Page 28 of Raise Hell

Six

Excerpt from the diary of Olivia Pratt:

I think it’s normal that I don’t have very many friends. Most of the other students have been here since freshman year, but this is my first semester. Things will probably get better soon.

My roommate, Anya, is usually pretty nice to me. But sometimes I hear the things I say to her repeated by other people, so I know she talks about me behind my back. Maybe that’s something girls just do. I don’t know.

Maybe the problem is that I don’t stand out enough. That’s why HE never notices me. I have to figure out how to change that.

The guys seem to like Anya. She always has a boyfriend. Maybe she can help me.

I have to make him notice me.

* * *

I noticesomething is different from the moment I step foot in the dining hall.

It isn’t vanity to say I’m a pretty girl. I know what male attention feels like.

That moment when you walk into a room and feel the weight of their gazes slide over your skin. When you raise your chin to look them in the eye, some will glance away like it was a mistake, but the bolder ones won’t stop staring, daring you to say something about it.

Today, their heads turn in the opposite direction when I enter the crowded room.

What the hell is going on?

My whole plan hinges on eventually infiltrating Havoc House. For that, I need one of its members to give me an in. But that isn’t going to work if all of them are pretending I don’t exist.

At first, I tell myself it has to be coincidence. The dining hall is loud and crowded. Everyone already got an eyeful of me when I first arrived, so I can’t expect to maintain that same level of interest forever.

Then I get in line for the salad bar.

The guy in front of me, a pledge of Havoc House judging from the skull-shaped pin on his collar, picks up his tray and moves it to the other side without looking at me. I would expect a reaction like that if I smelled bad.

When I get to the drink station, a wall of people has formed around the fountain with their backs to me. I wait a few beats, thinking someone at the front of the line is taking a while to pick their favorite form of tooth decay, but no one moves. It’s only then that I realize they aren’t going to move at all.

They’re deliberately blocking me from the soda fountain.

“Can you move, please?” I ask through clenched teeth.

None of them so much as react.

“The other option is I take this tray to the back of someone’s head,” I add.

They still don’t respond, completely ignoring me.

I might as well issue threats to the wind.

As tempting as it would be to knock the absolute shit out of one of these guys, getting kicked out of St. Bart’s before the end of my first week isn’t part of the plan, either. For now, I have to bide my time, no matter how insulting it might be.

When I look around the crowded dining hall, no one meets my gaze.

With a curse, I turn away. I have a bottle of water in my bag, but that doesn’t solve my bigger problem. A line has been drawn in the sand. I’m on one side and the rest of the school has chosen the other.

I know who is behind this: Drake Van Koch.

It’s almost flattering that I have him this desperate to take me down. Of course, that doesn’t stop him from being a gigantic pain in my ass.

Taking a deep breath and a moment to remind myself why I’m putting up with this, I stalk toward an empty table. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that if I try to sit with anyone, they’ll just get up and sit somewhere else.

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