Page 89 of Depraved Boys

“I didn’t want to admit to violating you.”

Thoughts clashed and jumbled through my mind. Cormac believed that Corrine had been killed. The queens had nearly poisoned me with alcohol. Miss Claymore wanted to rekindle her relationship with a teenage boy who had started dating me.

And Prakash… I still didn’t know what to make of him. He broke Corrine’s heart in their third year, and then she turned unreasonably nasty in the fifth year and might have gotten him jailed if she had been a better schemer. So why did he feel so responsible for her death two years later?

“Who killed Corrine?” I asked.

“I told you. She committed suicide.”

“How can you be so sure?”

He paused in the hallway. “I don’t follow.”

“How can you be so sure that Corrine killed herself?”

He reared back. “You think I did it.”

“Did you?”

His eyes hardened. “If you can think that of me, I’m not sure where I’ve gone wrong.”

“Prakash?” I reached for his arm.

He snatched it away. “Maybe the academy has corrupted you more than I thought.”

I shook away those thoughts. The sooner I was out of this madhouse, the better. Prakash was right about one thing. Being indebted to the school was a far better alternative to ending up dead. With so many possible suspects, including Corrine herself, I didn’t know who to trust.

Maybe it was time to compromise since an Elite Register education would be worthless if it would get me killed. I could halve the number of A-levels I wanted to take, move back to the house and get a job to cover the costs of the upkeep. Then I would never have to worry about someone attacking me again. With a nod, I turned around and headed back through the hallway.

“Where are you going?” asked Prakash.

The thought of getting into a car with someone who might have killed Corrine gave me palpitations. “I-I’m feeling better, so I can wait for Dr. Forrester in the infirmary reception.”

“But you said—”

“He’ll turn up eventually.” I stepped through the infirmary doors, welcoming the faint scent of antiseptic.

“I’ll wait with you,” he said from behind.

“No,” I blurted. “Stay away.”

“Why?”

I hurried to the far end of the room, leaned against the wall and folded my arms.

Prakash backed toward the doorway. “I don’t know what happened to you between now and the time we left you at your door, but you’ve picked up some bizarre ideas. Everything I told you was the truth. I didn’t kill Corrine.”

I stared ahead at the paper roll dispenser and watched him leave the room through the corner of my eye. Cormac was right about one thing. Bullies escalated. If someone had killed Corrine, they could very well kill me.

Fuck the bursary. No amount of money was worth my life… Or my sanity.

After counting to one hundred, I crept out to the doorway and peeped left and right into the darkened hall. No one was there, so I headed toward the fire exit and pushed the door open.

A gust of cold, fresh air engulfed my senses, giving me the strength I needed to do what I should have done after the incident with the pork ribs—leave.

The moon and stars twinkled from a cloudless sky, providing adequate illumination. I walked around to the front of the building and into the parking lot at the back of the courtyard and opened the driver’s door of Mom’s car.

A little voice in the back of my head told me to wait until morning, but I had nowhere to hide and wouldn’t drag any innocent girls into my problems by knocking on their doors and asking for a place to stay.