Page 5 of Necessary Cruelty

The sound of a locker door slamming shut is our only warning.

Vin Cortland appears like some dark demon summoned from the ether by a single thought. His glare takes in both of us, but lingers on my face when I look away. The heat of it is like a fire on my skin.

Even though he hasn’t spoken a word, the entire hallway falls silent around us. Standing behind him are the other members of his crew, who rule not only Deception High School but the entire town. They are the founding sons, descendants of the men who claimed this town from the wilderness a few hundred years ago.

The Vice Lords.

V.I.C.E.

Vin. Iain. Cal. Elliot.

The Lords of Deception, in every meaning of the phrase. Their wealth and status, combined with a ruthlessness rarely seen outside of prison yards, make them untouchable. The thought of it would infuriate me if I had the capacity for anything aside from an intense desire to stay the hell away from them.

Vin is the leader, the front man, the one who calls all the shots but almost never needs to get his hands dirty. The face of an angel and the soul of a sinner. If he wasn’t such a monster, I might liken him to something out of a magazine spread. At an impressive 6’3”, he towers over most of the other guys at school. But even though he might be the size of a Neanderthal, his face more closely resembles a Renaissance painting, almost too beautiful to be real.

An angry slash for a mouth that curls in perpetual sneer beneath eyes as hard as flint ruin the perfect image. Dark hair, so true black it is almost violet in certain lights, sets off turquoise eyes that look like a pristine lake when you can see all the way to the bottom. Except the only thing you’ll see in the depths of his eyes is more darkness. Vin is dangerous, and not just because he is capable of anything.

You can get away with a lot when your dad is the richest guy in town and your uncle is the local district attorney. Vin Cortland is untouchable, and he knows it.

He pulls from the vape pen in his hand and exhales smoke from his nose directly into the new guy’s face. Vaping, or smoking of any kind, isn’t allowed on school grounds, but the rules have never applied to the Vice Lords and probably never will.

None of them waste time on conversation, because they just assume someone will explain it to poor Jake later. Iain, who moves so fast that he is little more than a shock of bright red hair and pale skin, rushes Jake and holds his hands behind his back as Elliot and Cal take turns delivering solid punches straight to his gut.

Vin watches it all with an unreadable expression, taking the occasional pull from his vape pen.

I don’t beg them to leave the guy alone or put up any kind of protest at all. That would only make things worse for Jake. They don’t stop until he collapses on the ground with tears streaming down his face, gasping for air. No one goes running for a teacher or tries to intervene. One person takes out their phone to record a video, but it will never be used as evidence. None of them would have been able to stop this.

Everyone who had been watching just as silently as I was turns away when Vin’s narrow gaze sweeps the hallway.

Why paint a target on your own back?

Not for some new guy nobody even knows, and certainly not for me.

Vin catches me watching him, and his expression doesn’t change. He says nothing, but reaches out to touch the noose I have looped around my neck. It’s part of my costume, a symbol, because the character hanged herself. He pulls it hard enough that the breath catches in my throat as the rope tightens in the hollow of my throat. A faint smile touches his lips when I let out an involuntary gasp. It isn’t a pleasant smile, but the kind that is prelude to a nightmare. He finally lets me go and walks away.

I don’t take a deep breath until the Vice Lords disappear around the corner.

“You don’t talk to her,” Billy Harkniss says as he helps Jake to his feet. Billy has been in the same homeroom as me since freshman year, but doesn’t even spare me a glance as he leads Jake down the hallway in the opposite direction of the Vice Lords. “Trust me, man. It’s just not worth it.”

The other students have already lost interest now that the show is over. None of them speak to me as they continue past me down the hallway. They’ll clear a path, dodging out of the way and averting their eyes when they see me coming, but they won’t speak. They never speak.

And neither do I.

I’ll hear them chatting with each other as I round a corner, but they always fall quiet the moment I appear and avoid my gaze. So I spend my days at school surrounded by silence.

Silence so oppressive I could drown in it.

And if Vin Cortland ever gets his way, I will.

---