Just Drop Out (Hannaford Prep, #1)

by J. Bree

“Think about it. Plus, I haven't looked at them. If Joey actually gave a shit about your feelings, he wouldn't have looked at them either. He's a snake in the grass.” No, he’s not in the grass. He’s a snake that’s wrapped around your throat. “You expect me to believe you care about my feelings?”

He pauses shoveling his food into his mouth and says, “Nah. I just don't find naked photos all that great without consent. I have enough sent to me from willing partners that I don't feel the need to look at yours.” That's…really decent. Like, a really human and empathetic thing to say. I have to fight back tears. This place is making me soft. I sniff and say, “You're not missing much. I'm just a scrawny Mounty.” He laughs, but it's not as cruel as it usually sounds.

“If you two are going to fuck right here at my study table, please tell me so I can make other arrangements,” I say as I tap formulas into my calculator. I don’t look up, because I don’t want to see if Ash is into her and they’re just gearing up for a hate-fuck. “Fuck off, then, Mounty,” she says, and I sigh as I go to grab my books. Ash puts his hand over mine and stops me. It’s the first time he’s ever touched me, and I feel flutters in my stomach. “Allow me to paraphrase for you, Mounty, I wouldn't fuck Harlow if she were the last piece of pussy left at this school. Stay. I need help with my equations when you've finished yours.”

“I've signed up for your tutoring. I haven't been given a time slot yet, but I'm hoping to just tag into Ash’s. Do you think you could do us both at once?” I nearly faint. He must be doing this on purpose. “That's fine. I can—I can do that. What do you need help with?”

“I told you not to trust Joey.” He shrugs at me like this is all justified. I snort at him. Blaise watches us both with captive interest, twirling his pen between his long fingers. I wonder how they became friends.

“Your sister did this to me. Now the entire fucking school has photos of me naked, and I get to enjoy the privilege of being looked at by you lot, like I'm a piece of meat. Like I actually want your rich dicks, when really I'd rather fucking die.” Ash rolls his eyes at me. “Avery doesn't use naked photos against people. She does have a line, you know.”

“Right. Which is why I don't believe you about the photos. Doesn't matter anyway, a few pictures of my tits aren't going to break me.” Ash’s eyes dip down to my chest and then back to my face. It doesn’t feel lecherous at all, nothing like Joey’s looks. More curious. “There isn't a whole lot to see though, right? I've been sent the photos eight times and deleted them without looking.”

I raise my eyebrow at him. Blaise knocks my elbow gently with his, and I flinch away from him hard. “Whoa, sorry! I was just going to say that we are pretty anti-revenge porn in our group. There was… an incident. No one has looked at it. I'm not saying we're friends, and Avery still wants you taken out, but you have at least four people who haven't seen your nudes.”

“Look, I get that I've been a dick to you. I get that Avery has been full-on, and you have no reason to trust me, but you should not go tomorrow night. Joey is up to something, and when he's scheming, it never turns out good. Things have gone really bad in the past before, like permanent-damage-and-death bad. You should just pretend you've gotten sick.”

Clothes and shoes. Yep, that’s my biggest concern. I roll my eyes at her and stand up. Harlow’s hand shoots out, and she grabs my wrist hard. I freeze and look down my nose at her. “Don’t fall for him, Mounty. Don’t you even try and get your claws into him.” Her voice is dark as she stakes her claim on him. I shake her off, and then walk off in the direction of the school to the sounds of their tittering. I don’t see Joey, but that suits me just fine. I’d be able to tell him I got cold and bailed tomorrow.

My mom’s addiction made some sort of sense. She had been a foster kid after my grandparents died in a house fire. She herself had only made it out of the blaze in the nick of time, and half her body was covered in thick scars. She had never been smart or motivated like I am, and she dropped out of school at fourteen. She had worked as a waitress, a dock worker, in the factories, anything she could do to eat and keep some sort of roof over her head. Then she got knocked up and found drugs. I’d never known her sober. The woman I knew was a shaking, cackling, retching, screaming banshee that would beat you if the demons in her head told her to.

Joey sits and pulls me down next to him. His eyes are still dancing wildly around the room, bouncing off everything they touch. “Have you ever been fucked on a mattress that costs more than a Bentley?” I jerk away from him when his lips touch my ear. What a dumb question. I’d never tell him I am a virgin. I won’t hazard a guess about what he’d do if he found out. I decide to just be honest with him, and if he attacks me, I’ll have to take my chances with my knife. “I’m not fucking you.”

Once upon a time, a young girl finds herself orphaned and at a group house. Another kid takes her under his wing. He protects her and cares for her for an entire year. She is lost and hungry, but she thinks someday she will know what it means to be happy. And then one day he tells her he’s named her in the Game. She doesn’t know what that means, but he tells her it’s the only way she will ever be safe and free. So, she learns. She learns how to fight. She learns how to disappear. She learns how to make others disappear. And then she competes. She is broken beyond repair. She will never run again. She is covered in scars. She can’t sleep at night, she can’t bear the sound of her own voice, she sleeps with a knife, she startles at every sound, she’s scared of what hides in the shadows, she can’t breathe— She wins. She is crowned the Wolf. She could become a leader. Have a gang of her own, make millions, live an untouchable life. She goes to school instead. Gets a scholarship. Disappears. Tries to forget all the things she did to get to where she is. She does forget, most of the time. She forgets until the Jackal calls her home.

Despite what the spoiled kids here think, I don’t actually need the money. The favor makes it tempting. I’m owed a lot of favors, and I like having them up my sleeve. I could have Joey taken out of my life as permanently as I wanted. It amuses me that Ash and Harley warn me about him. If only they knew who I really was.

“You could be the smartest girl on Earth, and you’ll still never be someone worth our time.” She laughs and looks around at the others they’re sitting with to make sure they’re laughing too.

“I’d rather be poor and smart than rich and brainless. You can’t even tell how pissed off you’ve made Morrison.”

“Well, that just shows you’re a stalker and he should start sleeping with one eye open at night. I did hear you’re obsessed with him. Don’t you sleep in one of his band tees?” I try not to blush, but I fail. Avery fucking Beaumont and that damned photo she took of me in my pajamas. Of course she’s shared it around. I glue my eyes to Annabelle so my traitorous eyes can’t flit over to Blaise. “Actually, it shows I like his music, and not his reputation or his face. But what am I saying? At this school, all the girls just like how much money a guy has.” She rolls her eyes at me, and I clench my fists at her. “Sure you don’t. It doesn’t matter anyway; he would never fuck trash. No guy with any self-respect at this school would.”

I wish they'd share me,

He’s not pretending to be a decent person anymore. There’s no fake civility. All I see is the evil that lives under his skin. An echo of Xavier rings out in my mind and the inventory of what it took to disable him. I can’t believe I’d thought he looked like Ash and Avery. The differences in the siblings are so clear to me now that I struggle to see their similarities. I am no longer blinded by the good looks.

I let everything drop away from me. Everything that is destroying the little scraps that remain of my soul slips away and, instead, I open the box in my mind, and I let my senses out to play. I’d honed these senses for two years under the watchful eye of the Jackal. I’d learned how to walk in and out of a building without a single eye touching me. I’d learned how to endure extreme, bone-shattering pain without screaming out. I’d learned how to kill a man. I’d left all this behind me when I’d arrived at Hannaford, but now I let it all out.

My eyes lock with Harley. He's standing at the end of the chapel, and he's the only one not laughing. He's the only one who can read the cold, dead calm in my eyes. He doesn't call out to help the girl who's touched me. He just stands witness. Good. Let him watch. I swing the textbook that's in my arms and listen to the satisfying crunch as Harlow Roqueford’s nose breaks, shatters completely under the sheer force of my swing.

“I’m going to let you off with a warning this time, Miss Anderson, in light of… new information. Harlow will also be receiving a warning for her prank on you. I will not be so lenient on you if you choose to retaliate.” I stare him down. I’m sure he would turn a blind eye on anything I choose to do from here on out, now that he’s been threatened by the Jackal. I nod obediently and stand.

I turn to give him a scathing look, but they’re all enjoying every second of this torture. Harley is looking at me the same way he was in the chapel. I try not to shiver at the intensity. Blaise looks over at me, and for the first time he actually looks. I squirm in my seat as his eyes trail over my scuffed shoes, nails chewed to the quick, and the mess of black ringlets that is my hair. I know I look nothing like any of the girls at Hannaford, and for the first time since I started here, I feel pissed off about it. I’ve never felt so out of place as in this school with all of these obscenely privileged kids.

I wait until I'm sure he's not here, and then I begin the slow and careful process of checking for security cameras. There’re no obvious lenses, but I'm sure he’s more imaginative than that. The living areas and the bathroom are clear, but I find a small camera that faces the bed. Typical. Fucking. Rapist.

There's a small, heart-shaped locket. It's obviously pricey, I'd guess the stones on the front are real diamonds, but it's nothing special when you consider the Beaumonts are billionaires. My fingers catch on the raised edges of the back, and I flip it over. There’s a delicate, tiny inscription on the back. You before my blood, My soul, my life, My heart. Iris Arbour.

“You’re dead. The minute Joey gets back, he’s going to fucking kill you, Mounty scum.” She spits at me, literally spits; I feel it land on my cheek. I fight the urge to wipe it away.

During my training with the Jackal, I’d been subjected to torture. There was no other word for it, no pretty little name that changed what happened into a useful lesson. I’d been taught how to withstand extreme levels of pain without screaming. The side effect of that training was that now I couldn’t hear my own voice, screaming or singing, without the bone-deep fear of the consequences the Jackal had set for me. I had the scars to show for the punishment I was dealt, and the thought of going through that again made my brain switch firmly into fight-or-flight mode. It was one of many reasons I had run away from Mounts Bay, and why I could never love Matteo the way he loved me.

“So, how did you first hear Vanth?” he asks as I do a last read-through. The question throws me, and I just barely manage to keep hold of my pen. I glance up to see his eyes fucking twinkling at me, and I choke on my tongue. “I heard your early covers and I bought the albums.” I don’t mention what I had to do to get the money to buy them. I don’t know how well he’d take me gambling with my body in the fighting scenes of Mounts Bay middle school. He groans and rubs a hand over his face. “How did you find the covers? They’re terrible! You must be a very dedicated fan to go looking for them.”

“I didn’t go looking for them. I’m not a fucking stalker. I meant that I heard them when you released them. I’d been listening to your shit from the beginning, and I followed your career from there to Vanth. But don’t worry about going to school with a fan, I’m certainly not one now. I’ve fucking burned the shirt and deleted your shit from my phone. I have no interest in listening to music from a stuck-up, spoiled, rich brat. I’ll listen to music from people who are real and write lyrics from the heart.”

“I think she’s lonely. I think she comes from a fucked-up family and her brother is so scared of anything happening to her that she’s now isolated. Did you hear that Rory and Blaise got into a fight over dinner last night? Rory came back from his football game and Blaise said, in front of the whole dining hall, that the pussy he could smell on him had better not be Avery’s.” Lauren giggles at the shocked look on my face. “I think he was just saying it to bait Rory into spilling about their sex life. Ash was there too, and everyone knows he’ll murder Rory it he touches her.”

“Joey has decided he's going to fuck you. That's why he started the bet in the first place. He likes to prove how powerful he is. Every year he picks some big, elaborate goal, and then we all get to sit back and watch while he crushes, breaks, and mutilates everyone around him to achieve it. This year it’s you.” I think I've stopped breathing. This should be over. He can't possibly be saying I'm still going to be a target for Joey to rape. “If you fuck any other guy, Joey will probably kill you both.”

“What the fuck went down with you two?” Blaise ignores him, slumping in his chair, and I consider doing the same. Ash throws a pen at me, and I sigh. “I informed Blaise that I burned my Vanth shirt because I don’t listen to music written and performed by assholes, and he ran off to tattle to the spawn-of-Satan you shared a womb with, and she destroyed my room to avenge his hurt feelings.” “I didn’t fucking tattle! She asked me why I was pissy, and I answered,” Blaise hisses back at me. Ash’s mouth drops open as he watches us.

don’t want to think about Matteo anymore. I’m so confused about him. His gentle tones on the phone when I called him for help made my chest ache. I used to love him. Back when I first went into foster care, he was the cool kid. Someone in my corner who loved me back. I truly thought he loved me too. Now I know that he sees me as a valuable pawn on the chess board. Nothing more. But I still feel guilty for having certain feelings about Ash. And Blaise and, fuck, Harley. I can’t forget the feelings I have for Harley.

under Avery's door before I head down for dinner. All the other students will be leaving for winter break in the morning, and I need her to know before she goes. Taken three days ago. Dump him.

“How the fuck can a Mounty provide for herself? You have a sugar daddy or some shit?” He doesn't speak like the other rich kids. It jars me, because he may look like the most heavenly being I've ever seen but he speaks like a roughneck kid from the streets. He sounds like me. It’s comforting, even while he’s all smirks and asshole nature.

He'd put laxatives in it. I could not leave the girls’ dorms for the rest of the day. I am so angry about the juice that I throw caution so far into the wind, it ends up in fucking Kansas. I know Harley is on the swim team because it's the only class we don't share, and I've heard Blaise and Avery talking about it in our choir and voice development classes. I also know that being as unbelievably gorgeous as he is, he must be very attached to his looks and, especially, his immaculately coiffed silvery-blond hair. You can't be that hot without also being vain.

I get to dinner early and sit at the far end of the table in the exact chair that he usually sits. I enjoy ten minutes of silence and steak before showtime. When the door at the far end of the dining hall swings open, I don't look up, and it's a struggle not to smirk. I can hear him filling his plate and then the sound of him walking toward me. I roll my eyes that he would insist on sitting at his chair even in an empty hall, and I prepare to stare him down but then he pulls out the chair across from me and sits. I glance up and snort. Between the bright blue tones and the tattoo, he looks like he belongs in an eighties punk band. The shocking part is that his eyes are twinkling with laughter rather than the malice I expected. “Good shower?” I prod at him. “Great. Just what I needed. How's your bowels?” “Lovely and cleared, thanks for asking.”

snort and keep writing. I don’t spare him a glance as I reply. “If anyone is fucking Miss Umber, it’s you. Why would I take choir if I can’t sing? I told you I liked Vanth for your voice. Did you not think I was telling the truth? It was one singer admiring the talent of another, that’s it. Get over it.”

It’s a trap, but I know no matter what, she’ll hate me. Why not tell the truth? “I believed Ash when he said you didn’t have anything to do with that. It doesn’t matter, though. Even if you did, I wouldn’t have sent them out. I don’t do that shit. If I want revenge, I go straight to the source and do it properly, I’m not good at this social hierarchy stuff. I’m at this school to make a better life for myself. Whatever you guys do to me, it’s nothing compared to what’s waiting for me at Mounts Bay.”

“Rory is a fucking scumbag. I’m not one of these brainwashed bimbos who thinks it’s funny when other girls are treated like shit by guys. I think he’s a dick, and I think you deserve to know where he’s sticking his dick. Plus, I didn’t see a condom in use so, you know. He’s probably caught something truly heinous from that bitch, and you should get tested to make sure he hasn’t passed it on to you.”

“Out.” Harley’s voice bounces off the bathroom tiles. I’ve stripped out of my dirty uniform, and I’ve barely got the shower running. I think for a second he’s talking to me, and then I hear the other girls leave and the door to the communal shower close and lock. “I’d rather not be locked in here with you,” I say, my voice still raw as I wrap a towel around my naked body. I don’t know if I think he’ll burst in here with me or what, but it feels too intimate to be naked with only the stall door between us. “Just have your shower. We’ll talk once you’re clean.”

“If you think I’m the soft one, then you’re dumber than I thought.” And then he leaves her. Annabelle is panting, tears are streaming down her face, and the crowd is lapping up her humiliation. She’s always enjoyed the attention she’s had for being shared by them, but I don’t think she’ll enjoy being dumped so publicly by him.

new money can’t become old money without getting dirty first.

“The fuck was that about?” he whispers at me, leaning in so I’m drowning in his delicious smell. Would it kill the guy to be average for once and not smell like living ambrosia? Ugh.

The flames eat the paper ravenously. Avery drops in into the bin, and soon the whole thing is engulfed in flames. The smile she gives me as she walks away is infuriating, but I give her my best serene face in return. There are things I know better than most about myself and the ways of the world. A night of no sleep won’t kill me. A week without food won’t kill me. Finding my mother's dead body rotting on my kitchen floor won’t kill me. A bullet to the shoulder won’t kill me. The bullying at Hannaford Prep won’t kill me.

You never call to chat anymore. I stare at the screen for a second while the other students around me eat and talk and laugh like normal teenagers. What I wouldn’t give to be one of them. To be worried about what my parents think about my grades, or what I’m going to wear to the next party I attend. Instead, here I am trying to decipher obscure text messages from gangster kingpins while planning my next move against billionaire sociopaths. I need to catch a break.

I’ve heard some disturbing things about you, Starbright. Ugh, I hate it when he calls me that. I’m sure he is one of the last people on this Earth that knows my middle name. He enjoys teasing me with it. Nothing makes my blood boil quicker than hearing the name my doped-up mother assigned me. Eclipse Starbright Anderson. The second I turn eighteen, I’m changing my name to Claire, or Kylie, or fucking Frances.

“You should talk Avery into taking some self-defense lessons.” Ash stares over the library table at me like I’ve lost my goddamn mind. Maybe I have, but I’ve also lost the ability to give a fuck at this place anymore. I decide its sleep deprivation. I only got twenty minutes of sleep after finishing the re-do on my math workbook, but I’m confident I’ll get at least an A-minus on it, so it was worth it. “And why do you think I should do that?” He speaks slowly, dragging out the words like I'm very simple. “Maybe next time your sociopath brother takes a swing at her, she can plant him on his ass like he deserves.”

Blaise slumps into his chair theatrically, and I scoff at him. He looks like a poor little rock star, forced to be a scholar. He groans and tugs at his hair roughly, so it stands up everywhere. He has sex hair at the best of times, but now it’s bordering on obscene. I can’t tear my eyes away from it no matter how hard I try.

The guy, who still hasn’t even told me his name, slings an arm over my shoulders and his hand ends up hovering over my chest. I have what can only be described as a full rage blackout. One minute he’s laughing and touching me, and the next he’s howling and clutching his now-broken hand to his chest like it’s a baby bird. I’m much faster than he is, and while he’s flailing, I slap a hand over his mouth, so the librarians don’t assume he’s being murdered and come over here to stop me. He could push me off, but he’s too busy losing his shit over his mangled hand.