Page 43 of Depraved Boys

Mom and Dad smiled back, as though encouraging me to push forward with Ashley. I nodded. Maybe they were right. She was the last of the Evergreens. What good would bickering do us?

Perhaps it was due to Ashley’s decision to join the queens, but the taunts and pranks eased off in the following week.

Leopold made half-hearted attempts to talk to me, but he would always back off whenever I told him I wasn’t interested… At least until the next time.

Sebastian didn’t ask me out again, but Prakash used every opportunity in Advanced Calculus to suggest that I leave Brittas Academy.

Thanks to Miss Claymore, Ashley spent most evenings in our room. The deputy headmistress banned her from sitting with Bruce and the twins, and I helped my sister with prep and her homework.

Her grades rose to eighty-five percent within two weeks, proving that she was as elite as anyone else in the academy. While Ashley’s success was great, tutoring her meant that I had no time to decipher Corrine’s diary, and I still didn’t know anything about Sebastian’s relationship with the dead girl.

One morning, Sebastian walked up to the breakfast table and sat in the empty seat next to mine. “I can’t see you this weekend.”

“We didn’t have any plans.” I focussed on my scrambled eggs. If I stared into those green eyes, I might blurt out something silly.

Miss Claymore strode down from the head table and crossed the room. “Is this boy harassing you?”

I shrugged. “He’s just being confusing.”

The deputy head tapped Sebastian’s shoulder and pointed at the double doors. “Go elsewhere and confuse someone else.”

“We were only having a conversation,” muttered Sebastian.

Miss Claymore placed her hands on her hips and glared at Sebastian until he walked back to his table. Then she turned back to me and asked, “Are you alright?”

Warmth spread through my insides. Even though Sebastian hadn’t been bothering me, it was great to see a teacher so dedicated to stamping out bullying and harassment.

Geraldine and Bianca glared at us from the table they shared with the kings. It was a pity that they saved the worst of their actions for when the teachers weren’t around.

“He wasn’t harassing me, Miss,” I said. “But thanks for coming over to help.”

With a sharp nod, Miss Claymore returned to her seat.

“He was playing the pull-a-pig game, you know.” Ashley bit into her toast. “I don’t know why someone so rich would go so low to win Bianca’s bet.”

My shoulders slumped. Not at the barb, but at the reminder that I couldn’t be sure about Sebastian until I had worked out what had happened to Corrine. Pressing my lips together to stop myself from replying, I poured myself a cup of orange juice from the jug on the table.

“Don’t look at me like that,” said Ashley. “When I’m a Queen of Brittas Academy, I’ll be able to get him and his friends to back off.”

I still wasn’t convinced that Geraldine and Bianca’s offer was genuine, but we’d already had that conversation, and it hadn’t gone well.

In the early hours of Saturday morning, a bang on the door jolted me out of my slumber. I bolted upright to find dark figures crowding around my bed.

Panic exploded across my heart. “Wha—”

“Quiet!” The speaker stuffed a ball between my lips and fastened straps around my head.

Rough hands pinned me down to the bed and held me in place. Cold terror rushed through my veins. My attackers turned me around onto my front. Someone placed their weight on my back, knocking all the oxygen out of my lungs.

Palpitations squeezed my heart. Who were these people, and were they also attacking Ashley? A heavy hand pressed my face into the pillow, and I struggled for air. I kicked. I thrashed. I tried bucking the person off my back, but it was futile. At this rate, someone would find me smothered to death.

My attackers wrapped ropes around my ankles and my knees, while the person holding down my head pushed down harder until my lungs burned, my muscles weakened, and my consciousness faded to black.

Cold water poured over my head and shocked me out of unconsciousness. I jerked awake and screamed, but the gag in my mouth muffled the sound. Smooth fabric obscured my vision. From the way it wrapped snug around my head, I guessed it was a pillowcase.

The distant hooting of an owl and a cold breeze rustling through my nightgown indicated that we were outside. Cool, wet grass on my bound legs and the scent of algae filling my nostrils told me we were near a body of water.

“Pull her up,” said a female voice.