Page 42 of Kingmakers, Year Two

Instead, he wanted me to promise that I wouldn’t try to hurt myself again.

I could tell that it mattered to him. That he cared.

Why he should care, I have no idea.

I don’t think tenderness comes easy to Miles Griffin.

To me either, if I’m being honest. The only person on this planet I truly love is Cat. I never had close friends until I started school at Kingmakers. There’s a coldness in me that doesn’t melt easily. Maybe because I’ve had to be so careful, so rigid, all my life. It’s hard for me to trust. Hard to open up.

“Miles must be decent,” Cat says pensively. “He’s cousins with Leo and Anna.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.” I shake my head. “After all, look who we’re related to.”

The followingweeks at school are uneventful.

I never told Dr. Cross what actually happened, and he didn’t press me for answers. He’s too used to being lied to by students, and probably doesn’t want to hear it.

I don’t know whether Rocco is right, whether he’s allowed to injure me with impunity. There’s no point in reporting what happened either way. Nobody was injured, other than the cuts on my face and body, and the lump on my head. Only serious damage merits an official response.

One thing I did do: I bought trousers from Matteo Ragusa. He’s a Sophomore Accountant, and we’re about the same size. He was happy to sell me two pairs of pants from his stash of uniforms, though I could tell he was curious.

“What do you want them for?” he said, handing the trousers over freshly laundered and neatly pressed.

“I just . . . don’t want to wear skirts anymore.”

I couldn’t explain to him the shame I feel in my body sometimes. How much I hate the way it draws the eyes of people like Rocco Prince and Wade Dyer. I’m vulnerable in my school uniform. It was too easy for Rocco to slip his hand up my skirt at the breakfast table. I’m lucky all he did was pinch my thigh.

“You don’t need these?” I said to Matteo, holding up the trousers.

“Nah.” He shook his head. “I’ve got plenty. And my mom can send more in my Christmas box.”

It wiped out all my pocket money, but it hardly matters. There’s nothing to buy at Kingmakers unless I want something illegal from Miles Griffin.

I’ve been wearing the trousers since. They give me a strange sense of confidence. I feel like Katherine Hepburn or Ingrid Bergman, two women I’ve always admired. In an environment of skirts, pants are an expression of power.

Nobody has commented on it, other than Professor Graves raising one silver eyebrow the first time I walked into class flouting the usual uniform.

Maybe the pants are working, because Rocco has mostly been leaving me alone. More likely he sensed that he pushed me too far.

I’m not stupid enough to relax. I know he’s only regrouping, planning his next attack.

He wasn’t pleased with our last skirmish. He doesn’t like when things don’t go according to plan. Every interaction between him and me is supposed to satisfy some dark impulse. If I don’t feed him what he wants, he only gets hungrier.

Rocco isn’t the only one watching me. I catch Miles Griffin looking at me more than he used to. We were barely acquaintances before, both of us floating in the orbit of Leo and Anna, but rarely interacting with each other directly.

It may be my imagination, but I feel like Miles is sitting down to eat with us more often, or intercepting us in the commons to walk across the grounds together before parting ways for the next class.

Maybe he just wants to make sure I haven’t offed myself yet.

It feels like more than that. It feels like he’s listening to my conversations with Anna, taking in every word that comes out of my mouth, even while Leo’s chatting away in his other ear.

While he’s watching me, I’m watching him.

Miles is much more clever than I realized. I knew his grades were shit and he barely tried in class, basically doing the bare minimum to prevent being expelled. He slacks off in theQuartum Bellum.His team was first eliminated last year and he hardly seemed to care. He might even have disappeared for half the match.

But when he’s talking about a subject on which he’s genuinely passionate, he seems to know everything in the world.

For instance, this morning he’s discussing Bitcoin with Ozzy. He’s so engrossed in the conversation that his whole face lightsup, and he looks much more like Leo, instead of his usual sardonic stare.

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