Page 19 of A Knight’s Revenge: The Complete Series
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I ’d had thoughts about skipping breakfast Monday morning and arriving on campus only just in time to get to my history class, but I decided that I wasn’t going to be hiding from everyone after what happened at The Revelry.
Fresh off the train and armed with my earbuds, “A Favor House Atlantic” by Coheed & Cambria playing me onto campus, I entered the dining hall and set about grabbing some coffee while ignoring the stares.
It was cold today, so I’d donned a thick, soft white sweater before I left home, paired with dark jeans and chunky black boots.
November had snuck up on me, the chill in the air reminding me that I’d been at the Academy almost two entire months and was currently only in possession of one small piece of the case I was trying to build against the Families—and zero of the puzzle I was trying to solve of my parents’ murders.
The copy of Zach’s key was burning a hole in my backpack, but I still had a few more days to wait before I would be nosing around in Andrea Ferrero’s most private business.
Those thoughts forced my gaze to the front of the hall where Zach sat with Bennett and Noah, as always, the three of them looking sharp in their suits.
While Noah’s attention was occupied by Annie and another one of her hangers-on as they flirted with him from the foot of the table, Zach and Bennett both now had their cold eyes on me .
I held their stares for two seconds before giving them my back. They were probably disappointed I’d returned to school at all, but they were also smart enough not to be surprised by it.
Mari was waiting for me in our usual spot at a quiet table near the back of the hall.
“The chatter about everything has started to die down,” she said as she sipped her coffee, her keen brown eyes scanning the room.
“And you look extremely uninjured, so, hopefully they’ll all decide the rumors were overblown. ”
I nodded. I’d had to ice the shit out of my hand to clear the bruising, and I’d painted my knuckles with concealer this morning to hide what remained of the cuts and gashes there.
My dark hair hid the stitches in my head.
“I’m not worried about it,” I told her. “I was a target before this, and I’ll be one after. Nothing’s changed.”
She gave me a nervous look. “Are you sure you want to hide the fact that you’re the one that put Donavan in the hospital? Maybe Chad and Harper and the rest of them would be less inclined to mess with you if they knew.”
I snorted. They’d be less inclined to mess with me if they knew a few other things about me too.
“I really had planned to be unremarkable in this place, if you can believe that,” I said instead. “I’ll make it back under the radar when something else becomes more entertaining than tormenting the Southside scholarship girl.”
“Uh-huh,” she replied, rightly skeptical.
We finished breakfast and headed to History, slowly making our way toward the third floor of Holywell Hall when Mari’s phone buzzed.
Her face lit up, then she looked at me apologetically.
“Take it,” I encouraged her. “I’ll see you in class.”
She had already whipped her phone out and was holding it up to her face as she fluffed her already-perfect hair. “Thanks, chica. I won’t be long.”
Leaving her behind to chat with her lady, I made my way into the small lecture hall and meandered to our usual seats near the back of the room. I’d just finished a text to Dom and was reading through my essay on patriarchies in world history when my brief and fragile peace was interrupted.
“Ugh, I can’t believe you came back here,” a tiny blonde girl said with a sneer.
She’d stopped in front of my desk to look down her nose at me, flanked by two of her friends.
She was vaguely familiar, but with her perfect blonde curls, short maroon skirt worn over a frilly cream blouse, and platform heels paired with thigh-high stockings, she looked like every other bitch in Holywell, and it was hard to keep them all straight.
She went on, scoffing, “I guess you still haven’t learned your lesson. ”
I blew out an irritated breath. I was not in the mood for this. “Guess not,” I said with a shrug, going back to my essay.
“It figures. Southside skanks aren’t known for their brain?—”
“Agatha,” a cold voice barked.
Mari marched right into the girl’s personal space, snapping her perfect lavender manicure in her face. “I suggest you move along. You wouldn’t want your mother’s design company to lose the contract she has with every single one of my family’s hotels because you were running your mouth, would you?”
Agatha paled, and it really eluded me as to why I was the one always being called dumb when everyone knew Mari was my one friend on campus, and this exact thing had been entirely foreseeable.
“That’s what I thought. Scurry away now,” Mari said sweetly before dropping into the seat next to me.
I watched the group of them slink away. “It never gets old,” I murmured to Mari, grinning.
My grin vanished as Lisa flounced in, Hannah Langford trudging alongside her. Lisa stopped to chat with a couple of girls in the front row, and I decided to pass the next sixty seconds imagining creative ways to maim her.
As class was about to begin, Zach finally arrived. Dane and a few other Tier One hangers-on were with him. Lisa perked up, a smug smile on her face as she watched him walk by.
“Hi, Zach,” she purred.
He didn’t look up from his phone as he continued to his usual haunt on the other side of the room.
“Zach… Zach! ”
Not even a nod of acknowledgement.
Lisa’s cheeks reddened as she turned away, stalking to her seat a few rows back. Her eyes landed on me before she turned to sit, and she gave me one hell of a cold look .
I returned her stare, my face blank, until she turned and sat down in a huff.
Mari leaned over to whisper, “I’ve been hearing that while Lisa’s been enjoying bragging about knocking you out and getting you into a compromising position as punishment for your continued refusal to kneel , she’s actually really pissed off that her trick didn’t get her more attention from Zach or the other Heirs. ”
“Maybe she’ll back off, then,” I mused, chuckling. “Since she’s figured out that fucking with me is not a direct ticket into Zach’s pants.”
“Unlikely,” Mari muttered.
As it turned out, Lisa wasn’t the only one Zach was ignoring. He didn’t look my way once during class or as we filed out into the hallway after we’d been dismissed. Not that this was highly unusual, but he usually didn’t miss a chance to goad me when he could.
Mari and I hadn’t made it far from the classroom before Lisa appeared in front of us, smirking in my direction.
“How’s your head, slum girl?” she asked, her voice raised enough to be heard over the dim chatter of students moving through the hallway.
“Healed,” I replied simply. “Thanks for your concern.”
“You got lucky, bitch,” she hissed, seething. “Next time you won’t have your trash family members around to rescue you. Next time, we’ll make sure to fucking end you.”
“Jesus, you are such a psycho ,” Mari barked at her. “It’s pathetic how desperate you are for Ferrero’s attention. Wake up—he doesn’t give a shit.”
“No one asked your opinion,” Lisa snapped at her. “Remind me: has your family disowned you yet for being a nasty dyke?”
Well, Lisa woke up today and chose violence, didn’t she?
The next thing I knew, my fist had flown straight into her tiny upturned nose.
“Motherfucker,” I hissed, yanking my hand back and shaking it out. Still a little sore from beating Donavan’s face in, apparently.
Lisa shrieked like a banshee, her hands flying to her face, and blood began to ooze from between her fingers.
“Time to go,” Mari whispered urgently, dragging me down the hall and out of the fray that now surrounded Lisa. A few of her underlings rushed to her side to feign concern .
The last thing I saw before Mari pulled me around the corner and into the stairwell was Zach’s dark gaze as he watched the events unfold from across the hallway.
Mari bought me lunch at a trendy coffee shop across the street from the Academy’s front gates, where she also made me drink an herbal tea to “calm down.” I told her I was plenty calm, but I supposed it made sense that she was worried I might further escalate to using the knife I had in my backpack next time someone pissed me off.
She dropped me off at Tech Skills after loudly barking that exact warning, and I gave her my most innocent look before she huffed at me and stalked off, hips swaying and heels clicking as she disappeared.
Annie gave me a death glare when I walked past her row to go to my station. Hannah and Nick Ruiz both eyed me warily.
“Look, Mari was joking about me having a knife, if you heard that,” I said casually as I sat and set about logging into my computer.
Hannah raised a skeptical eyebrow at me, and I winked at her.
Noah arrived, and I did not miss the stern look he aimed in my direction before he set his bag down, put on his usual warm, encouraging smile, and directed us to log into today’s module on our computers.
I worked through the lesson, doing my best to ignore Noah as he flitted around the room, answering questions. When the long ninety minutes was over, I packed my backpack in a rush, deciding I was going to get out on the water for a bit before I started on my homework.
“Miss Miller, I need to speak with you before you leave.”
I glanced up to find Noah leaning against the front of his desk, his long arms crossed over his chest as he looked at me from behind those glasses like he was daring me to argue with him.
Annie, angry that Noah’s attention was on anyone who wasn’t her, turned to give me one last hateful look before she marched from the room.
Annoyed, I trudged to the front of the room and took up a post opposite Noah, perching my butt on the front-row table and crossing my arms over my chest to mirror his “I mean business” posture.