Chapter 15
Raven
I stalked through the hallway, my footsteps echoing against the lockers like measured drumbeats. The rage inside me was a familiar companion—cold, controlled, and deadly. I'd killed men for less than what this Nancy had done to the original Raven. Much less.
The classroom door stood half-open. I could hear a woman's droning voice explaining some historical event nobody would remember five minutes after the bell. I checked my phone: twenty minutes late. Perfect.
I pushed the door open without knocking. The hinges creaked, announcing my arrival like a dramatic soundtrack. Every head turned.
The teacher at the front—Mrs. Johnson, or rather Charlotte, as some of the original Raven's fragmented memories suddenly supplied—froze mid-sentence, her face cycling through surprise, fear, and finally settling on manufactured authority.
"Raven!" she snapped, marching toward me. "You're late! You know the rules about tardiness, don't you? And your clothes..." Her eyes traveled from my purple hair to my pink leather jacket, down to my boots. "This is completely inappropriate for—"
I cut her off with a laugh that wasn't entirely pleasant. "Mrs. Johnson! How forgetful you are!" My voice carried easily across the silent classroom. "Did you forget I fell from a fifth-floor window recently? My mobility might be compromised." I leaned closer, dropping my voice to a stage whisper. "I heard that student accidents can have serious consequences for supervising teachers. But tardiness? Surely that's nothing to worry about in comparison."
The color drained from her face. Charlotte remembered, all right—remembered how she'd lied to cover her own ass, how she'd failed to prevent the original Raven's torment.
"Fine," she muttered, retreating. "Just... take your seat. This is your only warning."
I smiled, all teeth and no warmth. "How generous."
As I sauntered to my desk, the silence gave way to murmurs and whispers. Boys gaped openly; girls assessed with varying degrees of admiration and hostility. The calculated risk of my transformation was paying off. In this small ecosystem, I'd instantly climbed several rungs on the social ladder.
Leo's jaw practically hit the desk as I slid into the seat beside him. "Holy shit," he whispered. "You know there's a dress code, right? Like, an actual rule about what we can wear?"
I shrugged, crossing my legs casually. "I'll make them change the rules for me."
Instead of laughing at the absurdity, he nodded slowly. "Yeah... I'm starting to think you actually could."
"By the way," I said, scanning the classroom, "which one is Nancy?"
Leo pointed toward the back row. "There. The one with the pink cardigan and pigtails."
I followed his finger and almost laughed out loud. This was my tormentor? This delicate-looking girl with her innocent face and dainty hands? She looked like she should be selling Girl Scout cookies, not extorting thousands from her classmates.
"Don't underestimate her," Leo warned, reading my expression. "She demolished your desk yesterday when you didn't show up with her money."
I glanced down at my desk surface, previously overlooking the crude words carved into the wood: "BITCH!" "SLUT!" "YOU STILL OWE ME MONEY!"
My teeth clenched involuntarily. That last one was particularly rich—"you owe ME money"—when she was the one extorting cash.
"She keeps demanding money like you owe her," Leo continued, his voice low. "And whenever we tried to step in, you'd always say, 'It's fine, we're just classmates, lending money is no big deal.' I never understood why."
I ran my finger over the scratched words. "Maybe I had brain damage."
Leo chuckled nervously. "So... did you bring money today?"
I patted my pocket. No cash, but my phone contained access to cryptocurrency accounts worth over a hundred million dollars. Assets I'd carefully hidden from both Bloodline and international authorities.
"Oh, I brought plenty," I said with a smile that made Leo shift uncomfortably.
"You just said your brain was damaged when you kept giving her money, but now you—"
"If she can take it from me," I said, leaning back in my chair, "she's welcome to try."
The bell rang twenty minutes later. I pretended to be engrossed in my textbook, watching Nancy's approach through my peripheral vision. My assassin training included a technique called "presence masking"—projecting vulnerability to lure targets into a false sense of security. I employed it now, slumping slightly, keeping my movements small and hesitant.
Nancy stopped directly in front of my desk, five feet of righteous entitlement wrapped in a pink cardigan.
"Where's my money?" she demanded, snatching my textbook away. "You saw my texts, right?"
I stood slowly, unfolding to my full height. I wasn't tall in this body—five-four at most—but I still had a couple of inches on Nancy. More importantly, I had presence, the kind that made grown men step back in darkened alleys.
The classroom fell silent. Several students shifted uncomfortably.
"Nancy, maybe let it go today," someone suggested weakly.
Nancy crossed her arms, confidence unshaken. "You're all falling for it, aren't you? Her whole act. First she goes crazy and jumps out a window for attention, now she dresses like... this." She gestured dismissively at my outfit. "You think she's changed? She's still the same pathetic, weak Raven she's always been."
I almost smiled. In my years as Phantom, I'd occasionally encountered this type—people so oblivious to danger that they'd walk right up to it, poking and prodding until the blade was already in their heart. They never read the room, never sensed the shift in atmosphere, never recognized when they were speaking to someone who had killed dozens without remorse.
"Is that so?" I asked, my voice silky with amusement.
Nancy grabbed my collar, yanking me forward with surprising strength. "Stop fucking pretending! Did you bring the money or not? Because if you didn't, I've got some creative ideas about interest payments."
I allowed a slow smile to spread across my face. "I brought it. I have more than you could imagine."
Excited murmurs rippled through the classroom. Nancy's expression shifted into something triumphant and greedy.
"Good girl," she purred, patting my cheek like I was a trained pet. "See? Was that so hard? Hand it over, and maybe I'll let you have the weekend off."
My smile disappeared like a switch had been flipped. The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees as I locked eyes with her.
"Kneel," I said, my voice flat and cold as a morgue slab. "Kneel and beg me for it like the parasitic little worm you are."