Page 25 of Revenge At Raleigh High
Sunday night, I pluck up enough courage to creep into the guest room again, but this time I don’t strip naked and demand to be choked. Alex is asleep. He doesn’t even stir when I lift back the covers and climb into the bed next to him. He only wakes up when I slide my hand over his chest, fitting myself into his side. His face is in profile, all shadows and highlights. When he turns to look at me, I see that the storm he’s been weathering has broken, too.
“Dolcezza,” he whispers. “Sei la mia vita.”The sheets rustle as he raises his hand and uses the tip of his index finger to stroke a line down the bridge of my nose and over my lips. I lean into him, and he places a gentle, soft kiss on my mouth, achingly sweet, but that snap of fire still exists between us, ready and waiting to ignite and burn the whole world to the ground at a moment’s notice.
“What did that mean?” I whisper, when he pulls back.
Alex dons a small, crooked smile. “It means…that I’d do anything for you. It means that I’mweakfor you.”
My heart is either swelling or breaking, I can’t tell which. I’m not the only one who’s had a difficult past. Alex has had more than his fair share of unhappiness and hardship to contend with, and the experiences he’s had to endure have made him unbelievably strong. Being strong has kept him alive, kept him in one piece…so to hear him tell me that I’ve made him weak? Well…I really don’t know how to feel about that.
TEXT MESSAGE RECEIVED:
+1(564) 987 3491: Bitch. U think you’re better than us? Your worthless. Keep your head down, or your gonna die screaming.
9
SILVER
The struggle for power in high school could be compared to the political strife of many South American countries. For years, a dictatorship state exists. The lower classes are ruled over by one singular tyrannical oppressor, hell bent on keeping the people in their places. The next second, the people have risen up, overthrown the despot, and everything is in complete chaos.
Different factions vie for supremacy, opposing parties battling to rise above the others. Anarchy reigns supreme. The people are finally free, but suddenly there are no rules and no consequences for poorly-thought-out actions. The people begin to whisper behind their hands that maybe things were better under the tyrant after all. At least then, they knew which way was up.
Without Kacey stalking the halls, striking fear into the hearts of her fellow students, Raleigh High is basically upside down. All of the different cliques are trying to fill the power vacuum and it looks as though things are going to get ugly soon. When Alex and I arrive on Monday morning, a huge crowd has gathered in the waterlogged parking lot and it looks like World War Three is breaking out. I’m still jittery from the shitty text I received this morning, the one that I barely managed to hide from Alex as he handed me my phone, and so my nerves are already jangling when a high-pitched scream cuts above the shouting and jeering.
“What thefuck?” Alex hisses under his breath. He won the rock-paper-scissors contest we held to see who would drive, so he kills the Nova’s engine and hands over the keys to me, getting out of the car to see what the hell is going on.
A lot of the snow that fell in the storm has already melted, and I have to hop from one patch of concrete to another to avoid stepping into any ankle deep, ice cold puddles as I follow behind Alex; even though he’s wearing his white Stan Smiths, Alex doesn’t seem to notice the fact that he’s wading through four inches of water.
“Dirty fuckingslut! I’m gonna knock your fucking teeth out!”
A cheer goes up from the crowd of gathered students. They’re forming a ring, four people deep, around what sounds like a raging cat fight. One of the guys from the football team, Bronson Wright, whips around wearing an angry sneer on his face when Alex tries to push through the crowd. The second Bronson sees who jostled him, he backs down, the whites of his eyes showing.
“Sorry, man. I thought…” Bronson doesn’t finish. He just moves out of the way so Alex can get by.
It’s been like this ever since school started up again after the shooting. In every way that counted, Alex used to be an outcast like me. People were intrigued by him. They were intimidated by him, but even with Zen’s relentless pursuit of him they didn’t accept him. Now, things have changed. People still look at him with suspicion and fear, but their expressions are also tinged with begrudging respect.
Alex Moretti took on Leon Wickman and got shot for his troubles. Alex Moretti nearly died taking down a murderer. Alex Moretti is now a demi-god to our fellow classmates—a demi-god they both love and hate in equal measure.
Bronson falls into the ‘We hate Moretti camp’since he’s on the football team, but he’s also not stupid. He knows he’ll get his ass kicked if he starts any trouble. Alex takes my hand, guiding me along beside him through the crowd. Bronson glares down at me as I shuffle past him, piercing me through with daggers sharp enough to cut. Obviously just because I’m with Alex doesn’t mean anything to him. I’m still the girl who caused trouble for the King of Raleigh High. Three guys from the football team might have died when Leon walked into school and opened fire, Sam Hawthorne amongst them, but Jacob Weaving is sadly still alive and kicking and he hasn’t changed one bit. He still wants to punish me for humiliating him as he raped me. And that means that his dumb ass cronies are all still charged with the task of making my life as miserable as possible.
I wonder what they’d say if they knew how terrified their glorious leader was in that music booth. Would they still follow him so blindly if they knew what a cowardly piece of shit he is?
Normally, I’d duck my head and avoid Bronson’s spiteful glare, but not today. I made myself a promise and I intend on keeping it. I’m not going to be cowed by these assholes anymore. I won’t be intimidated or beaten down by them. Drawing in a deep breath, I beam up at Bronson, treating him to a dazzling smile that contains the barest hint of condescension. He’s not expecting this, obviously. His scowl disappears, shock and surprise widening his eyes instead.
“Lying little bitch,” he hisses after me. I might have pretended not to hear him in the past, but this morning I cast a look back over my shoulder, arching a bored eyebrow at him, and the gesture has the desired effect—it looks like he has steam coming out of his ears, he's so angry.
“Arrghh! Get…the…fuck…off me!”
Alex breaks through the crowd, and there, in the middle of the circle of bodies, is Zen, doubled over, caught in a headlock by Rosa Jimenez. When Kacey was around, Rosa was second tier Raleigh Royalty. She’s been dating Laughlin Woods for the past three years, but during that time Zen must have made well over fifty plays for her boyfriend. Zen always found it entertaining to flirt with him, constantly trying to fuck him even though she knew it would hurt Rosa, because it didn’t matter back then. She was untouchable. One of Kacey Winter’s coveted Sirens. So long as she had Kacey watching her back, then Zen got away with murder. With Kacey nearly a hundred miles away in Seattle now, however, it looks like Zen’s discovering what payback feels like and she’s not enjoying it all that much.
Rosa locks her arm around Zen’s throat, jerking her down to her knees, and the girl screams as the dirty parking lot snow drenches her jeans. “Come on, cunt. What are you gonna do?What are you gonna do?”Rosa snarls. The crowd hollers, some of them chanting for Zen to get up, but most of them are siding with Rosa.
“Fuck her up!”
“Hurt her, Rosa!”
“Kill the bitch!”
I watch, horrified, as Rosa pulls a glinting piece of silver from her back pocket and suddenly she has a cruel-looking serrated hunting knife in her hand.
