“Jesus,” Jared said and ran his hand over his face. “Does he believe the Biggie shit?”
“I don’t think anyone knows,” Mia said. “I mean, it started a few years back, and we all sort of went with it at the time. Then he found out more and more stuff, and now… I mean, look at him. He seriously looks like a mid-’90’s throwback.”
“We need to get him a crown,” Jared mused.
“He’s already got one.”
“I shouldn’t be surprised.”
“Wallace wasn’t his birth name, by the way. His mom remarried when he was a kid.” She tossed around the gossip like it didn’t matter. Maybe it didn’t. “Look… I know it’s weird. But he’s, like, only the third ever black kid to get accepted into the Academy. It’s all old, white money, and he got in anyway. So if he wants to play up to that stereotype, let him. He’s got some of the best grades in the whole class.”
“He does it on purpose?”
“Oh, for sure,” she said with a laugh. “What better way to get the upper hand than by convincing everyone you’re beneath them? Chris is playing a game, Jared. And he’s winning it.”
Jared nodded. “And Clare?”
“Clare wants you to think she’s this all-seeing psychic.”
“She’s a psycho.”
“Right?” Mia said it like it was a foregone conclusion. “She’s a bitch. But there are two sides you can be on: her good side and her bad side. After seeing what happens when someone gets on her bad side, I know where I want to be.”
Jared nodded, understanding. He could tell a lot about Clare from seeing her interact with other people. He wouldn’t be surprised if she had some kind of social anxiety; all she seemed to do was push people away and hurt them. Clearly even her closest “friends” were wary of her bite, and that had to mean something.
“Isn’t she, like, your BFF?”
Mia snorted. “You know that old phrase? Keep your friends close….”
“Yeah.”
“I’m good at keeping her real close.”
Jared signaled and turned onto the highway that looped them back into town. “Give me the lowdown on Hemlock.”
“No way,” Mia said. “Totally not worth it.”
“What does he have on you?”
Mia didn’t respond for a long moment.
“Adam is Adam,” she said with a shrug. “We told you all you need to know already. You’ll learn a lot more by watching than me telling you.”
Weirdly, that made sense. Jared drove Mia back to school, then went home.
The house was empty, of course; his aunt, who was only a few years older than him, wasn’t at home, and she lived there alone. Hadley had promised his mother she would take good care of Jared while he finished his senior year, then promptly fucked off to Vegas the day after he arrived. Hadley was a party girl—Jared could appreciate that—and her first ex-husband had given her the house as part of the divorce settlement.
From the one conversation he’d had with her, Jared got the impression she hated it here. He didn’t know why she kept the house; if she sold it she could easily get a cool million. He had a feeling his father had something to do with it, and Jared’s failed career at military school.
Still, he hadn’t seen his father in over a year, which was the best thing for everyone involved. Even though his parents were still technically married, they lived in separate states and had sex with whomever they liked. Jared liked to tell his father that his own loose sexual morals had been inherited, although he went after a different kind of tail.
It had started to rain again, so Jared jogged up the steps to the front door and let himself in, only just remembering the code for the alarm before it sent an automatic signal to the police.
With nothing to do for the rest of the afternoon, and absolutely no chance of Hadley coming back, Jared did what any self-respecting eighteen-year-old would do: watched porn, ate junk food, and played video games. For nearly seven hours. With an aching wrist (for more than one reason), he forced himself to get out of bed and take a shower. He had to be up early in the morning. For school.
Jared had always liked taking long showers, especially when there was no one around to interrupt him. He was an Aquarius. It had been one of the worst things about the military school—apart from the inherent homophobia, the bastard instructors, and getting terrible grades because the teaching sucked, he was forced to live in a shared dorm room with locker-room style showers.
Spend too long soaping your balls and someone was bound to notice, and not being noticed had been one of the key things to staying sane and alive in that hellhole.
With both his older sisters electing to take liberal-arts degrees, rather than the political or law careers their father had pushed for, it was left to Jared to pick up the slack they had left behind. He was more than okay with Daddy paying Jared’s way into an Ivy League school, but he needed halfway decent grades to back it up. Hence, New Harbor Academy, one of the country’s best private high schools with a 100 percent pass rate in the graduating senior class, and nearly 70 percent gaining a place in one of the top ten best colleges in America. Most of the remaining 30 percent ended up studying abroad. The Academy boasted strong ties with Cambridge University in England.
Jared rubbed his hands through his short, dirty-blond hair and let the water run onto his face. Hadley had installed one of those rainforest showers, and he adored it. After considering (and dismissing) rubbing one out again, Jared quickly washed the rest of his body and turned off the water.
Before turning off his light and going to sleep, Jared forced himself to memorize both his schedule and the map of the school. The last thing he wanted was to get lost or end up in
