Nine

Nine
MIRELLA’S POV

The sound of laughter echoed behind me as I packed my books into my bag.

I didn’t have to look to know who it was.

The female legion’s voice carried that sharp, mocking tone that always made my skin crawl.

Well, they were all laughing, but her voice was like a microphone.

An amplifier was more quiet than her at this point.

“She’s just another girl who thought she could stand up to us,” she said, loud enough for everyone to hear.

The rest of them laughed.

I gritted my teeth, keeping my head down.

My fingers shook as I zipped my bag, and I could feel the heat burning in my chest.

I didn’t even realize my jaw was clenched until it started to hurt.

Then I heard his laugh.

Kaelen Durov. Calm, lazy, cruel.

He didn’t even need to say anything — that smile on his face did enough damage.

I wanted to wipe that look off his face.

I could almost imagine it — my fist connecting with that perfect jawline, the look of surprise before that smug calm cracked.

The thought alone made my pulse race. But I just swallowed it down. I couldn’t afford another week of suspension.

“I’m sorry,” Iris said quietly from behind me. “I wanted to speak up, but you saw what they—”

“Don’t,” I cut her off. I didn’t want to hear her excuses. I didn’t even want to look at her.

She was the only person who’d been decent to me since I got here, but right now, her silence in that classroom felt like betrayal.

I threw my bag over my shoulder and walked out of the room without another word.

My steps echoed in the hallway, mixing with the distant laughter from the legions’ table.

Every sound in this place annoyed me. Every whisper, every forced smile.

I hated it here.

I hated this stupid school, this stupid hierarchy.

A bunch of rich brats acting like kings while everyone else bowed. They’d built a world that worshipped them, and everyone played along. It was disgusting.

And what made it worse — nobody questioned it.

Not one person

They all just obeyed like stupid puppets.

By the time I got outside, my chest felt tight.

The driver was waiting by the gate.

It wasn't Gabriel.

That stung.

He didn’t even greet me.

Just opened the door like he couldn’t wait to get rid of me.

The ride home was quiet. I stared out the window, watching the streets blur past. My reflection on the glass looked pale and empty. I didn’t recognize the girl staring back anymore.

When we got home, the first thing I noticed was the noise — laughter from the living room.

My parents were home.

Perfect.

My mother didn’t even wait for me to settle in.

She looked up from her wine glass and smirked. “Heard you got suspended, Mirella. That's quite impressive if I do say so myself. Took you what, a week to embarrass us?”

My sister snorted. “I saw the video. You actually thought you could fight her? That’s cute.”

I wanted to scream, but instead, I smiled.

The kind of smile that had no warmth in it. “Guess it runs in the family — the ability to pretend we’re perfect while we rot inside.”

My mother’s eyes hardened. “Watch your mouth. You’ve already shamed this family enough.”

I just went up to my room, not wanting to even look at them.

Dinner was worse.

My portion was small... well smaller than usual.

She called it “punishment.”

Said it’d help me “shed some weight.”

I ate it anyway. Slowly. Wordlessly. I didn’t cry. I didn’t even feel sad. I just felt... nothing.

Maybe that was better than feeling too much.

When I finished eating, I went straight to my room. The walls felt smaller than before, pressing in on me. I turned on my TV and flipped through random shows — anything to distract my mind.

Movies, anime, old clips on my phone. I didn’t even care what was playing. I just needed noise to drown the silence.

By the second day, I’d gotten used to the quiet.

My phone buzzed a few times with messages from Iris, but I didn’t reply.

What was there to say?

On the third day, I stumbled on a movie I hadn’t seen before. It was about a group of outcasts — people nobody cared about. They’d been bullied, broken, ignored. But instead of giving up, they came together. They built their own gang. Their own rules.

They didn’t wait for justice. They became it.

By the end of the movie, I was sitting straight up in bed, my pulse racing. The main character’s words echoed in my head:

"When the world spits on you, you either stay down or build an army."

I paused the screen. For the first time in days, I actually smiled.

That was it.

That was exactly what I needed to do.

If the legions thought they owned the school, fine. They could keep their titles, their arrogance, their games. But I’d build something different — something stronger.

I’d take all the broken kids they stepped on and turn them into something they’d never see coming.

They laughed at me today. But soon, they’d have to look up.

I leaned back against my bed, mind spinning with ideas. A group of my own. Rules of my own. A team that didn’t bow to anyone.

Maybe that was crazy. Maybe it was impossible. But the thought of it — the possibility — lit something deep inside me.

For once, I wasn’t afraid.

For once, I wasn’t the victim.

I could already see their faces when I’d walk back into Saint Auriel — when they realized the girl they tried to crush had built something they couldn’t control.

The laughter. The whispers. The humiliation.
All of it would come back to them, one by one.

My hands tightened around the blanket as I whispered to myself, “Let’s see who’s laughing next.”