Chapter 3

Lily's eyes filled with tears. "Adrian, aren't you going to stop them?"

Adrian was absently smoothing out the hem of her dress. "She's got a temper. Wouldn't hurt to have it knocked down a peg."

Mason and Owen smirked.

"Clara's been scrapping with us since we could walk. What are a few girls gonna do to her?"

They wrenched my head up by the hair and slapped me across the face. Again. And again.

My cheeks burned.

When the girls saw that Adrian and the others had barely spared me a glance before turning back to fuss over Lily, they got bolder. They dragged me straight into the bathroom.

"You just love playing lady bountiful, don't you? Handing out charity from up there on your high horse?"

"Well, New Mexico's all desert. Not much water out there. Let's get you plenty while you can."

They dumped a whole bucket of ice water over my head, shoved me into a stall, and locked me in from the outside.

"Sit in there and think about what you've done. Let's see how long it takes those four knights of yours to remember their little slut of a princess."

They'd taken my phone. I climbed up onto the toilet.

When I scrambled over the top of the stall, I landed hard on the tile. My ankle screamed like it had split in two.

I dragged my right leg to the bathroom door and pounded on it.

It was jammed shut.

I'd been talked about before. But no one had ever dared put hands on me like this—not with Adrian and the boys in the room.

I remembered the way they'd huddled around Lily as I was hauled off. I pulled my knees up to my chest and dropped my head between them.

The graduation party had started.

Outside, the noise sounded like a different world entirely.

I don't know how long I sat there. Eventually I heard familiar voices out in the hall.

"Did Clara go home?"

"I don't think so. I saw those girls take her somewhere."

"Whatever, let them teach her a lesson. Just don't let it blow up. Her parents will lose their minds."

Adrian kicked the door in irritation.

I was about to shout out—then I heard Logan.

"Adrian—how long are you actually planning to keep up this boyfriend act?"

I went still.

Logan had confessed to me when we were sixteen. I'd turned him down, saying there was someone else.

Adrian was quiet for a moment.

"Couple of months. Once she's out in New Mexico, I'll break things off. Blame the distance."

"I love Clary like family. Talking her into moving out there alone—it doesn't sit right. If playing boyfriend for a couple of months makes her happy, then fine. Consider it a parting gift."

I bit down on my lip and swallowed the cry for help.

Logan laughed once.

"Sounds like a last supper. Let me know when it's over."

"What—you going after her?" Adrian sounded amused. "I thought you had a thing for Lily."

Logan clapped him on the shoulder.

"Clara turned me down back in the day. Can't a guy get his revenge? Making Clara Whitaker fall for me and then dropping her—that'd be pretty satisfying, actually."

Their voices faded down the hall.

Something inside me went cold and quiet.

Fever burned through me, and I drifted.

In my delirium, I dreamed my way back to when I was twelve.

I'd made a lot of new friends at school that year.

I'd stay out with them until late every afternoon, and by the time I got back to the estate, I'd barely see Adrian and the boys at all.

Owen said, with all the gravity of a courtroom lawyer:

"So you get some new friends and now you don't want us anymore?"

Mason flopped down on the lawn, sulking. "I don't care. You have to swear we're your best friends. Otherwise I'm going after them."

Adrian and Logan each grabbed one of my hands.

"No new friends. Just us. Nobody's ever going to be as good to you as we are."

When I wouldn't swear it, they secretly scratched a little smiley face into the back of each of their silver pendants.

They said, We swear—as long as Clara stays with us, if she walks east, we won't walk west.

A kid's oath. It became a joke in the end.

I hadn't stayed with them.

I went to the New Mexico desert. They stayed behind, with the one who came after.

They kept me locked in there all night. When I opened my eyes again, I was in a hospital.

Adrian was there at my bedside, holding my hand.