Page 2 of House of Hearts
I stop reading as red splatters the page.
…Blood?
The very thought has my lungs seizing and my mind hurtling sixty miles per hour back to the gruesome past. Back when my friend’s body was found broken at the bottom of the school clock tower, a dark puddle beneath her soaking deep into the roots.
Her body wasn’t even cold when the press statement was released. Headmistress Lockwell issued what can only be described as a tragedy Mad Libs, with “Emoree Hale” slotted conveniently into the blanks. I learned that day that anyone can rewrite history for the right price. A “tragic fall” became an “intentional jump,” and one by one, everyone came to the consensus that Em had meant to die that day.
Everyone but me. Because I know she didn’t jump. She was pushed. And as for the murderer? It was none other than the headmistress’s eldest son, Percy Lockwell.
I growl at the memory and drag a sticky finger up the page. Just as I think I might pass out, I catch a whiff of cherry filling. Not blood but dripping jam.
“My bad!” Some girl squeezes past us with a half-assed apology, a jelly-filled donut poorly balanced in her hands. The stranger is as disorienting as this world around her—her outfit an eclectic hodgepodge of fabrics that pulls me out of my haze. I can’t help but tally the cost—it’s the type of mismatched attire that you can only pull off with an ungodly amount of self-assurance and money. The floral pattern of her mesh top has no relation to her striped skirt; the skirt has no link to the random tie slung loosely on her throat. Then there’s the studded glasses and the knifepoint of her earrings. None of it blends, and yet, on her, it’s seamless.
She gives me a once-over, and I’m suddenly conscious of thestain on my sleeve. Maybe I can pretend it’s avant-garde.
“Oh my God! Wait, are you Violet Harper?” she asks, mid-bite.
Mom looks between us in a not-so-subtle attempt to suss out a connection. Meanwhile, Donut Girl is fumbling around with her belongings. Her messenger bag lifts open to reveal a camera that’s worth more than several of my vital organs, but she pushes it aside to grab at her equally expensive phone. With a series of clicks, she’s pulling up the student portal and flashing my photo. I’ve got that “sun-starved Victorian factory child” thing going on in my picture. The perfect casting call for a horror-movie extra: wispy, bone-pale hair, twiggy limbs, and dark shadows. A true ghost of a girl.
“We’re roommates this year. I’m Birdie, remember? Birdie Pennington.”
I swallow my nerves and take her manicured hand in mine.
Nothing about my roommate assignment was random. No one asked me if I was a morning bird or a night owl. Messy or organized. If I liked long walks on the beach or late nights hunched over my computer screen reading over the obituary of my best friend, wondering how everything broke apart in a single, horrifying instant—
No. Birdie was matched with me because the last roommate she had hit the pavement and broke every bone in her body. Now I’m here to fill a vacancy.
I chew the insides of my cheek, and my molars trace over the familiar scarred skin.Don’t think about that, and most importantly,don’t cry.Crying doesn’t bring the dead back, and it certainly won’t help me get my revenge. I don’t know yet what that revenge will look like, but I do know one thing:
I’m going to haunt the Lockwells until the bitter end.
“Are you on your way to the new-student orientation?” Birdieasks, unaware that her new roommate is plotting out someone’s demise in her head.
“Yeah, it’s part of crashing in here my senior year. I’ve got to play freshman today.”
“You and me both,” she says with a wave of her camera. “I’m on yearbook duty, so I’ve got to take pictures. In fact, I think I’ve got you beat—I’ve been ‘playing freshman’ all four years.”
She snaps a couple photos on the way down to prove her point, the shutter flashing twice as we enter the Greek Theater. Stone slabs cut into a hill, giving the whole area the appearance of a naturally occurring formation. We take our seats in what could be an eighth world wonder, and Mom recycles the school pamphlet into a makeshift fan. More students have started to fill in around us, and understandably, they’re all fresh-faced fourteen-year-olds with their parents.
The headmistress positions herself before the podium at long last. She might be exorbitantly rich, but her appearance is elegantly understated. No flashing designer labels or fancy blowout waves. She has a sheath of gray hair resting above her shoulders and a set of pale green eyes creased in the corners. The longer I look at her, the more I wonder whether wealth is skin-deep or if it’s buried in her bones.
“Welcome, welcome,” she speaks into the crinkle of a microphone. “My name is Meredith Lockwell, and I am the headmistress here at Hart Academy. As an alumnus myself, I understand the mix of emotions on your faces today. Looking out at the crowd, do you want to know what I see? Excitement. Hope. Fear. For many of you, this is the first moment you fully embark from your parents’ homes and begin a new chapter in your lives. Everyone standing before me today has made a great stride toward their academic futures—”
That’s where I stop listening. The speech is a nauseating ordealthat has me grinding my teeth and digging divots into my palms. It’s complete with long monologues about the weight of a Hart diploma, grand declarations that Ivy League colleges will duel to the death for us, and smug sidebars about all the famous alumni who have sat on these very steps. That last part has students swiveling like there might be an autograph under their seat.
Their palpable excitement has me thinking about Emoree. How did she feel about all this? Was she nervous? Hopeful? Did she feel like the world was finally flinging its doors open for her?
“You remember Percy’s club, right?” she whispered to me a year ago now, her voice whizzing through miles of telephone wires.
Percy Lockwell gave me premature scowl lines. She’d met the guy only a few days into her first semester, and he’d become a glorified conversation poltergeist in no time. He’d pop into every discussion as unwelcome as a plague pustule, and I’d spend the rest of the call waiting for it to burst into a Percy Lockwell crush-fest. He was her Prince Charming, the knight in shining armor to whisk her further and further away from her old life.
Until the day he ended her life altogether.
“Yeah, yeah, I remember. The Illuminati, right? Or was it the Freemasons? Skull and Bones? One of the three.” I eyed a new stain on my work uniform.
She groaned into the receiver. “Hysterical,V. Very funny. No, it’s nothing like that. I know I’m not in it yet, but there’s no way they’re holding Illuminati board meetings at a high school.Anyway, they have a pledge night coming up soon, and I want to join. I’d kind of do anything to get in, actually.”
“A secret society of rich kids. That doesn’t sound like the Illuminati at all.” I picked at my nails. “Are you doing this for Percy?”
