Page 37 of Good Losers (Lochkelvin Academy)

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Isleep for an hour that night, waking from a dizzying dream in which I’m wearing a tutu much too tight for me. My old ballet instructor screams in my face. When I try to plié, I glance down at my right arm and find with some surprise that it’s been bitten clean through by Captain Porthos. Blood gushes from the bloody stump of my elbow, my arm dangling between a mountain range of razor-sharp teeth more wolf than dog, bone and tendons jutting from his excessively panting mouth like an exposed panel of wires. All I can see and smell is deep red coppery blood.

It takes effort to wake up, and in the end I clench my eyes shut, cringing as I quickly calculate how many limbs I still have.

Breakfast is no better. I slump into the breakfast room, where the chiefs sit, engaged in low-murmured, serious talk that silences the instant I arrive. Rain strikes the window panes, and even in the supposed glow of mid-morning, there’s an eerie set to the sky as the sunlight is filtered through plump ashen clouds.

Finlay tenses as I sit opposite him. He looks anywhere but at me, and I feel sick. I’ve disappointed him. I’d tried to redeem myself, I’d tried to sacrifice myself for that goddamn dossier, and he doesn’t even know it. What’s the point in telling him now, either? I’d just make him even more disappointed in me — to have gotten so close, only to fuck it up in the end as usual.

It’s hard to recall anything other than Oscar Munro’s approaching mouth, his softly spoken threats. But, thinking back, Finlay last saw me entwined in the library, with Rory feasting on my half-naked body. From Finlay’s perspective, I keep doing this. Kissing people who aren’t Finlay and playing in poisonous, intriguing pools. And I know I don’t owe him my love or attention, but to deny what I feel for Finlay by getting off with his best friend instead… It isn’t just denying him. It’s denying my own desires, too.

If Finlay’s tense, Rory is quite the opposite. He’s as relaxed as a king as he watches me from the head of the table, heat flashing in his eyes as he tracks my body from head to toe.

Only Luke manages to smile at me, and as tight as it is, it’s still a radiant blossom across his face. “How are you this morning?” He sits poised for action, his back straight and his shoulders down, elegant and confident with none of the tantrums of the day before.

“Fine,” I lie. Maybe last night had been a nightmare, too. Maybe Oscar Munro had been a fiction, his hand against my mouth made-up, the low pressure of his touch all inside my head. There’d been none of the switch from hot to cold when he’d been confronted by his own loss of control over a situation. He hadn’t demanded, like his son months before, that I dance for him.

Nothing but pretty lies in a house groaning with them.

The chiefs know nothing of this.

They have no idea what happened to me last night, meeting with a man regularly derided as a monster.

My stomach growls, breaking the tension slightly.

Just as I’m about to request a bowl of muesli from Armstrong, he turns to me with a slightly reddened face.

“I’m afraid I have orders not to serve you,” he says with some embarrassment, as though this is a rare rule that he personally disapproves of. I blink at him in surprise. All heads swivel around, perhaps because Armstrong has deigned to speak. He continues, with somewhat more aplomb, “I’m sorry, ma’am, but you will not be served here anymore.”

Rory is on him like a shot. “Armstrong, you will see to it that my girlfriend is served whatever breakfast she so desires. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, supper — she can eat us out of hearth and home as far as I’m concerned. Where has this nonsense come from?”

I stare at him. Luke stares at him. My head is buzzing with a strange kind of static.Girlfriend? Even Finlay glances at him oddly. But of course, Rory’s just trying to make me appear a bigger deal than I am.Girlfriendis a lot more respectable in these sorts of circles thansummer fling, I guess.

“The Master, sir. And I’m sorry, but he has been quite firm on this matter.”

My internal organs flip, crashing with a sick flump into the pit of my belly. Oscar Munro really wasn’t joking. He’s set out to destroy me for last night.

Rory’s eyebrows furrow, uncomprehending. “Whatever trifling issue Father has suddenly taken with Jessa, he’ll raise it withmefirst. In the meantime, Father’s away. Serve Jessa promptly, Armstrong.”

“I am unwilling to breach a direct order, sir,” Armstrong murmurs, his lips flattening into a straight line. But with a small twinkle in his eye, he adds, “Until you are able to clarify the Master’s position on this matter, I will, however, see to it that the kitchens remain open for the remainder of the day.”

Rory nods his head. “Thank you, Armstrong.” As Armstrong leaves the room, Rory tosses his napkin down in disgust. “I don’t know what my father’s playing at. This is ridiculous.” He raises his silver gaze to me, softening. “I apologize. This is no way to treat a guest.”

“It’s fine,” I say hollowly, because it’s all I can say to disguise the truth. Everything’s fine. I love it here in this creepy manor, with staff my existence seems to have traumatized and a master of the house who’s set on punishing me in secret.

Luke and Finlay get food, the best food, even though Oscar Munro hates everything they stand for.

And now I’m somehow worse than them.

“Where is Munro?” Luke asks, almost casually, but there’s a stiffness to his tilted head that betrays his interest in Rory’s answer. Also, I note the disconnect in how Oscar Munro is referred to —Munroinstead ofyour father, as though Luke’s trying to disassociate Oscar Munro and his general villainy from Rory.

“He leaves in the chopper before sunrise to board his private jet. He’ll be in London by now.”

“A chopper? You mean you have a helicopter here?” I ask dumbly, and Rory’s mouth curves into a disbelieving smile.

“Of course we have a helicopter here. It’s a lifeline somewhere as isolated as we are.”

“I want a shot o’ that baby,” Finlay says with sudden relish. “I want tae press a’ her buttons and steer her in every direction.”

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