Page 52 of Retribution

Lu ends up staying for another hour, while Nasty Nurse seethes. Finally, my friend gets up with a flourish. ‘I must go now. I see you at class, yes?’

‘Sure,’ I say. ‘Thanks for coming over to do this project with me.’

She waves a hand, gives me a hug, and flounces from the room with the nurse in tow. A few seconds later, I hear her loudly announcing that Jacob is even more of a mountain man than she remembered. A minute after that, her car peels down the driveway.

Nasty Nurse enters the room a few minutes later.

‘Lights out, Marguerite,’ she simpers.

‘It’s not even four in the afternoon,’ I say to her, not looking up from the Shakespeare paper that I’m pretending to write.

My laptop is slammed closed, narrowly missing my fingers.

‘Hey!’

‘I said it was lights out,’ Nasty Nurse snarls, snatching my laptop and heading for my door.

‘John said?—’

‘Your stepfather isn’t here, and I take my orders from Joe.’

She leaves my room with a cold grin, pulling the door closed hard, and locking me in.

Fuck!

I should have expected this.

I wait for her receding footsteps and get my phone out from the toilet cistern. It’s now in a heavy duty Ziplock courtesy of Stephens, so I take it out and turn it on. There’s luckily enough battery to watch my classes from it instead of my laptop.

Three hours later, and I’m caught up, but it’s almost seven, and no one has come to either let me out or bring me dinner. I have a bag of potato chips and a chocolate bar for my dinner, throwing the wrappers out the window and hoping that, if they start blowing around in the wind, no one thinks to search my room.

Once it gets to eleven pm, my phone is almost dead. I turn it off after I message the guys goodnight. I haven’t told them a lot of what’s been going on, so I don’t tell them about tonight either. A little voice tells me I should, that I promised, but the truth is, I just don’t want them to know. I don’t want them to see this side of my life.

It’s true that I promised Shade that I’d let them know about anything I couldn’t handle…but I’m handling, so it’s a moot point.

They’ve been quiet as well. I know there are things happening that they aren’t telling me. Maybe they think it’ll keep me safe.

They don’t know I’m already in the snake pit. Can’t get much worse.

I put my phone back in its place, and then think better of it, laying it in the bottom of the trash so that it can be taken and charged by Samantha. It doesn’t look like I’ll be able to put it in the spot in the library for Stephens to pick up.

Around midnight, when I’ve just got to sleep, my door is thrown open and my lights are turned on. I sit up quickly, bleary-eyed and wondering what’s going on as three members of staff come into my room followed by the nurse.

‘What are you doing?’ I ask, jumping out of bed as my covers are ripped off me and thrown on the floor.

‘Do you have a secret phone, Marguerite?’ Nasty Nurse asks.

‘No, of course not.’ I blink at her. ‘Why would I need one? I have my laptop. Well, I did until you took it.’

Nasty Nurse comes to stand in front of me, using her slightly higher stature, due to her three-inch heels, to look down at me. I suppose she’s trying to be threatening. But Crews could be much more intimidating than she is. I stare at the middle of her forehead.

‘One of the maids saw you playing with it in the library.’

Playing with it.Like I’m a child with a toy.

I shrug at her.

‘Tear this room apart. I want any contraband brought to me.’