Page 20 of Raise Hell

I’m naturally a loner who finds other people, especially other girls, completely exhausting most of the time.

Evangeline would yell at Anya to go away and sleep for another hour or so.

But Olivia wouldn’t.

“I’ll be right out,” I say as sweetly as I can manage.

Anya continues to prattle at me from the bathroom while I get dressed. If I thought a locked door would keep her away, I’d been sorely mistaken. But this is good. She’ll be the first link in the chain I wrap around the neck of whoever attacked my sister.

Her brown curls are practically quivering when I finally open the door. With her sculpted cheeks and almond-shaped eyes, Anya looks like someone Hollywood would cast as an ancient Egyptian princess. Her personality is more like a cross between a chipmunk and a tiger, just aggressively chipper.

She gives me about five seconds of privacy to pee and brush my teeth.

I let her do most of the talking as we leave the dorm. St. Bart’s is relatively small, so most of the classes are clustered in a set of lecture halls on the opposite side of campus. This place is beautiful, I have to give it that. Although it would have to be considering how much it costs to attend.

And an ugly evil hides beneath the pristinely manicured lawns and beautifully maintained buildings.

Even though we’re barely out of summer, there are already oranges and reds tinting the leaves. There are plenty of open green spaces thick with mighty oaks and maples connected by stone walkways. From the air, this campus probably looks like a handful of squares stuck within a lush forest.

Everyone here is destined for something much brighter than the converted warehouse in Detroit where I’d been spending my time until I arrived.

College had never been part of my plans, although I didn’t actually want to drop out of high school. My father refused to sign the emancipation paperwork, so I had to forge his signature on the application for my GED.

I need to figure out what Olivia’s grades looked like before her accident, because it’ll probably be a struggle for me to keep up.

My first class is Behavioral Economics. I have little to no interest in studying business, and I doubt Olivia did either, but I have a very important reason for taking it.

Drake Van Koch.

I saw the way he looked at me. Just because we hate each other doesn’t mean the chemistry can’t be off the charts.

Those gorgeous eyes full of hate and anger seared my soul.

But everyone knows the devil wears a pretty face when he entices you to sin.

I just need to figure out how to turn all that passion in the right direction.

The president of Havoc House is one of the few people on campus who could assault a girl into a coma and get away with it.

And even if he had nothing to do with it, he is my best way into Havoc House.

One of the Havoc Boys lured my sister into doom. When I got here, I was hoping it would be obvious which of them kept her like a pet and then threw her away like dress. I search their gazes for that light of recognition in their eyes, some indication that he has a history with Olivia. But all of them act the same way when they see me, equally rude and contemptuous.

So I’ll focus my attention on Drake, for now.

This class is the only one he is taking that Olivia has the right prerequisites for, so I switched out one of her psychology electives to take it.

Class schedules aren’t supposed to be public knowledge. It’s amazing what you can learn about a student by calling the front office and pretending to be his mother.

Anya walks with me almost all the way to the door. My stomach drops as I realize she might be taking this class, too. Her attempts at conversation are going to get distracting if I have to deal with them for much longer without a break.

But she gives me one last wave as she continues down the hallway toward another classroom door.

Unfortunately, my relief is short-lived.

The class is way smaller than I thought it would be. Even though I’m less than a minute from being late, there aren’t more than a dozen people sitting at the scattered desks.

Drake sits in the very center of the room. When he catches sight of me hesitating at the door, the glare tightening his eyes is only matched by a feral smile.

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