarine eyes on mine. “Listen to me.”

“Your sister’s been pigged!” screeched a passing girl I was sure had been at Ashley’s initiation. “I can’t wait until it’s your turn.”

All the blood drained from my face and into my plummeting stomach. “W-what?”

“You heard me, Pigsty.” She continued to the window, casting me a nasty sneer over her shoulder.

Someone from the other side of the room shouted, “Look at that pig getting roasted!”

A ball of dread hit me in the gut. There was no time to demand explanations. I had to go down and see for myself. Rushing through the people streaming toward the window, I headed toward the common room door.