Page 66 of Endless Anger
My eyebrows arch. “Hersentence?”
“For starting a fire at Lethe’s a few years ago.” Muna smooths a hand over her dark curls, adjusting the silky red headband above her forehead. “The place nearly burned down. It’s a wonder there were no deaths, honestly. A couple of injuries and serious internal damage to the bar though. Since the dean is good friends with the chief of police, they let him decide her fate, and she chose community enrichment over jail time.”
“Still went on her record though,” Tiernan says, crossing his arms. They seem to move on from the box’s presence, turning and heading toward the school. “Plus, everyone pretty much stays away from her now. Well, except Beckett and Eli. I think they just want in her pants though.”
Something bleak and angry simmers in my gut. I follow after them. “How do they know she did it?”
“Hell if I know,” Tiernan replies. “Dean Bauer finds out everything.”
“She’ll give you a formal citation for littering,” Muna notes, looking over her shoulder one last time. “Lucy seems to get off on the power dynamic. Probably because she has none otherwise here.”
Tiernan scoffs. “You and she would be best friends, I bet.”
“Please.” Muna shakes her head, shoving her notepad back into her satchel. “She’s a little too gruff for my tastes. I like people who smile.”
My teeth grind together. “Maybe she’d smile more if she wasn’t on the hook for something from three years ago.”
“Nah. She started a fire a week ago too.” Tiernan slings an arm around Muna’s shoulders. “We tried to befriend her during orientation. She’s like this…rabid dog someone just recently let out of a cage into civilized society. Practically bit our heads off for suggesting she join a student group.” He pauses, seeming to consider something. “Hey, maybe that’s where she gets her name! Because she’s a bit?—”
I kick my foot forward, hooking around the front of his ankle, cutting him off. He grunts, tripping over the blockage; Muna jumps out of the way, disentangling herself from him before he can pull her down too.
He face-plants in a puddle of mud and comes up furious.
“What thefuck, man? Watch where you’re fucking stepping, with your ridiculous Slenderman legs.”
I stare down at him as he slings mud from his eyes with two fingers. “Oops.”
Without waiting for them to catch up, I keep on the path back to Avernia.
Fuck that guy.
I should’ve just killed him.
21
LUCY
“This is so boring,”Willa Crawford moans, stabbing a piece of Styrofoam with her pickup stick. Her short, light brown hair points outward at different angles, likely disturbed by the wet air around us. “Why can’t you ever take me anywhere fun for our dates?”
I glare at her from over my clipboard. “This isnota date, Willa.”
“Yeah, you’re telling me. I like to wait for the fifth or sixth before I invite an audience.”
Clenching my teeth, I pivot away from where she’s crouched down, one of a dozen other Avernia students cleaning up the lake this afternoon.
Not that they’re helping out of the goodness of their hearts. Like me, these students are doing community service to avoid jail time or expulsion.
Though if my sentencing is any indication, I’d be willing to bet at least half of them haven’t actually done what they’ve been accused of.
Which isirritating, all things considered. My goals are in jeopardy because Dean Bauer’s a bitch.
“Back me up here, Eli,” Willa calls out to the student a few feet away from her, who continues carefully crushing pop cans before stuffing them into his compostable bag. “You thought Lucy was inviting me on a date too, right?”
He looks over at her, his green eyes not really revealing any emotion. Eli’s a Blackwater, and they’re notorious around Fury Hill for their quiet demeanors and pale skin that tans without burning in the summertime.
Unlike the other founding families, the Blackwaters don’t seem to wade far into the sociopolitical sphere of the school, so I don’t mind them as much. They’re spineless, which means they go along with whatever decisions the rest of the assholes in charge decide, but I tend to think even their silence is a calculated move.
A lack of response is manipulation too.
