Chapter 7 FIRST BLOOD
POV: ANNABELLE
The key was already in my pocket.
I got it from the registration table after arguing for what felt like forever about some missing housing form. Apparently it had been filed under the wrong scholarship category. Apparently that happens a lot with scholarship students. Apparently nobody thinks it's worth fixing.
Whatever. I got the key anyway. I always get what I need eventually. It just costs more energy than it should.
Founder's Hall hit me the second I pushed through the door.
Lemon polish and something colder underneath it. The kind of clean that wasn't about hygiene, it was about erasing everything that came before. The ceilings went up so high the light gave up before reaching the top. Oil portraits lined both walls—pale men in dark suits staring down at the marble floor like they were still waiting for an apology.
My suitcase wheels hit the marble and screamed.
The sound bounced off every surface and came back louder than it left. Heads turned. Not all of them. Just enough. The kind of selective attention that wasn't accidental—it was practiced. Legacy students who'd grown up knowing exactly when to look and how to make the looking feel like a verdict.
I kept walking.
Room assignment. Orientation. Survive. That was the list. Everything else was noise.
I wiped the sweat off my palm onto my jeans and switched the suitcase handle to my other hand. The vinyl was cracked and the edge had been cutting into the same spot on my fingers for the last hour. Going to have a blister by dinner. I'd had worse.
The marble was slick from whatever they used to polish it and my shoes had no grip and the suitcase had one working wheel and I was navigating all three of those problems at once when the voice found me.
"Watch it, Scholarship."
Sweet. That's what hit me first—how sweet it was. Like candy coating over something rotten.
I turned.
Platinum blonde hair in a perfect bob. Uniform pressed like it had been ironed an hour ago. The kind of face that would photograph beautifully and smile at you the exact same way it smiled at everyone while meaning nothing by any of it.
Two girls flanked her, both brunette, both wearing the same expression of polite amusement that wasn't polite at all.
"Sorry?" I said.
"You're in the walkway." The blonde tilted her head. "People are trying to get through."
I looked at the hallway. It was wide enough to park two cars side by side. There was no one behind me.
"Right," I said. "My mistake."
I turned back around.
The shove was light. Just fingers, really. Manicured nails finding the exact right spot between my shoulder blades, angled just enough to be deniable. My grip on the suitcase handle went wrong, my balance went with it, and the case tipped forward and hit the marble and the duct-taped zipper gave up entirely.
The sound it made was awful.
And then my things were everywhere.
Library books with barcodes on the spines. Notebooks held together with tape and stubbornness. Pens chewed down to the last inch. A folder of scholarship documents in a ziplock bag because I couldn't afford for them to get wet.
Everything that said exactly who I was and how hard I'd worked to get here, spread across Thornfield's perfect marble floor.
I went to my knees and started gathering.
The laughter started soft. Then it found its footing.
Phones came up around me in a slow wave, screens catching the chandelier light. I didn't look at them. I kept my eyes on the floor and my hands moving and my face blank.
Don't cry. Don't you dare cry.
"Oops."
The blonde crouched down to my level, close enough that I could smell her perfume. She kept her voice just loud enough for the crowd.
"Did I break something valuable?" A pause, perfectly timed. "Oh wait. Scholarship kids don't own anything valuable, do they?"
From somewhere in the crowd—near the back, partially blocked by a group of seniors—I caught a flash of pink cashmere. A girl with honey blonde hair, standing very still, watching. Not laughing. Not helping either. Just watching with an expression that looked like it wanted to do something and didn't know what.
I filed that away and kept collecting my things.
My chemistry notebook was under the blonde's foot.
Not accidentally.
I looked at the foot. Looked up at the face above it.
"Could you move, please," I said. Not a question.
The blonde smiled wider. "Nikki," one of the brunettes said quietly, like a prompt.
So that was her name.
Nikki. First name on the list.
I didn't have a list yet. I started one.
"Problem here?"
The voice came from above and to my left, and it was the kind of voice that rooms responded to before the person attached to it had finished speaking. I looked up.
Golden hair. Blazer that fit like it had been made for him specifically, which it probably had. Ice blue eyes that were currently doing something more interesting than looking at Nikki—they were looking at me. Not with pity. With the focused attention of someone who had just noticed something unexpected and hadn't decided what to do about it yet.
He crouched beside me without being asked. Picked up two of my books and held them out.
"Justin," Nikki said, and the sweetness in her voice had a wire running through it. "We're going to be late for orientation."
Justin didn't look at her. "You should go ahead then."
A beat of silence that had weight to it.
Nikki's hand found his sleeve. Her nails were the same color as her lip gloss, which I noted the way I noted everything—automatically, in case it was useful later. "Come on."
"One second."
He was still looking at me.
I didn't look away. I picked up the last notebook, stood up, and shoved everything back into the ruined suitcase without breaking eye contact with him.
He wasn't helping me. I needed to be clear about that in my own head. He was watching me, which was different. I'd had enough adults in my life who watched me to know the difference between someone who wanted to help and someone who found me interesting.
Interesting didn't keep your scholarship intact.
Interesting didn't pay for next semester.
"Thanks for the tutorial," I said, to Nikki, not to him. "On the food chain. Really helpful." I tilted my head the way Nikki had tilted hers, mirroring it back. "I already know exactly where I stand."
Something moved through the crowd. Not quite a laugh. More like a breath being released.
Nikki's smile stayed in place but the warmth behind it, fake as it was, went out like a light switch.
"Excuse me?" she said.
I was already turning away.
I dragged the suitcase toward the east corridor, one working wheel and one that scraped, and I kept my steps even and my spine straight and I didn't look back.
Behind me I heard it—one real laugh, just one, from somewhere in the middle of the crowd. Surprised. Involuntary. The kind that couldn't be taken back.
And then Nikki's voice, quiet now, the sweetness gone completely.
"Find out what room she's in."
I turned the corner.
I let myself breathe.
First day at Thornfield Academy. First enemy made before I'd even found my room. My suitcase was broken, my knees were sore from the marble, and somewhere behind me Nikki Clark was already filing me under problem to be handled.
Fine.
I'd been a problem to be handled my entire life.
I was still here.