Page 5 of A Vicious Rumor

“He’s right, you know.” I cracked my neck before turning to face the third member to our group. Scissors, aka Zachary King, of King’s Academy itself. Tall, blonde, blue-eyed, and altogether an irritating shithead. His father was the Headmaster of the Academy, which had been in their family for generations. Not only that, but the family maintained The Social List, or the “Green Book” as it was colloquially known by those who were in it. They said it was for the color of the cover, but I always think it was because they were so fucking crazy about money. The book was self-described as “the preeminent list of Washington’s society and arbiter of social precedence in the Metropolitan Area.” Zachary and his stupid family were the epitome of status.

And totally gross.

The Triad had a total love-hate relationship between the three of us. To the rest of the school, we were thicker than thieves. But, between each of us, there were definitely problems.

“Is that so?” I replied in a bored tone to Scissors’ question.

“I know your name is Rock, but try not to be as dumb as one. If you take things too far, that kid could report it to his parents. Or the parents could start asking questions. And that all means trouble for us. We’re trying to fly under the radar here. And besides, we want people to come to us and ask us for favors. If they’re too afraid that they’re gonna die, no one’s gonna ask us to cut a deal.”

I turned to face Scissors and gave him a bored look. “My place on this team is fear, right? Make sure people are too afraid to face me when they play Rochambeau that they do what they’re supposed to do, yes? Otherwise, all this,” I said, gesturing wildly between us. “Doesn’t work.”

“Just don’t break people’s noses, dickwad,” Scissors said to me.

“Can’t make any promises,” I replied to him with a growl. “What’s the damage on this one?” I asked him, referring to what it was we lost because this kid didn’t deliver. I generally didn’t concern myself with the details of the deals. That was more Paper-Scissors territory. When things were going well, I got a healthy payout of funds in the form of cash and favors each month from the dealings, and that’s really all I cared about.

“Meh, nothing really. It was more of a deal where I had to call in a favor or two. No cash loss, cause I know that’s all your broke-ass cares about,” Scissors said, looking over my shoulder at the group of girls still hanging around after the fight.

“I got my reasons, man. Not all of us are heirs to family fortunes like yourself,” I grunted at him.

“Yeah, how is that going, by the way? Dad still a big fuck up with the company?”

I ground my teeth in irritation. I knew that Scissors was just being his normal asshole self, but still. My Dad’s business was a sensitive subject for me, and I didn’t need Scissors rubbing it in my face. Especially since his family was so fucking rich, he could never work a job, buy a yacht a day, and he’d still have money left to spend on his death bed.

“Piss off,” I said to him instead of engaging. Scissors and I got into fights on an almost daily basis. Without Paper here to break us up, I might end up breaking a second person’s nose today.

Both of them more than deserved it, in my humble opinion.

“Sounds like a plan,” Scissors replied, brushing by me. “I’d much rather talk to the groupies than you, anyways,” he said, referring to the girls standing in a circle gossiping about the fight.

“Whatever,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“You’ll be at the meeting tomorrow, yeah?” Zachary asked me over his shoulder.

I sighed. Scissors always wanted to have meetings, and I always found them completely pointless. But, it’d been made very clear to me from early on that if I wanted to keep my spot on the Triad, I needed to attend the meetings. It didn’t matter so much these days. Today was the last day of school before our summer vacation and next year I’d be a senior. My place in the Academy was pretty well established by now, and I was mostly checked out of this place anyway.

“Yeah, probably,” I replied.

“Not probably,” Scissors called back at me. “You’ll be there. And party at my place tonight.”

I gritted my teeth and didn’t respond. I made my way out to the parking lot and climbed into my Jeep Wrangler Rubicon. I would have slammed the door, but I’d taken them off for the summer.

Fucking Paper.

Fucking Scissors.

Fucking all-of-them.

They all pissed me off. I was so ready to be done with this place. I hated the fact that I had a whole ‘nother year left to have the dick around with these assholes. I’d been done with them since elementary school. None of them had ever redeemed themselves in my eyes.

None of them ever could.

I waited for the rest of the riffraff to clear out of the parking lot before I put my car in drive and zoomed off. No one ever approached me at school these days, which was fine. I didn’t really want to talk to anyone, at least not to anyone at this school. I’d much rather have them be afraid of me. It kept the gossip to a minimum.

My life was too busy for all the petty nonsense that went on at the Academy, anyways. I was only in the Triad because it made me money, which in turn, supported my goal. My father’s business had been tanking since I was young. He never got over what had happened and the business had never recovered from the bad press about its CEO. No one really wants to do business with you if they can’t trust you. And, when the whole world finds out that you knocked up a stripper and lied to your wife about your adopted son, yeah, that sort of shakes people’s trust in you.

But, as much as my father seemed to have given up, I didn’t want to see the business fail. It was all our family had to our name. If it went under, we’d be just like everyone else. Working for someone else. Our future controlled by someone else.

I never wanted anyone to have that type of power over me.

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