“My mom had to leave the country on business and will be gone at least until next summer. So I’m staying with relatives, Tim and Melanie Shriver, and need to enroll in school.”
Looking sympathetic, the woman nodded and opened a file drawer. “We’ve actually got less than two weeks before Christmas break, so it’s probably going to be hard to get up to speed, but we have great teachers, and they’ll help all they can. What’s your name?”
“Sasha.” She watched the woman lay some papers on the counter. “Thanks, Mrs….?”
“I’m Miss Rose, but everyone just calls me Rose. Fill these out, and we’ll get you set up. Mr. or Mrs. Shriver will need to come by and sign something, and I’ll need your transcript from your old school. Oh, and a birth certificate.”
“I have my transcript, but not a birth certificate. Can I get that to you later? This all happened kinda quick.”
“No problem.”
The sound of a motorcycle made them both look toward the windows. Make that motorcycles, plural. Jax rode up to the building on a chopper, no helmet; beside him, Brody rode a smaller, different bike, his head covered in a helmet with a dark face guard that had a whole Darth Vader thing going on.
“Wonder who that is,” said Rose.
Sasha said nothing, just bent her head to fill out the paperwork.
A few minutes later, she looked up when Jax came in, assaulted by his scent, dizzy just looking at him. Instead of his trench coat, he wore a black leather bomber with a black henley underneath and a pair of faded, ragged jeans. His eyes were covered by black-rimmed Wayfarers.
Brody stood beside him, dwarfed by Jax’s size, wearing his geek glasses and a green-checkered flannel over a Star Trek T-shirt.
Neither of them looked her way, but walked to the counter and focused on Rose. Brody did the talking. “We just moved to Telluride last week, to live with our dad, and he didn’t agree with us to start school after the holidays, so we need to sign up. I’m Brody Hewitt, and this is my brother, Jack.”
Rose went through her spiel, then took all three of their transcripts and disappeared into a smaller office.
While she was gone, Sasha stared at a photograph of Telluride in fall that hung on the wall above a filing cabinet, listening to the front doors open again and again, and the sound of kids as they came inside. She could feel them staring, no doubt wondering who they were.
Brody said under his breath, “Relax, Sasha.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“Not really. I got the crap kicked out of me all the time in high school. I was kind of a dork.”
Kind of? She looked over Brody’s head at Jax, who said, “I’m almost looking forward to this. It’s Revenge of the Nerds in real life.”
Brody actually blushed. “Jax thinks the girls are going to like me.”
“If you don’t start speaking in Klingon, or wax poetic about Battlestar Gallactica, I’m thinking he’s right.” There was something awesomely appealing about Brody.
The door into the smaller office opened, and Rose reappeared, holding out papers to each of them. “Here are your schedules. It’s so close to semester’s end, Mr. Mooney put all three of you in the same classes. If we need to tweak for next semester, we will, but to get started, we thought you’d like to be together, being the new kids and all.”
So much for not sharing classes with Jax. She’d be with him all day, every day. But there wasn’t anything she could do about it, so she’d just have to sit as far away from him as possible. She took the schedule from Rose and gave it a quick look, her eyes immediately drawn to one name—Emil Bruno. “Can I request a different history teacher?”
Clearly surprised, Rose asked, “Why, Sasha? Mr. Bruno is everyone’s favorite.”
Of course he was. He’d want that, wouldn’t he? Thinking fast, she smiled, trying to hide her revulsion. “Oh, uhm, well, he’s a friend of my aunt, and I wouldn’t want anyone to think I have an advantage … or anything.”
“Don’t be silly! Brett is in his class, and Mr. Bruno certainly doesn’t grant him any leeway. If anything, he rides Brett harder than anyone else.”
Rose was plainly a card-carrying member of the Mr. Bruno Fan Club, which made sense, she guessed. Jax said the Skia were experts at attracting admirers and followers, drawing them in, looking for their vulnerabilities, playing to their wants and desires so they’d take the oath.
Looking at Rose, who seemed like a nice woman, it struck her that she might not be so nice if she kept hanging around Mr. Bruno. What did she want that Bruno would promise?
In most things, Sasha tended to give in, go along, avoid confrontation. But this wasn’t something she could swallow. “There’s gotta be another history teacher.” She ignored Jax’s sudden hyperactive boot, tapping against the counter. He was telling her to cool it, but she was compelled to do this. She’d never pass history if she had to be in the same room with Creepy McFreakypants. The man made her sick.
Rose lost her smile, beginning to look annoyed. “Only for freshmen and sophomores. You don’t need to repeat history, Sasha, so if you intend to graduate in May, you’ll need to sit in Mr. Bruno’s class.”
Sasha’s palms broke out in a sweat and her stomach griped, threatening to toss the awful muffin. Evidently, Bruno freaked her out even more than Alex Kasamov. Just thinking about Bruno was enough to make her sick. Grasping the schedule in clammy fingers, she turned and hurried from the office, needing a bathroom. Humiliated, rushing down the hall past staring faces, she wondered if she’d make it. God, please don’t let me hurl right here in the hall on my first day.
There, just ahead—she could make it. Maybe. Already, her stomach was heaving.
Then the impossible happened. Mr. Bruno appeared in front of her, blocking her way, his smooth voice with its weird accent dooming her quest for a toilet. “Why, hello, Sasha. I was hoping I’d run into you.”
She couldn’t help it.
She threw up on his shoes.
The only thing he had told her was not to act afraid around Bruno. So the first thing she did was throw up on the guy. Jax started after her, until Brody grabbed his jacket sleeve and stopped him. “Leave it alone. You’ve got to play this cool, or the whole deal’s blown before we’ve been here an hour.”
He was right, of course, so Jax was bound to stand there with all the other kids, staring at Sasha, powerless to help her. He saw Bruno’s superfast expression of fury, quickly replaced by a totally fake smile. He reached out to touch her, but she jerked away from him and booked it to the girls’ room. Bruno stared after her, obviously curious why she had had such a bad reaction to him.
“Dammit, Brody, what are we gonna do with her?”
“Not a lot we can do except keep an eye on her. And make sure we sit next to her in Bruno’s class. Did you see how he looked at her?”
“I saw.” Jax glanced around at the faces of the others, almost moved to throw up himself when he saw how they fawned all over Bruno, saying how sorry they were that that chick had ruined his shoes, and man, was she a loser, or what?
Mr. Bruno gave them a patient look. “She’s just nervous because she’s new. You guys need to cut her a break.”
To which they all acted like that was their plan, all along.
“He could tell them to eat dirt and they’d do it,” Jax said to Brody.
“It was pretty genius of Eryx to place him as a teacher. Give him another week and he’ll have at least twenty more Ravens. It doesn’t look as if they’re the outsiders here like they were at Sasha’s school in San Francisco.”
“Yeah,” Jax said, the old familiar instinct washing over him, “genius.” It took discipline not to rush at Bruno, get him in a headlock, and pop him around the world to the patch of ground that opened to Hell on Earth.
The suck-ups followed Bruno when he walked toward the boys’ bathroom, while the rest of the kids turned to look at Jax and Brody. For the first time in his long life, he knew what it was to feel awkward. But he did
n’t show it. Remembering what he’d read in that book, he looked at the closest kid, a tallish guy with dark red hair and some intense green eyes, and jerked a hello nod. “How’s it goin’?”
“Okay.” The kid glanced at Brody before he said, “I’m Thomas Vasquez. So you guys are starting today? This close to the break?”
Brody nodded and made a face, like it was so lame. “We moved to live with our dad last week, and he insisted.”
“Wait,” Thomas said, looking between them rapidly, “you mean you guys are brothers?”
“Fraternal twins,” Jax said. “I’m Jack, and he’s Brody.” Noticing again how tall Thomas was, he asked, “Do you play basketball?”
“Point guard. How about you?”
“I play a little.”
Brody said, in a perfect he-always-shows-me-up voice, “He’s lying. He plays a lot. He was center at the school we went to in England.”
“Hey, cool,” Thomas said, smiling now. “We could use a center. Show up in the gym after school and talk to Coach Hightower.”
“Okay, yeah, I’ll do that.” Perfect. If he had an excuse to stay after school every day, he could go through Bruno’s things without worrying so much about getting caught. And in the bonus round, there was basketball.
Brody, he noticed, was staring at a girl walking toward them. She was seriously put together, walked like she wanted it bad, and gave a look to every guy she passed, ignoring the girls. The only thing marring her perfection was the vague shadow around her eyes. That a beautiful girl like that was a lost soul only served to piss him off more, and his instinct to go after Bruno almost choked him.
“Who’s she?” Brody asked, although he knew exactly who she was. He’d worked on the takedown plan with Phoenix.
Thomas looked over his shoulder, then frowned. “Julianne Oliver. She goes out with Kelley Easter, who everybody calls East. She may look like your best wet dream, but stay away from her. She’s a bitch on wheels. East loves beating the hell out of anybody who looks at her, which is why she makes every guy she passes think she wants some.”
Jax watched Julianne go into the girls’ room. Sasha was in there. He felt really hot all of a sudden and realized it was fear. This was going to eat him up, watching Sasha navigate her way around people who’d want her dead if they knew what she was. At least she’d lost a little of her naïveté, a silver lining to the transformation he’d inadvertently started. And she knew who they were, the threat they posed.
But nothing would make him feel better about all this until the Ravens and Mr. Bruno were history, dead or dying in that pit of bodies deep underground.
After tossing her cookies all over Mr. Bruno’s shoes, Sasha had wanted to climb in a hole, curl up in a ball, and die. “I’m so sorry,” she’d said to the floor, unable to unbend and look at his face, to see the dark shadow around his horrible eyes. She sensed a deep, dark fury, directed at her. She shook with terror.
But his voice was calm, composed, gentle even. “It’s quite all right. You’re nervous, it being your first day.” He reached out and grasped her arm. “Let me take you to the nurse.”
Unbending, she jerked away from him, fear overriding mortification, blocking the faces of the others who stared at her like she was a freak. Without a word, she had rushed to move around him to go to the restroom, where he couldn’t follow.
It was crowded, most of the girls standing in front of one long mirror that hung above a row of three sinks. They brushed their hair, applied lip gloss, chattered, and laughed—until she came in.
Dead silence. They all turned to look. None said a word.
Then a plain sort of girl with brown hair and nice eyes stepped forward. “Hi,” she said, her expression concerned. “Are you okay?”
Sasha swallowed uncontrollably, praying she wouldn’t cry.
God was on a coffee break or something, because he didn’t help her out of this one, either. One tear escaped and rolled across her cheek. May as well go ahead and speak up. They’d all know as soon as they walked out into the hallway. On a slight hiccup, she shook her head and said in a tight voice, “It’s my first day, and I just threw up on Mr. Bruno’s shoes.”
Instantly, there was an audible gasp. It echoed through the bathroom. From inside one of the stalls, a voice said, “That blows.”
Someone giggled. “Literally.”
Laughter ran through the whole group.
“Poor thing,” the brown-haired girl said, moving closer. “Hey, Rachel, get a wet paper towel, wouldja?”
A tall girl with skinny glasses, a sheepskin vest, an itty-bitty skirt, and cowboy boots came forward with a soppy mess of brown paper.
“Squeeze it out,” Brown Hair commanded. “She doesn’t need to take a bath.”
They all moved closer, staring curiously, watching while she dabbed at her mouth and the sweat on her forehead. “I’m Erin,” said Brown Hair. “This is Rachel.” She pointed to Cowboy Boots. “That’s Amanda.” She nodded toward a girl with dark hair, sad eyes, translucent skin, and some serious I Love the Eighties glasses. “And Bree’s in the potty.”
The toilet flushed, the door opened, and a tall, thin girl in stacked boots and a filmy, flowing black dress appeared. She wasn’t exactly Goth. More like the runner-up for Miss Transylvania. Coal-black hair so long it touched her backside, blood red lips, snow-white skin, and dark eyes lined with dark shadows.
“Bree’s into vampires,” Rachel said while Bree washed her hands. “Ever since she read Flashlight.”
“Twilight,” Erin corrected, smiling at Sasha. “Now you know who we are, you gotta dish. What’s your name, why did you move to Telluride, and why were you calling Ralph on Bruno’s shoes?”
They all smiled encouragingly. These didn’t seem like mean girls, and she was enormously grateful. “I’m Sasha Annenkova, from Oakland, staying with my aunt and uncle until next summer because my mom had to go to Russia on business.”
“Who are your aunt and uncle?”
Her insides clenched, and she answered quietly, “Tim and Melanie Shriver.”
“Shut! Up!” Rachel’s eyes sparkled. “You’re living with Brett Shriver?”
Astonished, Sasha nodded slowly.
“Ohmigod,” Rachel gushed, “he’s so hot! I’m going to be your new BFF and come over all the time.”
Did she not realize what kind of guy Brett was? She obviously didn’t know he was a murderer, but couldn’t she at least see that he was an asshat?
Amanda shuffled her feet and cleared her throat. “Chris isn’t so bad to look at, either.”
Never in her wildest dreams did she think her living arrangements would be considered something that worked in her favor, especially since Melanie was apparently the town ho.
Erin patted her arm. “Are you feeling better?”
She smiled. “Yeah. I’m just really hungry, and nervous, I guess.”
Rachel nodded, as if she knew exactly what she meant. “I throw up all the time.”
Bree tossed her hair back over her shoulder, silver bangles tinkling. “It’s called bulimia, honey, but I don’t think Sasha’s a hurler.”
Rachel looked insulted. “I do not have bulimia!”
“Okay, whatever. Next time you toss up a whole pizza, go ahead and blame it on the flu.” She reached toward the counter and picked up a black backpack, embroidered with a set of fangs. Withdrawing a wrapped bar, she handed it to Sasha. “Granola and honey and little pieces of pineapple. Delicious! And it’s got something that’ll make your boobs grow.”
They all looked at the bar in Sasha’s hand, quiet and serious.
Starving, she wanted to open and eat it in three bites, but she was afraid they’d stare at her boobs to see if they grew.
“Well,” Rachel said, “welcome to Telluride. If you need something, like a study partner, or a housemate, let me know.”
Curious, Sasha asked her, “How long have you had a crush on Brett?”
“Since sixth grade. He still doesn’t know
I’m alive.”
“That goes for all of us,” Bree said. “We’re not cool enough or hot enough to be on his radar.”
Relief made her smile. Rachel had a thing for a guy she didn’t know at all. If she came over, if she did get to know Brett, she was bound to discover who he was, and that would be the end of her crush.
The door opened behind her, and someone walked in. Sasha tensed, watching the faces of the others become shuttered, all of them looking away, gathering up backpacks from the counter and floor, hustling to leave.
A blonde stepped around Sasha. “You must be the one who barfed on Mr. Bruno’s shoes.” She looked right into her eyes, and Sasha recoiled. “I heard you came on to East yesterday.”
This must be his girlfriend, Julianne, who pledged her soul to Eryx so she could get into modeling school. Sasha didn’t know there was such a thing as modeling school. “That’s a lie.”
From behind the new arrival, whose orange sweater announced she had absolutely no need of boob-enhancing granola bars, Erin made a slicing motion across her neck, and the others all shook their heads, mouthing the word no.
Julianne jerked around and glared at them, until they all scurried out of the door. When the girl looked at her again, Sasha told her, “East said I look like I’d give good head, and I called him a douche bag. If that means I came on to him, then yeah, totes.”
Julianne tensed up, like she was about to haul off and slug her, but Sasha didn’t flinch or move a muscle.
“I’ve heard nothing but your name all f’ing weekend. East and Brett think you’re a good candidate for the Ravens, but I don’t. You’re a goody-goody; I can see it in your eyes. I bet you’ve never even given a guy head. I bet you don’t even know what it means.”
Sasha decided to cut her losses. She opened the granola bar and was just about to take a bite when Julianne grabbed it out of her hand and tossed it into the closest toilet. “Answer me!”
Harsh. Way harsh. Sasha was so hungry, she was dizzy. Turning her back on Miss High and Mighty with Terrible Taste in Boyfriends, she walked out of the girls’ bathroom and ran smack into Jax.