They were all scary as fuck. Caleb, their leader, made all the decisions. He always took the helm and the other three surrounded him, protecting him. Black hair, blue eyes, and he never smiled. It was odd to think about. He never laughed. When he found a target, he’d get this weird look on his face that vaguely resembled a smile, but it never was.
Taking a large bite of my burger, I averted my gaze as Caleb looked right at me. The last thing I wanted to do was to catch their attention. Everyone knew what happened if you caught their attention.
The girls loved it. I’d heard the rumors of the boys tag-teaming girls and then discarding them. A couple had left the school as they spent way too much time sobbing about the fact they couldn’t win one of them over. They were Monsters and were more than happy to wear the label as well.
Out of some of the guys who wished to join them, a couple of them had never been seen or heard from again. To the outside world, this was a prestigious school. Wealthy kids came here. All of the Monsters came from money. They were all filthy rich, but no one here was from the squeaky-clean kind of group. Nope.
My parents dealt in sordid deals and blackmail. They owned an entire city, and I’d even caught conversations about trafficking. There had been a lot of young women coming in and out of their house. Most of them covered in bruises.
I hated it.
There was nothing I could do about it. This school was the one place where I could breathe without worrying someone was watching. Of course, they were watching. Even the jocks, they came from backgrounds that had a double-edged sword.
I grew up surrounded by competition and the enemy.
Slurping up my banana milkshake, I jumped, nearly choking on the straw at the sound of a loud clattering.
Near the Monsters’ table stood a kid I didn’t recognize. He was clearly a year, or several years, below us.
River got to his feet and the tension in the room mounted. Silence fell.
“Please, no, please.” The boy’s whimpering filled the air.
The biggest mistake he could make.
In hell, no one ever showed weakness. We were all monsters, all destined for lives we didn’t want. At the top of the tree stood the four Monsters, and we were nothing but their minions. I hated it.
River slammed the kid to the table. The blade pressed against the boy’s throat.
“You think it’s funny to throw a spitball?” River asked.
See? All of this over a wayward spitball that had come at the beginning of the school day.
Nibbling on my lip, I watched as the boy held his hands up in surrender. He was in the wrong place and was about to become target number one in a sea of sharks. I’d seen enough as River landed the first blow. As if on cue, Caleb, Gael, and Vadik got to their feet, and away they went. Anyone who dared to step up would feel his wrath.
With my tray in hand, I dumped the trash into the bin and left the dining room. My heart pounded.
Violence disgusted and fascinated me in equal measure. I hated myself for it. There was no way for me to get away from it.
The marks on my back were already evidence of my absolute hatred of it. My father wasn’t known for his patience and since I was his only daughter, he always made an example of me. Unlike my brother, who was always considered the best thing in the Crane household.
Stepping out into the cold day, I stayed perfectly still.
Would dying from being left in the cold be so bad? In the movies, it never looked painful. I’d rather go out with no pain than to be screaming.
After a few seconds of stillness, I moved, heading toward my next lesson. There were five minutes of lunch left. Teachers rushed past me and I stepped out of their way. The last thing I wanted to do was step in their path. They had a boy to save.
This was what you got at Crude Hill High. There was a time it was a boarding school for our very kind, but there was too much death, leaving the families no choice but to keep the gates open.
On rare occasions, the gates would be locked and it was like a free-for-all. Two years ago, that had happened. Someone had broken the rules and brought a gun. That had ended messy. Mom tried to persuade my dad to send me elsewhere. To let me have a normal life.
No Crane was normal.
We were sharks, thriving to be on top.
The truth was my father craved a place at the four. He wanted to be the fifth shark, but with what I knew, he didn’t have the balls to do what these guys did.
I arrived at English, taking a seat in the back near the window. School sucked. It was boring. Teachers tried to pretend we were like other kids. The ones who weren’t going to be responsible for killing people when we got out of here, but no matter what they tried to tell themselves, it was never going to happen.
We were the enemy. Plain and simple, and if one of them stepped out of line, their lives would be forfeit. It was hard for a teacher to threaten you when you could have them killed at a snap of your fingers. The cops were useless here, so was security footage. Money talked and the more you had, the better it was for
