Page 13 of House of Hearts
A red-faced boy stands panting in the doorway. It’s obvious from the sheen of sweat that he ran here when the bell rang, his white shirt splotched in the pits and his bangs plastered to his greasy scalp. He fiddles with his tie and mutters some excuse under his breath.
“Detention sounds appropriate. You can use it to reflect on your poor time-management skills.”
The boy’s shoulders slump, but he accepts his punishment without a fight. Not a second after he’s collapsed in his seat, two more shadows stain the doorway: Calvin and a guy I recognize from my Instagram sleuthing, Theodore “Tripp” Griswold.
“Lockwell. Griswold,” Dr.Sampson mutters beneath his breath. I wait for a lengthy reprimand, but it never comes. Tripp flashes a red Queen of Hearts card in the air, and although he might not have a crown perched on his head, the symbol acts as his royal scepter. It’s a Get Out of Jail Free card if I’ve ever seen one.
Our teacher sneers, but it’s obvious in the way he grips the podium that there’s nothing he can do. Even he bends the knee.
“See what I mean?” Birdie whispers beside me. “The Cards get all the special privileges. Even the teachers have nothing on them.”
Calvin waltzes in first, his mouth set stubbornly. His uniform might be perfectly tailored to him, but he still manages to wear it with reckless abandon. A loose tie hangs from his throat, and the tail of his button-up slips out from his pants. All he’s missing is bed head and alipstick kiss to his collar. Beside him, Tripp looks like an NFL linebacker. Hair buzzed to his scalp, big and bulky, with a cocky smirk and a white scar slashed through his left brow.
A muscle leaps in Dr.Sampson’s jaw as Calvin and Tripp sprawl out in the back row. I’m surprised he doesn’t develop a nervous twitch as Tripp kicks back in his chair and plants his dirty shoes up on the desk. I’ll give Calvin one thing—at least he’s sitting upright, even if he’s openly ignoring the lesson and staring at his phone.
“ ‘Of bodies chang’d to various forms, I sing,’ ” our teacher starts finally, his voice weathered with restraint. “This didactic epic poem by Ovid centers on the very fiber of human nature—shown through physical metamorphosis. We see the wrath of slighted gods, the power grapple between humanity and the natural world, and the calamitous, often tragic aftermath of passion: how heartbreak can drive us into violence.”
He swivels to write the lesson plan on the chalkboard, and Calvin is still swiping on his screen. Tripp, on the other hand, has pressured the girl beside him to copy a second page of notes for him. God, it’s frustrating how little of a shit they give. Their futures are basically promised. I’m sure they’ll slack off all four years and then get into whatever college they want anyway.
My own pencil pierces a hole through the page as I write down the title on the board:
BK VIII: The Minotaur, Theseus, and Ariadne.
The period at the end of “Ariadne” slashes downward, the tail end cutting off with the abrupt snap of chalk. Dr.Sampson curses beneath his breath and scrambles for a replacement stub, only to find his drawers noticeably empty. “One moment, class. I trust you all to behave as I grab a new box.”
Famous last words. The moment he’s out of earshot, all hell breaks loose.
“Think that dead lady in the maze is a Minotaur or something?” a student in the front row blurts out to his friend. I can tell by the shit-eating grin on his face that he’s been thinking of this joke for ten minutes now and waiting for an opening. “I swear, man, a hundred dollars if you hop the gate to go look.”
It doesn’t earn him the cheap laugh he thought it would. All it gets him is a sneer from Tripp as he abruptly slams his feet back down on the floor. “Oh, there’s something in the maze, all right, fresh.”
The guy is probably scared shitless to have Tripp’s eyes on him—I can tell by the slight hitch in his breath and the bulge of his eyes—but the hubris of a teen boy can’t be beat, especially when his friends are beside him. “I’m not a freshman.”
Tripp snorts and flashes his teeth. “Oh yeah, what are you, then?”
The boy’s own teeth chatter, and I see that he’s got a mouthful of neon blue braces. “A s-sophomore.”
“Same fucking difference. Maybe you didn’t learn much your first year, but you should know the maze is Cards property. Any asshole who tries to break in on their own is going to regret it. And that ‘dead lady’ you’re talking about—Anastasia Hart—I guarantee you’d piss your pants if you saw her. Hell, you look like you already have.”
The boy gulps. “She’s not real, though.”
“Oh, isn’t she?” Tripp’s grin is borderline sadistic. “There’s nothing she likes better than stupid underclassmen. She’d love you. Isn’t that right, Cal?”
“Yeah, sure, whatever.” Calvin hums. All his attention is trained on his pencil—an instrument he’s deemed worthless for note writing and perfect for spinning between his fingers.
Tripp visibly deflates at that, his mood souring at the same moment I rip off a piece of paper and silently slip it to Birdie.
What do they mean about Anastasia?
It takes Birdie a second to flip the page over and write out her response. My heart hammers in my chest as she slides it back my way.
It’s just a ghost story. The Cards LOVE freaking kids out about it lol. Anastasia is their Bloody Mary. She supposedly ripped her own heart out in the maze when her fiancé cheated on her with her sister. Now if you invoke her wrath, she’ll rip out yours, too.
Right on cue, I’m interrupted by a deafeningriiiiiiipfrom the floor below us. The room watches in horror as Tripp tears the boy’s Joker card in two, shredding it apart until it’s reduced to a shower of red and white confetti.
“You really should’ve learned your first year not to talk back to upperclassmen,” Tripp taunts as he reclaims his seat. “This should teach you some respect. Consider yourself blacklisted from Joker Night.” His gaze slides over to Calvin again for approval, but Lockwell’s own grin is reserved for the successful tornado spin he just pulled off.
I hardly have a moment to process what happened because Dr.Sampson finally arrives back and the room goes deafeningly silent. Completely oblivious to the turmoil of the last five minutes, our teacher pauses to clean his glasses before returning to the board. The rest of the class proceeds without incident before he finally wraps up his seminar with “We’re running short on time, so I’ll end the lesson with a quote from renowned late author Jorge Luis Borges. ‘It only takes two facingmirrors to build a labyrinth.’ I’ll let you dwell on that for today. Class dismissed.”
