Page 44 of Breaking Ophelia

Somebody in the back laughs. The rest just stare, stunned.

I walk past the ruined legacy, stepping over the drips of blood spreading across the tile. I don’t bother wiping my hands. I want her to see it, to remember it.

She doesn’t flinch when I stop in front of her.

“You okay?” I ask.

She blinks, and her lips twitch like she might actually smile. “You think this helps?”

I shrug, rolling my shoulders. “Keeps the line short.”

There’s a long silence. Then, softly, she says, “He wasn’t worth it.”

I glance back at Lachlen, who’s crawling under the desk, sobbing and spitting teeth into his palm. “Nobody here is.”

She almost laughs. “Including you?”

“Especially me.”

I can feel the eyes on us. I want to smash every phone in the room, but I don’t. I want them to see this. I want them to understand what it means to be claimed.

I grab her wrist, gentler than I mean to, and pull her into the room. “Sit. You’re not missing class over that little bitch.”

She doesn’t resist. She just lets herself be steered to the front row, where everyone can see her. Where everyone can see that she’s with me, whether she wants it or not.

The first real teacher—some sub with hair plugs and a nervous tick—shows up five minutes late, sees the blood, and immediately pretends not to. The lecture goes on, but the room doesn’t hear a word. All attention is on us.

Ophelia leans over, voice so low only I can hear. “You just made everything worse.”

I look at her, and for the first time I see it: the way her eyes shimmer, the way her jaw is set, the way her breath comes in through her nose and out through her teeth.

She’s not afraid.

She’s excited.

And so am I.

I smile, slow and mean. “Good.”

The class ends in a blur. I don’t remember the words. I only remember her pulse, the electric current of her skin where I held her. I want to break something else. I want to break her.

But first, I want her to know that it’s a choice.

When the bell rings, the crowd surges for the door, but nobody gets too close. Lachlen is gone, probably halfway to the infirmary, maybe already calling his daddy to sue mine.

Ophelia stands, shakes her hair loose, and looks at me with a challenge.

“You done being a guard dog?”

I grin. “Never.”

She starts for the exit, and I follow, hands in pockets. The corridor is already humming with the next crop of kids. Word travels fast here. I see the looks, the whispers, the reverence.

They know I own her.

But only she knows how much I want her to want it, too.

She stops at the end of the hallway, turns, and faces me full-on.