Page 261 of Vicious Saint
“Over Beaumont’s dead fucking body,” I grumble loud enough for my father to side eye me.
“Stay out of it, Saint. I’m serious. I will try to reason with the old man.”
“Wait. But isn’t your family, like, one of the founders of the school?” Hendrix blinks. “How can he kick me out?”
“He can’t, Jimi. Don’t worry.”
“Saint.” My father’s voice is hardening again, but I don’t give a shit.
I will bring every single Beamont to their fucking knees, including Good Guy, if it means Hendrix stays on track to graduate.
“Oh my God…” Hendrix paces back and forth, hands pressing her temples. “I fucked up. I completely fucked up.”
I watch intently as my father, June, Poppy, Theory, even Carlo tries to calm her, but not one of them can. She’s too far down a hole only fucked up people like us fall into.
Hendrix is pulling at her already knotted hair, running through a list of every possible shitty scenario she assumes is about to happen.
Expulsion. Arrest. Jail.
Not being allowed to have pencils in her cell.
Even death by a minimum wage janitor position.
“Hey, hey, hey…” I step in front of her mid-march, bringing her body, but not the rambling, to an abrupt halt. “Listen to me, Jimi.” I shake her gently by the shoulders. “I’m not gonna let anything happen to you, okay?”
“I-I didn’t think it through. What would happen.” Hendrix darts her gaze around the room, clutching her chest. “I-I was just so mad. I couldn’t control it. I wanted to hurt her. Ineededto hurt her.” A sob rips past her throat, and her mother is at our side in an instant, pulling her arm.
It’s unnatural how fast my blood starts to boil as I imagine June taking Hendrix away from me. Stopping me from being the one to calm her down and bring her back.
“Hendrix, baby, let’s get you upstairs and in bed, we can talk about all of this tomorrow,” her mother suggests, and it takes every fiber in my muscles not to tell her to shut her trap and suck a dick.
Yeah, yeah, paradox, conundrum, whatever.
“No…I can’t. Something’s wrong with me. My chest is tightening.” She shakes her head at breakneck speed, to the point I have to physically stop her before she hurts herself.
But, like patching a broken pipe, when one crack in the mind closes another bursts open.
In Hendrix’s case, hyperventilation.
“Nothing is wrong with you, okay? You’re just having a panic attack,” I say as calmly and quietly as her high pitched wheezing will allow. “Just breathe with me.”
“I can’t get expelled, Saint. I can’t. I can’t.”
“You won’t, Jimi.” I whip around to face my dad. “Tell her right the fuck now that she won’t get expelled!”
Hendrix was right…our families do hold all the power over that ancient crusty bastard Hubert Beaumont.
My father knows it too.
The mention of a meeting was simply his way of putting the fear of God in Hendrix for acting out…exactly like he’s done to Theory and me on endless occasions.
Good intentions that always lead to no prevail.
Something this man never seems to learn.
Because now Hendrix is not only going to feel like a monster for how far she went with Annalie, she’s going to carry that monster with her for the rest of her life.
Let it eat her alive.
