Page 141 of Fractured Fates

“Trent’s a nice guy, Rhi. He’ll understand.”

“Winnie, you need to go get some for the both of us, okay. I need to live vicariously through you.”

Winnie giggles. “I promise to tell you all about it afterwards.”

“You’d better,” I say, knocking my elbow against hers.

We spend the rest of the morning eating the cookies Winnie’s mom sent her this week, and swapping gossip about the evening. Eventually, I tell her about the bucket incident, although something keeps me from disclosing my encounter with Stone. I haven’t told Winnie about my attack on Spencer, about his wound or what Spencer and Tristan told me about scarlet magic.

The secrets I’m keeping from my best friend are stacking up, the pile growing ever higher. But I didn’t tell her right at the start and now I’m nervous about how she’ll react when she learns I’ve kept so much from her. Not to mention what she’ll think of me when she hears I’ve wielded scarlet magic.

Winnie’s my first ever friend – apart from Pip and the chickens – and I don’t want to lose her. Especially when she’s prepared to share homemade double chocolate cookies with me.

“I can’t believe that jerk did that to you,” she says with a frown.

“Really? Those dickheads seem to live for torturing me. Have you forgotten the pig’s trotter?”

Winnie turns a shade of green.

“Do you want me to check social media?” Winnie asks softly. “It’s likely someone filmed the bucket incident.”

I groan. “Shit,” I mutter, “I didn’t think of that.”

Winnie picks up her phone and after a few minutes of scrolling, cringes.

“Is it bad?”

“You weren’t wearing a bra.”

“No, it didn’t really work under the night dress.”

“Well,” Winnie attempts to say cheerfully, “on the upside at least you have a very good pair of tits.”

I groan a second time. “And now I suppose the whole academy has seen them.”

“No doubt about it.”

“Let me see.”

Winnie holds her phone to her chest. “Are you sure? The comments are pretty gross.”

“I’d rather know what they’re saying about me.”

Gingerly, Winnie passes me the phone, her gaze locked on my face as I take a peek. It seems more than one person has posted a photo of me, soaking wet in my see-through nightie. Surprise, surprise though, Aysha’s post seems the most liked and has the most comments – all of them derogatory and mean.

It hardly registers. What captures my attention the most is my face. Deathly pale, my eyes red-rimmed. I guess most people will assume it’s from the shock of an entire bucket of freezing cold water thrown over my head, but I know it’s not. I know it’s from Stone’s intrusion of my mind.

I swallow, the pain in my head still there as a humming reminder.

For a moment, I consider reporting him to Principal York. I may not be a walking embodiment of the rule book, I may not have actually read it, but I’m pretty certain he isn’t allowed to torture students in that way. Although then again torture does seem to be a daily occurrence in this stupid academy.

However, if I reported him, Principal York is bound to ask questions about what he was searching for in my mind and if I wasn’t prepared to tell Stone, I’m definitely not divulging that information to the principal.

No, this is better left between me and Stone.

* * *

In the early afternoon,I help Winnie pick out her outfit for her date with Trent.