Chapter 5 FIVE

MADELINE REYES' POV

"No WAY!" Wren said immediately, our trays smacking against the surface of the table during lunch.

"I kid you not!" I hissed back, the plastic rattling as we dropped into our booth.

"What was he doing in there?"

"I don't know, man. I just walked in following your instructions. One minute, I was looking for a coffee cup, and then the next minute, just grunts. Hmmm! Hmmm! HMMM! It sounded like the entire space was being ripped apart by Godzilla…."

"And it was him?"

"You saw him there, didn't you? The bastard wasn't even going to let me go until I told him what I was doing there… which was pretty ironic because I'm pretty sure HE already knew what I was doing there…."

The pasta I'd gotten over the counter tasted too bland for my mouth. While my fork scraped every corner of the plate, Wren leaned over hers with her brown eyes wide and locked on me like she couldn't believe what I was saying to her, even though she'd seen the aftermath herself. Being caught by both Lucas and Stefan had happened hours ago this morning, yet I was still pretty much shaken by the encounter. Every now and then, I'd hear my ears ringing with a distant shriek—a glitch that only happened to me whenever I experienced shock.

"If he was asking why you were there… do you think it's because he doesn't know what Steffany had done?" Wren asked again, giving my eyes a few seconds break from the horror on my plate.

I snickered bitterly. "STEFAN was there…"

"I mean… Stefan is always anywhere Lucas is… but you know… maybe he has no idea? And you know he's like a… less envious version of Steffany. He literally doesn't care if you pass or fail. The dude doesn't even care about his own grades. He just walks around with that permanent grin like it's the only thing he has to offer…"

"He might not care about my grades… but he'd care enough to help his twin sister. Wren…" My voice fell into a hushed whisper. "Think about that."

Half-lidded, her eyes looked into the distance like she was weighing each scenario in her head. I chewed on a spoonful of slop — pasta — and fought the urge to vomit. The food tasted like complete shit. And you know what else made it feel worse? Being so entirely on edge.

The Williams twins weren't in the dining hall, and neither was Lucas Hale. I knew because the first thing I did when I stepped inside was scan the room briefly, and their table—the one situated at the exact center of the dining hall—stood completely empty. Of course it did; no one else could ever dare sit there anyway.

Because here is what they don't tell you about elite schools. The code of conduct they hand you on the first day, the four pages of rules about skirt lengths and posture and the correct way to address a teacher, was never the real rulebook. The real rulebook was unwritten and unspoken, and you figured it out fast before you got stuck at the bottom of the barrel.

Like any other top school, Aldrich had a food chain. You were either at the top of it academically, financially, athletically, or through absolute pretty privilege, or you were at the bottom of it because you made no difference and were just as bland as the rest of the losers in school. That was what made you prey.

The Williams, Hale, and the rest of them were at the top of the chain, and the school referred to them as the apex predators. They could do the worst and get by without punishment because they mattered. They mattered in sports, or through their parents' funding and donations, or by being able to have the crowd constantly on their side.

That explained why no one — NO ONE — would dare sit at the center table in the dining hall even though the apex predators were not in sight.

Wren had a smudge of pasta on her chin when I tore my eyes off the entrance of the door and spared her a glance.

"Don't you think it's weird…"

Clueless and mouthful. "What's… what's weird?"

My legs bounced beneath the table. "They're not in the dining hall…"

"Who… oh…" The realization dawned on her after one glance. "That's true… but it probably has nothing to do with y—"

"I don't think so…." I was getting up from my seat before she could even finish.

"What are you going to do?"

"I don't know…"

"Maddy…."

I looked at her again. "I don't know. He's been too quiet about the whole thing and honestly… I'm starting to regret being there at all. You know how they can be…" I nudged my head toward the center table. "THEY CAN BE. If they're not here, doesn't that mean they're plotting something against me? I don't know… some sort of punishment… humiliation ritual? Something to shut me up before I even get the chance to report to the principal?"

Wren wiped her chin with the back of her hand. "So you're saying it was a group thing…"

"It IS a group thing…" I emphasized, crouching low enough for only Wren to hear. "I don't know what the fuck is going on, but I'm not waiting here to find out when it hits me in the face full force."

"So… what are you going to do?" Wren asked. A ray of sunlight through the window flashed against her face and made her brown eyes look slightly dilated in that second as I stood up straight, hands smoothing my blazer.

"I'm going to the principal's office."

"To do what?" she asked again.

I dropped the fork in my hands. "To turn myself in before any of them makes a mess out of me."

Wren’s jaw dropped so low a piece of unchewed pasta nearly fell out. She lunged across the table, her hand clamping down on my wrist before I could take a single step away from our booth.

"Are you insane?" she hissed, her eyes darting left and right to make sure none of the surrounding tables were paying attention to us. "Maddy, think for a second. You walk in there and confess to breaking into the office, you’re handed an automatic suspension. Your scholarship will be stripped by sunset!"

"And if Lucas or Stefan get to him first?" I threw her hand off my wrist, my voice dropping to a harsh, jagged whisper. "If they tell the principal I was in there trying to hack the system and change my grades, I don’t just lose the scholarship, Wren. I get expelled. I get blacklisted from every decent academy on the West Coast. If I turn myself in right now, I control the narrative. I can lie. I can say I left my phone in there after my morning check-in. But if they spin the story, I’m dead."

Wren looked at me like I was walking toward a firing squad, but she didn't try to stop me again. She knew as well as I did how the food chain worked. The apex predators always ate first. My only chance of survival was to throw myself at the feet of the alpha before the pack hunted me down for sport.

I turned away from our table and marched out of the dining hall, the heavy double doors swinging shut behind me to cut off the low hum of student chatter.

Once again, in the silence of the hallway, I was left to myself and the erratic pound of my heartbeat in my chest, threatening to smother me as I took the path leading down to the administrative block.