Page 18 of Breaking Isolde
“Next time,” I say, voice flat, “pick a fight you can win.”
I grab my bag and shoulder past, bumping her hard enough to make her stumble. Her shock is almost worth the humiliation.
Their laughter echoes after me, too loud and too high, like they’re trying to chase me down the hall.
But I’m already moving, already counting the steps to the next attack, already adding three new names to the list.
I hope they remember my face, too. The way I refuse to let them win.
It’ll be the last thing they see before I take this place apart, brick by brick.
At night, Archer House is quieter than the grave. The walls eat sound, so all that’s left are the hisses of the pipes and the far-off echoes of Charlie talking to Lucy in hushed whispers. I strip off my shirt, and hang it over the radiator to dry.
My room is still all white. I haven’t bothered to decorate. The only color is the photo of Casey, perched on the edge of my desk where the light from the window catches her smile.
I change into a sweatshirt and sit on the bed with the notebook balanced on my knees. The first page is a list: names, descriptions, the small tells that people think you don’t notice.
1. Pearls. Leadership, power complex, doesn’t blink.
2. Cold Eyes. Bathroom ringleader, left-handed, mole on jaw.
3. Rugby Mouth. Tries too hard, not actually dangerous.
4. Blondie. Watcher, follows orders.
And so on.
I fill two pages before I stop. My handwriting gets looser the angrier I am, the loops sharper, the slashes deeper. I flip back to the front and draw a box around the names that matter most.
Rhett’s being the biggest box with the hardest lines.
The rest can wait.
I go to the window and prop it open, letting the cold leak in. Down in the quad, lights from the library spill out onto the grass. There’s a group of guys wrestling on the steps, laughter bouncing off the stone. Rhett is there, standing apart, watchingthe chaos with the same detached interest I saw in the dining hall.
He raises his eyes and, for a second, I think he sees me. But the light is behind me and the window is too small. Still, I close the blinds.
Back at the desk, I pick up Casey’s photo. My thumb finds the scratch in the corner of the frame. I hold it for a long time.
I think about the words carved into her old desk, about the water in her lungs, about the way people say “Greenwood girls” like it’s an inside joke.
I want to cry, but nothing comes out.
Instead, I talk to the photo. Not loud—just enough for the words to exist.
“I’m not leaving,” I say. “Not until they pay. Not until someone remembers your name for something other than how you died.”
The laugh track from the hall gets louder, then fades. The house settles around me, creaking like bones in the cold.
I put Casey’s picture on the shelf above my bed, open the notebook, and start planning.
This place took everything from her.
But I am not her.
And I don’t care how many wolves they send—this time, someone’s going to bleed.
Chapter 4: Rhett
