Page 117 of Tis the Season to be Bullied

“Quiet tonight,” I say, earning a cringe from Peggy before she decides to find something else in a different part of the floor. She always says Lucian’s hot as hell, but whenever he’s around she disappears. I’m convinced she’s low-key terrified of him.

Iam.

“You could be dancing tonight,” Lucian says, a growing smile briefly obscured by his crystal glass. “Then you wouldn’t care how quiet it was.”

My blush deepens. My interview with Lucian when I applied to work here was the strangest experience of my life, until I met those three boys in the woods, of course.I was told how to dress, and I arrived in a little black number that I’d hoped was short, tight, and low cut enough.

I didn’t expect Mr. Black to ask me to dance in a cage instead of tending bar.

Mixing drinks? I know all about that. Mom was a bartender all through college, and she loved teaching me how to shake things up. Literally. But dancing? I have two left feet and a broom handle for a spine. Peggy laughed so hard when I told her the story, she wet herself.

“I, uh...I’m good,” I manage. “Can I get you another?”

Lucian just has to lift a finger to indicate “no”. Actually, even just a cocked eyebrow would have done. He has ways of cramming essays into the twitch of a single facial muscle.

A woman in a lime-green minidress slides onto the stool beside Lucian and orders an appletini…I’m guessing because it matches her outfit. I go to work, happily losing myself in a little flaring before sliding her martini glass over the bar.

Then I remember Lucian is watching and drop her credit card on the floor.

When she leaves—after giving Lucian a smoldering come hither look he pointedly ignores—Lucian stands and considers me for a moment with hard eyes.

“You’re distracted tonight.”

Oh God. He’s going to fire me for dropping that woman’s credit card, isn’t he?

“Oh, I?—”

“Go home and deal with your shit, Nim.” He glances around, then pins me with his dark eyes again. “You’ll work a double shift on the weekend to make it up to me.”

I drop my head until he’s out of sight. I swear he’s punishing me for saying “no” to him. Again. I’m betting that’s a word he doesn’t hear very often...unless he’s upstairs in Heaven. I’ve heard rumors about the kind of stuff he’s into. It makes me shiver...and I can never decide if it’s in a good way or not.

“What are you doing?” Peggy asks when she reappears a moment later and sees me cashing up my register.

“Lucian sent me home.” I glance over at her and roll my eyes. “He says I’m distracted.”

Peggy says nothing, but the purse of her lips makes me think that she was thinking the same thing.

Is it really that obvious how messed up I am?

I take an Uber to Peggy’s apartment and sigh as I sink onto the couch in the living room—which is where I’ve been sleeping the past few weeks.

Cinderhart Academy.

Their website comes up first when I search on my phone, but there isn’t a ton of information on there. The only picture is a scenic mountain view of Cinderhart town itself. No shots of the actual building. When I search Google for more images, I get some user-submitted pictures, but not enough to give me a feel for the place.

Google Maps shows that the academy is close to Scarstone Lake, at the end of Academy Road.There are plenty of buildings on the campus, and more scattered through the woodssurrounding it. I’m not sure which are part of the campus, and which might just be businesses profiting off the students.

I’m not surprised that there’s no street view for the school. Not a single road in Cinderhart has been cataloged by Google’s Street View. Just goes to show how remote the place is.

Great. So I have to make a decision based on...what? The list of subjects they offer and the short bio that explains what a “sterling” institution the academy is? How great their football team is? GO STAGS! How abundant their extra-curricular activities are?

Free schooling.

That’s what I should be basing my decision on. And free board, too. Quinton is right...All I’ve inherited from my parents are my mom’s eyes, my dad’s hair, and massive amounts of debt. I should have told Lucian I’d dance in his cages every night this week, then at least I could start making a dent in my parents’ bills.

But it’s the idea oflivingin Cinderhart that gets me.

It’s such a small town. What are the chances I could go a year without running into those hunters from the woods? What are the chances they’d see me and not immediately assume I was there to report them?

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