Danna fills Bryce in on what happened. He’s pissed but is doing a good job playing the quiet game with Danna.
“Do you guys want to come over and read the book?” She asks us, barely maintaining her huge smile, plastered on her face.
Bryce and I had both had enough adventure for one night and declined.
“You read some of the book. What did it say?” I ask her. She looks at me with a smile but doesn’t say anything.
Bryce rolls his eyes. “Danna answer the question!”
She waves her head and hits the steering wheel. “You know, some journalists will wait their whole lives for something like tonight to happen. ‘Secret Society Runs Ryland Academy’. I can see the headlines now.”
“It could have just been a sex cult.” Bryce says, managing a smile.
“It might not have been the Beasts, either. Just boys with a frat-like mentality getting together,” I say. I can’t wait to get home. I just want to climb into my sheets, write this crazy shit down in my journal, and sleep.
Danna continues to smile. “What we saw tonight, that’s a story. There’s a lot going on here, and I’m going to figure it all out.”
“Are you going to tell us what you read in the book?” I ask.
She nods her head solemnly. For a change her smile vanishes. “Live by the rules. Die by the rules.”
Chapter 13
A knock on the door during quiet reading time in English class, makes me jump. A young man holding another bouquet of roses and thistle, asks the teacher if a Ms. Maven is in this classroom.
I stand up, walk over to him, grab the flowers, thanking him, and sit back down at my desk.
This is the third arrangement of flowers I’ve received today. I didn’t even bother to look and see if the sender had a card attached. They didn’t. The other two didn’t have any indication of who they were from.
I look over at Selena Jensen!! who is looking me over as if questioning why she isn’t getting similar attention. I smell the roses, with a wide smile, letting it get to her more. When I’m confident that I’ve, at a minimum, bothered her, I place the flowers at my feet.
Bryce looks at me with a peculiar eyebrow raised. I shrug my shoulders back at him.
I take a piece of paper out and write a message on it. When I’m done, I lift it up at Bryce. I ask him if he’s heard from Danna yet. It seems like she hasn’t come to school yet. He waves his head no with a concerned look.
While everyone is reading, and the teacher’s attention is in his laptop, I look down at the arrangement of flowers. To my surprise, tucked in the base is a tiny white envelope. I grab it quickly and look around to ensure nobody is watching before opening it.
“Sorry.”
I reverse the card, but there’s nothing else written. Just one word. The lettering is in a neat cursive font, not really giving me much information on who it was from.
At my locker after class, I attempt to find a place to put this third arrangement. Thankfully the lockers at this school are massive otherwise I’d be carrying a load of flowers with me everywhere.
I tuck the arrangement in a corner and shut my locker. I turn and Selena, and her two bitch friends, are staring me down.
“Who are those from?” Selena asks with little hesitation.
“Why? Do you want me to give you one? I have two others for your friends too.”
“He’s just giving you a pity rose. He’s always had a soft spot for dumb bitches who don’t know any better.”
“Who are you even talking about?”
Selena walks up to me coldly. She’s smiling but manages to grunt out her nasty words between her teeth. “Lance doesn’t like you. He may want that dirty pussy of yours for a night, but that’s it.”
Lance? How does she know they are from Lance? Did he tell her? Why does she care so much?
Realizing it’s pissing her off, I go along with it. “I’ll give it to him for longer than a night. As you can tell he’s already hooked. I’m his drug. What the fuck are you?”
She stiffens her bottom lip. She wants to say more, but realizes the whole hall is watching. I’m waiting for her to say something, or hell, even try and slap me. I almost want that to happen in front of everyone. Instead she takes a deep breath and walks away. Her two shadows follow her promptly.
I hear shouting coming down the hall and wonder what else could be going on in school today. A group of guys wearing varsity jackets with the Ryland Academy crest on the front are barreling down the halls. People are cheering as they do. In the center of the pack is Jaxson.
When Jaxson spots me, he manages to break from his friends. He smirks at me with his hands up.
“Can we talk?” He asks.
“That depends, do your friends have any pies in their hands?”
He smiles and puts his head down, peering up at me sympathetically. “That wasn’t my idea. The guy’s told me they do this stupid inhiation sometimes to the new girls at school. You should see what I had to do when I started here.”
I nod my head at him but can smell the bullshit. “I asked my friends about that. They have never heard of any girl being pie’d before. Why are you lying?”
“I’m not.” He says innocently. “Maybe the pie thing is new. I don’t know. This is only my second year. These rich kids like to fuck with anybody who comes here with a scholarship. A lot of them feel it’s a right of passage to be even considered on the same level as them.”
I sigh. “So, flowers is how you apologize?” He seems confused. From
