That will be the best revenge I can give them.
I walk into the cafeteria, half expecting all the students to stand and laugh at me again, but they don’t. They are all talking at their tables with their friends. I never truly felt alone at this school until now. Everybody has their place, but me.
I order a sandwich and drink from the cafeteria, and plan to eat my lunch somewhere else. Before I leave, the large guy from my English class walks up to me.
“Hey.” He says shyly to me. “I’m in your English class.”
“I know.” I say with a harsh tone.
He ignores my cadence and a tall, very skinny girl walks up beside him. “I’m Bryce. This is Dana.” Dana waves at me. “Do you want to have lunch with us?”
I look at them suspiciously. “You don’t have any pies waiting for me when we sit down, do you?”
Bryce smiles. “Despite my size, I don’t like pie. You’re safe.”
Danna hits him in the shoulder. “And despite my size, I love them.” Danna looks as if she hasn’t eaten in days. Her eyes are sunken in, but despite her malnutrition look, she has a beauty to her.
I agree and sit with them. I ask if they are at Ryland from some sort of scholarship as well, but they aren’t. I was getting to a point where I assumed all rich kids were brats, but I guess I shouldn’t paint everybody with the same broad stroke.
Bryce says a joke and Danna hits him in the shoulder again.
I smile at them. “So, are you guys together?” Bryce and Danna look at each other and burst out laughing.
Bryce looks at me and then back at Danna. “Well I guess she’s kind of right. We did date.”
“For a week!” Danna says laughing.
“She was the last girl I dated for that matter.” Bryce says looking at me with a smirk. “She helped me realize I have other interests.” A guy walks by and Bryce turns to check him out.
Dana waves her head. “I guess I have that power over men.”
Bryce hits her in the shoulder playfully. “Well, second thought you’re probably right.”
Dana looks at me. “So, what’s the scoop with you, new girl?”
“I guess I prefer being called new girl, than Apple Pie.” Bryce covers his mouth trying not to laugh and Danna gives him a cold look. “No, it’s okay. You can laugh at me. Everybody else at this school seems to do it.”
Bryce apologises. “I’m actually part of the band, and a few band mates told me something was going on in the cafeteria. I wasn’t there when it happened though.”
“You’re part of the band.” I say laughing. “What do you play?”
“Clarinet.”
I look at Danna. “How did you not know he was gay sooner?”
She shrugs her shoulders. “Would you mind telling me about how your first day at Rylan is going in an interview?”
“Interview?”
Bryce explained for her. “She’s part of the Ryland Academy Inquisitor and seems to think she’s Los Lane.” He turns to Danna. “She has the worst first day story here, why would you want to write about that?”
Danna raises her hand. “Exactly. That’s why it’s a good story. The paper only writes about fluff. All the good shit that happens around the hallways. Nothing is ever said about the ugly underside.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m not really the type who likes to be in the spotlight. Besides, I’m still thankful to be at a school like this, despite it being full of shitheads. Is getting pie’d on the first day some sort of dumb school initiation?” They both wave their heads no. “So, this isn’t something that happens often?”
Bryce sighs. “We have seen other girls embarrassed in front of everyone. It seems to be something some of the students enjoy doing around here. Getting pie’d is a first though.”
There goes my hope that Jaxson was just following some type of school inanition. I really thought he was different than some of the others.
I take a sip of my drink and look down. On the table someone had etched with a knife, a symbol that looked like a monster. It had some resemblance to the symbol on the book I found in principal Aldridge’s study.
Bryce looks at me with concern in his eyes. “What’s wrong? Danna was just joking about making a story on you. She won’t do it.”
“What is this symbol? Does it have some sort of meaning?” I ask them, pointing at the etched mark on the table.
Danna runs around the table, looks at it and rolls her eyes. Bryce peers across the table and looks the other way with a smile.
“So, do you know what it is?” I ask again, unsure how to take their reaction.
“It’s the symbol for- the Beasts.” Danna says in an eerie fake tone and laughs.
Bryce looks at me. “Some of these rich kids like to think they are part of something bigger. Old school lore is that when the school was first built, they organized a cult.”
“A cult?” I say raising an eyebrow.
Danna turns to me. “Not exactly a cult, unless you count praying to the money gods. It was more of a secret society. Rich people get together, so they can stay rich and get wealthier in the process.”
“Why do the rich get richer?” Bryce says to me. “The Beasts.”
“What a terrible name for a secret society. So, Danna, do they really exist?”
She shrugs her shoulders. “I think it may have been a thing back in the day, but now? I don’t think so. Maybe some of the rich kids have their secret fraternity where they gather to find ways to bang as many girls as they can. Some students feel like that symbol represents the Beasts, but who knows where they even got that from?”
“Principal Aldridge didn’t mention the Beasts to me during our interview yesterday.” I say, amused.
“You met with
