Crooked Crows by Elena Lawson

Late on the first day.

Joy.

Even though Becca warned me she wouldn’t be there in the morning, I had to admit I was a little disappointed to find the flat empty when I returned from my run.

I wanted to ask her how to get to my homeroom and where I needed to go to wash my sheets. Tucked away in the pamphlet and massive rulebook my aunt gave me before carting me off here had been a map, but I couldn’t find either in my things. I was pretty sure I left them in her town car after I hopped out in the middle of the street.

She hadn’t called, and I wasn’t going to be the one apologizing. She only said I needed to finish the year and be well behaved at Briar Hall. She said nothing about sitting there mutely while she badmouthed my father before he was even cold in his fucking grave.

“Where is it?” I muttered to myself, searching the entryway of the school for any sort of map. Of course, the office was completely vacant even though the bell had rung for first period five minutes ago.

“You look lost.”

The voice was deep and gruff but playful. When I spun around in the corridor, I found him leaning against the wall in the mouth of the darkened corridor labeled North Wing.

I spluttered for a response, taking in what was surely not a high school boy but a combination of my best dream and worst nightmare all wrapped into one.

With lips clearly stolen from a Greek statue and a square jaw sharper than a razor’s edge, his allure was undeniable. But painted over his knuckles and poking out from the top of his black shirt were tattoos. I was willing to bet that beneath the jacket concealing his arms, there was even more ink to be found. That, combined with the dark gleam in his eyes spelled trouble in big ass bold letters.

His teeth bit lightly at a lip ring at the edge of his mouth as he watched me curiously. Like one might watch an ant before busting out a magnifying glass to sear it into the pavement.

“Do you know where room 701 is?” I finally managed around the lump in my throat, lengthening my spine. It didn’t matter that in my rush to shower and get to class I’d had to forego my usual five-minute makeup routine in favor of some hastily applied mascara. Or that all my clothes were wrinkled to shit from being stuffed haphazardly in my suitcase. At least I had my baggy black sweater to cover most of it up, though that wasn’t exactly pretty either.

It didn’t matter one little bit.

“701?” he repeated, making me wonder if he was daft. Someone as gorgeous as he was had to have some sort of flaw. As he slid his tatted fingers through his damp dark hair, I noticed the word inked into his knuckles was, in fact, ROOK and that his knuckles were bruised and cut. I also noticed how his left cheek was blooming with a patch of red that looked suspiciously like a handprint.

“That’s what I said,” I snapped and then remembered myself. Play nice, Ava Jade. “Could you tell me where it is?”

“I’ll do you one better.”

Without another word, he brushed past me, a nasty vanilla scent trailing along with him that made my nose wrinkle. I assumed he meant to show me instead.

I considered saying fuck it and finding the room myself, but in a building this massive, it could take me all day. So, instead, I caught up to the guy, brushing the stray hairs that’d snuck out of my messy bun back behind my ears.

“Won’t you get in trouble for being late?”

If the rules were as archaic as the old building, I was willing to bet they beat you with rulers for a tardy.

He seemed amused by my question and his lips tipped up into a crooked grin. “Nah.”

We fell back into silence and that suited me just fine. I wasn’t about to make friends with a guy who looked like he might be here to stage an attack on the place. Though I did do a sweep over his hand and neck tatts again, checking for any discernible gang ink.

Finding none, I was satisfied for the moment.

We passed several classrooms where teachers prattled on to the whispered drone of student conversation until I noticed the pattern of the numbers.

“I think I can find it from here,” I said, eager to leave the guy behind in the hallway. His nearness was setting my teeth on edge, and not least of all because he kept sneaking glances at me when he thought I wasn’t looking.

I called back a hasty thanks before rushing forward to room 701 which should be...ah. Right there. I shoved my way inside, pulse thrumming in my ears. My sigh of relief turned to something entirely different as the teacher halted mid-lecture, his gaze piercing me in place.

My eyes skimmed over the class, searching for one specific face, but not finding it. No Becca. Great.

“I, uh, I’m Ava Jade, I just started—”

“You’re late,” came his sharp reply, and my first instinct was to snap right back at him with a comment about his Harry Potter wannabe glasses, but I smothered it with a forced nod.

“Sorry, sir, it won’t happen again.”

“See that it doesn’t. Late students aren’t welcome in my classroom, is that clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well don’t just stand there, find a seat.”

I bit the inside of my cheek and surveyed the rest of the class, face heating as I realized all eyes were on me. Eyes ringed in false lashes and faces framed in too-perfect hair. Clothes that looked like they were stolen right off the mannequins at Prada or Chanel.

The door bumped into my ass as it reopened at my back, sending me staggering forward toward the two empty seats in the room.

“Sorry,” I muttered at whoever’s way I was in, gaping when I saw it was the guy from the hall.

“Rook,” the teacher said, removing his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose with a sigh. “Glad you decided to grace us with your presence.”

What?

Was he seriously not going to give the guy hell for being late after basically just verbally bitchslapping me for doing the same? Awesome, so the school was sexist as well. Why wasn’t I surprised?

“Of course, Mr. Jameson.” Rook tipped his head to the teacher, giving a little salute and absolutely no excuse as to why he was late.

He shouldered past me and took his seat, leaving me only one option: the desk and chair in the absolute center of the classroom.

Rook had taken the seat behind me and to the right, but he wasn’t who I couldn’t seem to peel my eyes away from.

Directly behind the empty seat was a guy who was staring at me like he was contemplating murder.

If it weren’t for the scowl twisting his face, I might have said he was handsome. With a whisper of dark blond scruff on his jaw and menace in his bright baby blue eyes. The guy was big and thick through the shoulders, though not as big as his pal Rook, who was whispering something into his ear.

“Take your seat!”

I shot Mr. Jameson a glare before rushing to sit down. I didn’t have to turn around to find out that the guy behind me was still staring. I could feel his eyes on the back of my head as if he were leaning into me, making the hairs on my arms and neck stand on end and my hand twitch toward the blade strapped to my ankle beneath my bootcut jeans.

Mr. Jameson launched back into a lecture on something I had absolutely no hope of absorbing, but at least I could try to take notes for later. I dug into the desk, ignoring the whispers and stares all around me, but my hands came up empty. I thought…

I thought the handbook said I would be provided with textbooks and study materials and supplies on my first day. Entirely unwilling to raise my hand in this den of vipers, I resigned myself to just sitting still, which was a feat of its own.

As Mr. Jameson lifted a piece of chalk to scrawl something in unintelligible handwriting on the blackboard, someone tapped my shoulder.

I glanced back, finding the guy who I’d briefly seen sitting to the other side of the psycho-looking one. He was holding out a few sheets of paper and a pen.

“The fuck you doing Grey?” the one in the middle hissed to the one holding out the shit for me, his voice dripping venom.

“Umm,” I muttered, glancing back and forth between them. “I’m good. Thanks.”

“Just take them,” the one called Grey insisted, shoving them at me. He didn’t look like he belonged with the other two. Where they were all dark and edgy, he was an All-American stud. With one of those short on the sides and long on top haircuts in a brassy gold too shiny to be dyed.

A winning smile split his face, and he wielded it like a weapon, slashing away any hope of my being able to deny him.

“Okay then.” I cleared my throat as I spun around in my seat, paper and pen in hand. I caught the girl next to me glaring in my direction as I began to try and decipher what Mr. Whatshisface wrote on the board.

I gave her a the-fuck-do-you-want look, eyes bugging out of my skull in question until she finally looked away, her barbie pink upper lip curling in distaste. She had long blonde hair flowing in a perfect wave down her back with a solid gold pin keeping it tucked back behind her ear. Her outfit screamed money and her unblemished skin told me she hadn’t had to work for a damned thing in her entire life.

There was no way those tits were real, either.

Fake bitch.

She gasped, and I realized I’d muttered the words aloud and clamped my jaw shut, redoubling my efforts to focus on the lesson and not on all the eyes watching the new girl.

Once they got their eyeful and made their judgment, they’d move along.

“Are you just going to let her talk to me like that?” The girl hissed in a low voice. Unable to curb my curiosity, I tilted my head to the side to see her baring her pearly whites at Grey.

His eyes lifted to the ceiling as he leaned back in his chair, looking bored as hell.

“Chill, Bri. You’ll smudge your lipstick sneering like that,” Rook crooned and an angry flush rose to her cheeks, mostly concealed by the thick layer of makeup she wore. She spun back around, her hands curling into claws atop her desk, practically shaking with rage.

Wow. Bitch really needed to get a grip. It wasn’t like I’d called her a cunt or a whore, but judging by her reaction and the way she immediately looked to the nearest dick-bearing human for protection told me she was likely both of those things, too.

I studiously took notes for the next thirty minutes, droning out the whispered conversations around me and the way the asshat behind me kept ‘accidentally’ kicking my chair leg. Though, when the guy got up to use the bathroom I saw how gigantic he was so, maybe it was an accident after all.

Where Rook was all wide shoulders and dense muscle, this guy was tall as fuck. Like, he had to be close to clearing seven feet. Six-five at a minimum. For all I knew he probably couldn’t help catching his size thirteens on my chair, but judging by the bitter look he gave me as he passed, he wouldn’t have given a shit either way.

The blonde next to me, Bri, had her phone open beneath her desk and a coy smile tugged at the corners of her lips as she thumbed a message. Not more than a few seconds after she sent it, an audible buzzing sounded behind me, and she passed something back to Angry Face

My immediate suspicion was drugs, but then I had to remind myself where I was and amend my suspicions. Not drugs—designer drugs. There would be no tic-tacs or cloudy crystal here. It was likely all blow and bath salts at hoity toity prep.

And no search dogs, bag checks, or metal detectors to catch them.

At least I could keep my blade on me in class now. Having it close by almost always settled my nerves, even if in most circumstances I wouldn’t need to use it.

Piggybacking on Dom’s private self-defense lessons for the last two years back home made me just as lethal without it. Speaking of, I wondered how long it would take her to notice I was gone. It hadn’t exactly been a priority to let anyone know I was leaving. Besides, she was sequestered up at her dad’s place for the next two weeks while he defended some crime lord in court. Being a lawyer for one of the bigger gangs in California came with certain...risks.

He always made her stay with him in Madison Heights when he was going to trial. There was no telling what his clients might do if he lost on their behalf. Good thing he never did.

It was why he made her take the lessons in the first place. Why he didn’t complain when I tagged along with her—since it seemed to be the only way his daughter would go herself.

“Hey,” Bri whispered and it took me a full ten seconds to realize she was talking to me.

I squinted at her, checking to make sure the teacher was busy before replying. I didn’t want to incur his wrath twice in the same morning. “What do you want?”

Her lips pressed together as she tapped a piece of paper in her glittery pink three-ring binder. Groaning inwardly, I leaned over to look at what she’d written and froze. Burning rage seared through my chest and steamed my cheeks, turning them no doubt a blistery red.

In a deep red ink were the words:

GO BACK TO YOUR TRAILER, LENNOX. YOU DON’T BELONG HERE.

Great, so everyone already knew exactly who I was then. I wondered if they paid off the office admin for the info or if they’d just handed it over with no questions asked. Neither would surprise me.

The darkness I always kept at bay slid up my throat like poison, making me have to choke it back.

I smiled sweetly and slid my middle finger over my lips, pretending to blend imaginary lip balm. Fuck off, I mouthed and earned myself a chuckle from Grey, who was at the perfect angle behind us to read my lips.

But Bri’s grin only magnified at my slight, a deviant glimmer in her bright green eyes as she turned to the teacher, her expression morphing completely.

“Thief!” she shrieked, standing so sharply that her desk jostled, her perfect row of multicolored pens scattering to the floor. “Mr. Jameson, she stole my bracelet!”

I rolled my eyes. Yep. A cuntnugget for sure.

Mr. Jameson’s beady eyes slid to me accusingly, his face in a disgusted pucker. “Now, now, class,” he said firmly, making the chatter of the other students lower as he cut between the aisle of desks with his sights set on me.

I put my hands up, knowing the drill, even if Mr. Jameson wasn’t an officer of the law. He might as well be here. Plus, if your hands are up, they’re less likely to shoot.

Of course, you’re still not totally safe even then. Getting one that’d had a bad day almost always ended in at least a few bruises from a baton or a getting tased for ‘resisting’ even if you were statue-still. At least, that’s how it worked in Lennox.

“I didn’t take anything,” I said preemptively, cutting off the teacher before he could speak. “I don’t know what she’s talking about.”

Mr. Jameson glared between Bri and me, his face growing redder by the second. “Miss Moore, is it possible you simply left your bracelet in your room?”

“No,” she whined, pointing her finger in my direction. “Check her pockets.”

Jesus fucking Christ.

Sighing, I turned out my right pocket and then my left, knowing the drill and just wanting this bullshittery over with. But something cool brushed my fingers a second before it toppled from the pocket of my baggy sweater. The dainty silver bracelet hit the polished floor with a little tinkle, and the rage I’d been working to squish back into the jar where it belonged began to overflow.

“I did not steal that,” I said through gritted teeth as Bri crossed her arms over her chest, dignified in her accusation now that it was proven correct. I wasn’t an idiot; I knew how this looked. And how weak my rebuttal sounded.

Mr. Jameson collected the bracelet and handed it back to Bri who looked far too pleased with herself for my liking. I wondered if she’d look so damned smug with two black eyes but managed to rein myself in, clasping my hands together beneath the table in a vice.

“Theft is not tolerated at Briar Hall.”

Bri shared a conspiratorial look with the guy behind me, and it all made sense. The bitch had set me up. She’d passed the bracelet to the douche canoe behind me, and he’d slipped it into my pocket when she made me lean over to read her stupid note. I’d been played.

Wow. Touché, bitch. Tou-fucking-ché.

“Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

I glared up at the teacher, running my tongue over my teeth and half expecting to find fangs. When I didn’t give Mr. Jameson the response he wanted, because I’d be damned if I was going to admit to something I didn’t do, he shook his head.

“Gather your things and get out of my sight.”

With pleasure.There was no sense arguing about it, not when the evidence was right there for everyone in the entire class to see.

“Detention,” Mr. Jameson called back over his shoulder without turning to look at me as he made his way to the blackboard. “Every day this week after last period.”

Bri grinned gleefully at me as I gathered up my notes, and I got an idea. It wasn’t nearly as much as she deserved, but I remembered one of the cardinal rules of Briar Hall from the pamphlet my aunt gave me.

No cell phones in class.

I knocked my hip into Bri’s desk as I bent to retrieve the pen I’d purposefully dropped, easily slipping my hand into the darkened mouth of her desk to grab her phone.

“Oh, so sorry about that,” I said, my voice dripping sarcasm and growing loud enough that the teacher would be sure to hear me. “I didn’t mean to make you drop your phone.”

Her eyes went wide.

“Here.” I dropped it onto her desk, and she went white as she scrambled to grab it, eyes shifting to Mr. Jameson who looked like he was ready to blow his top.

“Miss Moore, you should know better.”

“Mr. Jameson, I didn’t—”

“Detention,” he shouted over her plea. “And I’ll take that for the rest of the day.”

I gave her a one-shoulder shrug as she fumed with a declaration of war clear in her haughty stare. I hadn’t waved the white flag like she wanted, like she expected, and I got the feeling she didn’t know how to handle someone who stood their ground.

On a whim, I tossed a wink at the asshat who’d colluded with her to set me up, letting him know that I knew exactly what he’d done. That I wouldn’t forget it.

His stony blue eyes watched me, never wavering, as I left homeroom. It was me who had to break the connection, my throat going dry as I recognized something in his stare: a darkness that should’ve terrified me, but instead had me curious to see how deep it ran. My finger aching to press his buttons.

No.

I shook my head, clearing it of any lingering shadows. Freedom was within my reach. One school year away.

Another run before second period sounded like a good idea. If I stayed here, I couldn’t guarantee I wouldn’t wait around to give that blonde bitch a rude awakening after class.

At Lennox High, I was the girl everyone knew better than to cross. All it took was my curling a fist around the disappointingly small cock of the Lennox Lions’ quarterback, and pressing one of my blades firmly against its base. I only drew the tiniest dribble of blood, but it did the trick.

If the jerkoff didn’t already think I was insane for turning down his offer to fuck me in his truck, the blade helped finish the job.

By the next day I was branded a psycho and shunned by the rest of the school. Just how I liked it.

I half wondered if the same trick would work here before remembering the way the guy behind me had been staring. If I got his vibe right, the fucker would probably enjoy that. I sighed, tucking the idea away in a back pocket of my mind just in case I needed to use it.