Page 18 of The Pawn

The things Holly could do to me in my sleep, all because Cole says so...

"Great." I force my lips to smile, since Mrs. Reynolds is giving me a funny look. "That's so great."

"It's quite a privilege," the Residence Director says. "As head of the Rosalinds, Holly has the biggest room in the dorm, with an attached bathroom. You're lucky she agreed to have a roommate—otherwise you'd be in overflow housing in the Coleridge Center basement. And that place is under construction right now, so it isn't always pretty."

I'd rather have broken pipes drip sewage water directly onto my head at night than live with Cole Masterson's girlfriend. "How lucky for me."

"It's no problem," Holly says, in between helping girls get their own room assignments. "Us girls gotta stick together, right?"

"Right," I echo, while inwardly I wonder just how far herstick togethermantra goes.

My guess is it goes as far as her boyfriend's little games, and stops right where he wants it to.

There's no girl power in the middle of a fist fight.

* * *

As the front lobby empties of girls, all of them wheeling their suitcases down the hallway or getting their parents to lug them up the stairs, I begin to feel an impending sense of doom.

How long before Holly finds out from Cole that Icrossedhim anddefiedhim?

How long before she decides to show me that girls can fight just as hard as boys? Worse, even.

I'm beginning to regret helping Chrissy out. She has the money to replace her bag, after all, and she doesn't seem too broken up about me getting on Cole's bad side. She barely even waved goodbye to me as she skipped off to her own, Rosalind-free dorm room, no doubt planning her future rule-breaking dalliances already. The temptation to snatch her purse and throw it over a tree branch is overwhelming.

"Sorry for the delay." Holly gives me one of those kilowatt smiles as she finished off her last room assignment and saunters across the lobby towards me. "I'm Holly Schneider, but you probably already know that... I've introduced myself like five times today." Her eyes search all around me. "Did your parents go to the bathroom or something?"

"They're not here." I stiffen at her curious expression. "It's a long trip home, and my mom has work in the morning."

"Of course. Well, it's nice to meet you," she glances down at her papers, "Brenna... Cooke?"

"That's my name," I say, maybe overemphasizing it a bit out of fear of being found out. "I guess I should thank you for the big room. Though you really don't have to do this, you know. I can always stay in the Coleridge Center or wherever else they put me up. It's not a problem."

And planning my revenge would be easier without Holly constantly underfoot.

"Oh, don't worry about it. You don't want to stay in that rat-infested mold haven anyway." She wrinkles her nose at me. "Pretty sure it's haunted."

"That's what they said about the chapel, but I didn't see any ghosts."

Holly raises her brows. "You went inside the chapel?"

I realize my mistake too late. Already I'm fucking up—and in front of a 'narc' no less. "I know I shouldn't have. Someone kind of dared me to it."

She laughs. "Don't worry about it. I was just surprised—the chapel is kind of known for being a hookup spot."

"I didn't—"

"I'm sure you didn't." I'm sputtering, red in the cheeks at the thought of hooking up with Tanner inside the chapel of all places. "Just don't go back when they put the fumigation tent up. Apparently there's a termite problem, and you don't want to inhale whatever they use to kill them."

"Got it."

"Let me show you to our room."

I take note of the way she says 'our.' No doubt she's been told to welcome me with open arms, even if she doesn't want to. The Rosalinds are supposed to reflect the so-called warm community of Coleridge Academy. Founded shortly after the dorm opened, they were initially a social club for girls on campus, and eventually transitioned into RA roles as the dorm grew and its problems multiplied.

But they still do social events. I got handed a calendar of them along with my student handbook and map of the campus. Whenever a social event is co-ed, there's a little C marked next to it, to indicate that the boys are coming along. Rock climbing, river rafting, an ice cream social, an all-night dance-a-thon, drive thru movies—it's like the weirdest hybrid between hardcore sports events and 1960s nostalgia.

Curious, I ask her, "Do you like being a Rosalind? I mean, it must be a lot of work. All those social events, plus the stuff you do around here."

---