Page 57 of Wicked Waters

I looked at her. Really looked at her. Normally so cool and put together, she was jittery and chewing on her nails, which was a definite sign that something was wrong. The Freya I knew wouldn’t ever do anything to mess up her perfect manicure. Maybe it was stupid of me to go with her when I knew how much she disliked me, but it didn’t feel like anything to do with the petty, one-sided rivalry that had been going on since Roman had started showing interest in me. It felt bigger, and that… That scared me.

We reached the room she shared with Penelope, and she paused, her eyes briefly closing as she took a deep breath and then pushed the door open.

“You didn’t get to be a goddess,” was the first thing she said, entering the room and heading over to her desk, where her laptop was open.

“I know, neither did you,” I snapped reflexively, regretting it as soon as the words fell from my mouth. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to— What does that have to do with anything?”

She huffed impatiently. “I’m getting to that. Look at this. I was…curious yesterday. I wanted to know how to ask my stylist to style my hair for the ball, and…well, I knew the third goddess place would be between you and me. Pen and Elena were a given, and so I thought the final spot would be between us.”

“Except Aria won.”

“She did.” Freya nodded. “But here’s the weird thing. I borrowed Pen’s key card so I could sneak into the admin office after hours, because the admin computers are the only ones where you can see the voting results as they come in, right?”

“You stole her key card? What key card?”

“Please, like you can take the moral high ground.” She rolled her eyes. “I heard about your plagiarism. Anyway, yes, the key card. The one the head boy and girl have? Or maybe just the head girl? I don’t know. Pen’s allowed access for the ball things. You know, sorting out the bookings and invoices or whatever. Soooo, I used it to get into the office. How was I supposed to know how to ask my stylist to do my hair if I didn’t know if I’d be getting a crown?” Running her fingers through her glossy curls, she shook her head. “I looked at the votes. I calculated that ninety-six percent had been cast by that point, so there was no possible way the outcome would have changed between last night and tonight. The votes weren’t close enough.”

I sank down into her desk chair, staring at her. “So, what are you saying?”

“I’m saying it should’ve been you up there tonight. You…you were way ahead.”

“Of Aria?”

“No.” She swallowed hard and turned to meet my gaze. “Of Penelope.”

“Penelope?” I whispered. “I don’t understand.”

“Look.” Tapping on the trackpad, she woke up her screen. “Look at this. This is how the votes looked last night.”

I stared at the image for a long time, my thoughts racing as I struggled to get my head around everything. “I was ahead of Penelope.”

“By quite a long way. You were slightly ahead of Aria, even. There was no way Pen could have been one of the goddesses. Look at the numbers. Even if every single one of the remaining four percent of students voted for her, she wouldn’t have been able to catch up.”

“I don’t understand,” I said again. “Did someone tamper with the results? Did someone want me out of the way that badly? Wait.” A thought came into my mind. “Did you do this?” As soon as I said it, I realised how ridiculous that was. Why would Freya switch me with Penelope rather than herself?

Her lip curled. “Like I’d do that. If anything, I’d put myself up there. Anyway, I wouldn’t cheat. I’d rather people voted for me fairly. Clearly, the students here have no taste.” She flicked her hair over her shoulder.

“So who did it?”

“I thought…maybe I’d made a mistake. Maybe the votes hadn’t been counted properly or something. Maybe I hadn’t read the information properly. In the end, I decided to wait and see what happened tonight, but I couldn’t get it out of my mind. Pen was out first thing this morning, having her nails done, and my hair appointment wasn’t until a bit later. I thought I’d look around a bit.” Her gaze shifted to the large wardrobe at the end of Penelope’s bed. “Remember when we came into the common room that day when you were playing Mario Kart and you were wearing Roman’s hoodie?”

“Yeah…”

“Did he… Do you know if he gave a hoodie to any other girls? Did you give the one you were wearing back to him?”

I stared at her. “It went missing, actually. Missing from my room, where I’d left it.”

She nodded as if I’d confirmed something for her. Crossing over to Penelope’s wardrobe, she flung the door open. Sweeping aside a pile of neatly folded clothes, she reached inside and drew out a bundle of fabric. Shaking it out, she revealed a familiar navy hoodie with royal blue lettering. “That day, I remembered catching a glimpse of navy in Pen’s wardrobe, all balled up in the corner. I didn’t think much of it at the time because, you know, it’s our school colours. But then I thought about it later, and it struck me as weird because you know how neat Penelope is. She’d never treat her clothing with this much disrespect. Yesterday morning, like I said, I looked around a bit, and…it was hidden behind her other clothes, but it was still there, as you can see.”

My hands shook. “Why would she take it? I don’t get it.”

“Don’t you?” Freya’s brows rose. She threw the hoodie onto Penelope’s bed. “It’s obvious to me.”

My mind flashed to the ball. To the way Penelope had gone straight for Roman instead of Tristan, wrapping her arms around his neck.

“She’s interested in Roman?”

“Bloody hell, how can you be so fucking dense!” Freya threw up her hands. “It’s not about Roman! It’s you! She’s always been jealous of you. When you came back, you took her place without even trying. You?—”

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