Page 130 of Depraved Boys

“He was—”

“Shut up,” she hissed. “It was just a slap.”

“It wasn’t,” I whispered.

She stuck her knee into my hamstrings, making me cry out. “I said, shut up.”

My nostrils flared. Why was she angry with me? I shoved my body weight against her front, and she staggered back several paces and hit the opposite wall. “Why are you trying to silence me when your father—”

“Someone tried to murder you,” she blurted, snatching my attention away from the subject of Mr. Byrd’s molesting hands. “If you’re not careful and don’t stop sticking your nose into places it doesn’t belong, your enemy will strike again.”

“You’re talking about yourself in the third person, right?” I opened the door into our hallway and headed for my room.

She caught up with me in seconds, her dark eyes blazing. “Your enemy is much closer than you think, and they want you to stop toying with the kings.”

Reaching into my blazer pocket, I murmured, “I get it now. They’re a way out of your situation. You think that marrying rich will be the answer to your problems.”

“What are you talking about?” Bianca snarled.

I pulled out my key from my pocket and unlocked my door. “If you don’t take a stand, your father could do it to someone else. Do you want that?”

“S-shut up,” she snapped. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“It’s up to you whether you want to report him, but you don’t need to go around threatening people who saw what he did.”

A nasty smile crossed her features, and she swept her gaze down and up my body. “Stop acting like you’re better than us because you’re not.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I clenched my stomach, readying myself for a blow.

“I’ll save the big reveal for another time.” She placed both hands on her hips. “But I warn you, fuck with Byrd and Byrd, and you won’t survive long enough to regret it.”

Bianca strode down the hallway with her shoulders hunched around her ears, leaving me with my hand over my heart. So far, all evidence pointed to her being the person who had tried to kill me at the end of last term. She had been the ringleader of the activities during Ashley’s initiation, and she claimed to know about the circumstances of my supposed accident.

I rubbed at my pounding temples. Would Bianca make another attempt at my life to stop me from revealing what I saw in Mrs. Benazir’s office?

When I turned around and stepped into my room, Ashley’s bed was missing, and a sofa lay in its place.

She had been expelled, but I no longer cared.

I was free of that traitorous, backstabbing wretch.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Days passed since Ashley was unceremoniously expelled, and Bianca continued to shoot me threatening looks at every opportunity. I kept my mouth shut about what I had seen in Mrs. Benazir’s office partly to respect her right to privacy and partly for self-preservation. I didn’t need her and her disgusting father threatening my life.

No matter how many times I continued taking those Chinese herbs, they still punched me in the tastebuds with their offensiveness. Each new dose was a new revelation in bitter and sour and pungency. Totally foul with an astringent aftertaste, but they chased away my headaches. A small price, I supposed, to be pain-free.

Now that we had all settled into the routine of being back in school, Sebastian continued to be distant. Sports practice took up a lot of his time, but he seemed preoccupied at mealtimes.

I sat between Leopold and Prakash in English. Miss Claymore strode up and down the lecture theater, discussing diary writing as a form of communication, and asked us to read a passage of A Writer’s Diary by Virginia Woolf and prepare a two-thousand-word analysis in time for the next lesson.

The bell rang, and everyone piled out of the theater. I headed down the steps to have a word with the teacher, but someone grabbed my arm.

“Don’t you have a free period, now?” asked Sebastian.

“I’m staying behind to ask Miss Claymore a question.”

“Right then, I’ll wait with you,” said Sebastian.