Page 2 of The Pawn

“One other student,” Lukas says absentmindedly, his eyes on his phone screen. “We were supposed to have three, but apparently our third dropped out completely, so it’s just you and one of our legacies. He should be here in a bit.”

The whole time he speaks in that smooth European accent, Lukas doesn’t take his eyes off his phone screen for even the barest glance in my direction. I bite back the desire to tell him tolook at me, pay attention to me, see what you’ve done to my family.I’m not here to be noticed. I’m the snake the grass.

By the time he feels my bite, it’ll be too late. The fangs will have pierced his veins and left poison behind in his bloodstream.

It’s the least he deserves for the part he played in my twin brother’s death.

“Brenna?” Wally frowns and puts his hand on my shoulder, squeezing just a little too tight for comfort. “You need another headache pill?”

I give him my best nothing-to-see-here smile. “I’m fine. The migraines are gone, I swear.”

He’s frowning still, every bit the hen-pecking worrier that my own mother has failed to be. “Well, if you need any, I have plenty of Advil in my jacket pocket. And I packed some in your suitcase, along with your prescription.”

Of course he did. Wally has put every bit of energy he has into keeping me alive, ever since that fateful day after the storm when we cut my brother down from that tree and laid his body on the wet ground, never to get up again.

“I’m fine,” I tell him again, my smile growing tight. I ignore the way Lukas looks up from his phone to raise his brows at us; I also ignore the fact that my mother is drifting off, her attention moving back towards the wolf enclosure, ignorant as always of what’s really going on around her. “You should worry about yourself. That truck of yours might not make it back to Virginia in one piece.”

“Ol’ Bess will be fine.” He waves my concerns away. “She was just acting up in front of you to make me look bad. As soon as I get her started and point her towards home, her engine’ll purr like a newborn kitten.”

“Fuck.” The voice from behind us is deep, crude, and louder than our quiet conversation. “Lukas, if I ever start to sound like that much of a hick, tell me.”

The source of the voice moves past us towards Lukas, who reaches out a hand to shake only to be pulled into a full-blown tight hug. Wally frowns in the general direction of the new student who just shit-talked his accent, and I don’t blame him.

Based on everything I know about Tanner Connally, he’s the biggest, most obnoxious asshole of the Elites. As four rich boys who rule over their peers, they’re mostly put-together and quiet, but not Tanner. It’s a miracle he’s even one of them.

Everything he does is loud, dangerous, against the law, or all three. His Instagram has thousands of admirers who follow him just for the shirtless selfies he takes when stripping off his mud-covered shirts after off-roading, or diving into the pool in his family’s Kentucky ranch, or just when he doesn’t feel like wearing a shirt. He has a devil-may-care grin and a wicked penchant for profanity and cheating that would’ve gotten him kicked out of his last boarding school if his dad weren’t a senator.

A fool might believe there’s enough dirt on Tanner to bury him forever. But based on what I’ve discovered about him in the research I did prior to coming to Coleridge, he’s impossible to destroy. Everything rolls off his back; every story about him gets buried. Of all my targets, he’ll be the hardest to pin down.

And the one, next to his ringleader, I’ll enjoy destroying the most. It’ll be easy, too—everything I’ve found out about Tanner has revealed that he’s a complete idiot.

He didn’t have to work hard to get here.

Not like Silas did.

Tanner Connally is a know-nothing rich boy. And it shows in the way he looks down on us.

Wally grumbles, “I didn’t realize my accent was that heavy.”

“I’m just fucking with ya,” Tanner says, holding his hand out towards Wally. “It’ll be nice to have a kid like you here at this stuffy Yankee school with me. I swear half these fuckers pretend like they don’t know what ‘y’all’ means.”

Though Wally shakes his hand amenably enough, his smile is tight and forced. It’s clear that Tanner was making fun of him and is barely putting any effort into pretending otherwise. “I’m not actually going here. That’d be my pal Brenna. And you are...”

A smile bright enough and charming enough to win half the votes in the state of Kentucky breaks out on Tanner’s face. It makes the dark freckles stand out on his tanned skin and emphasizes his light hazel eyes, which are set off by the shaved dark hair on his head. “George Connally, but everyone calls me Tanner on account of how badly they want to skin me and turn me into tanned hides the instant they meet me.”

Lukas sighs, the sound long-suffering. “Most people don’t get that joke, so I wish you’d stop telling it.” To me, he says, “Tanner is his given name.”

I force myself to ignore the tingle that breaks out on my skin at Lukas’s gaze, or the way I feel when Tanner looks over at me, bright hazel eyes alight with mischief. I can see the amusement in their expressions and know what it means.

They think I’m some backwoods, ignorant hick.

They think I’m nothing.

“I know what a tannery is,” I say, feeling defensive. “I’m not an idiot.”

“None of the scholarship student kids here are stupid,” Tanner says casually, pricking me with the fact that his rich, privileged eyes saw through my department store outfit the instant he walked in the room. “Y’all have to actually get in here through merit, unlike the rest of us, who will booze our way through school. And throw the best parties.” Absurdly, he winks at me, and even more absurdly I feel a blush rise from my collarbone to my cheeks in response. The angry fire in me burns higher. “Which is mostly what yours truly brings to the table, so don’t expect to see me in the library.”

Despite myself, I respond, “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

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