This is fucked up. This is all so fucked up.
But I hadn’t started it.
I just wanted to end it.
And sometimes the only way out was through.
I moved before I could let myself think—before I could worry about the dozen different ways this could go wrong. I stood, leaning over the desk attached to my chair, and slid the scissors through the top of Cole’s silky black hair, as close to the scalp as I could manage. He jerked as soon as he felt the touch of cold metal, but I was already squeezing the handle, closing the sharp blades around his hair. There was a satisfying snick as the blades met, and pieces of dark hair rained down like snowflakes.
I’d gotten a good-sized chunk right off the top of his head.
Cole turned around in his seat, his hand already going to his head, and the look on his face was so full of wrath that for a second, all I could picture was him in the fight ring, fists flying with violent precision over and over and over.
I blinked, fear liquifying my veins, but I didn’t move. Several students around us had gasped when I cut his hair, and now the room was deadly silent.
“Idaho.” Cole’s voice was a deep rumble, heavy and dark. “What the fuck did you just do?”
Ignoring the trembling of my hands, I thunked the scissors down on the desk. Little pieces of his hair stuck to the streak of blood on the blade. “I told you. Whatever you do to me, I’ll do to you. And since you four run this place, that means whatever anyone does to me, I’ll do to one of you.”
Mr. Baldree walked in, hesitating in the doorway as he noticed the unnaturally quiet room. His gaze scanned the rows of desks, trying to figure out the source of the tension. “What’s going on in here?”
No one spoke. Then Cole’s desk scraped loudly against the floor as he stood. The intensity of the glare he was leveling at me didn’t fade, and having him loom so tall above me only made my impulse to run even stronger.
But instead, I shook my head and murmured quietly, “It’s only hair, Cole. That’s nothing.”
He didn’t say a word, just turned and stalked toward the door. Mr. Baldree gave him an annoyed look that turned to confusion as he noticed the near-bald patch on top of Cole’s head. None of the kids in the classroom laughed as the dark-haired boy passed by, but it looked like a few wanted to, and a savage smile pulled at my lips. Cole’s blue-black hair looked like a reverse mohawk—for a guy who’d built his entire reputation on being intimidating and stoic, he did look fucking ridiculous.
I’d meant what I said to him. It was just fucking hair. If the girls in the locker room had managed to take off my ponytail, it wouldn’t even have made the top ten worst things that’d happened to me in my life. He’d grow his hair back in a few weeks, and it’d be like the cut had never happened.
But on some level, it was more than that.
It was a crack in his facade.
It was the lowering of a prince.
As Mr. Baldree lectured about the Industrial Revolution, I pursed my lips and blew softly, disturbing the straight black strands that had drifted down to land on my desk.
You fuck with me, I fuck with you.
The next morning, I saw the four Princes gathered near the entry of Craydon Hall, and my eyes shot to Cole’s head. He must’ve gone and shaved his hair after he’d stormed out of History class, buzzing it all over to match the short patch. Unfortunately, the new cut did nothing to mar his dangerously handsome looks—all it did was highlight his broad features and the clear ice-blue of his eyes—but judging by the angry glare he shot my way, he didn’t care about that.
He was still fucking pissed.
I ignored the four boys and headed into the building, trying to let the rush of victory override the panic at what would come next. I’d promised to meet every taunt and prank that was thrown at me, and it was a dangerous game of one-upmanship to play.
Adena and Sable glared at me all through seventh period. Sable’s forearm was hidden by the sleeve of her uniform, but she held her arm near her chest protectively, as if I’d almost hacked it off instead of just cut it. I was honestly a little surprised she hadn’t reported me to Dean Levy, but I figured it had to be because she wanted to get back at me on her own.
If she brought the admins’ attention to this whole thing, they might try to do something to stop all of this. And none of my tormentors wanted that.
After class, Adena cornered me in the hallway near a case full of trophies, yanking on a fistful of my hair to make me stop. I spun around in a panic, but no one was coming at me with scissors, thank fuck.
The blonde girl shook her head, her blue eyes flashing with malice. “I hope you’re happy, you trashy slut. You could’ve fucking killed Sable.”
I reached up to rub my scalp, which stung like a bitch. “Well, maybe that’ll teach her not to run with scissors.”
She shot me a look of contempt, ignoring the press of bodies pushing past us in the corridor. “You think you’re some kind of fucking vigilante now? Some badass bitch? You think if you just show the Princes how tough you are, they’ll all become obsessed with you again and take you back? ’Cause I’ve got news for you, Idaho trash. That will never happen.”
My jaw tightened. Take me back? That’s what she thought I wanted? For the Princes to enfold me in their fucked up rich kids club again?
I couldn’t even answer, couldn’t force words through my clenched teeth. But Adena didn’t wait for a response anyway.
“Give it up, you dumb slut. Mason and I got back together over the summer, and he told me everything. And trust me, he’ll never let you back in. He fucking hates you.”
My heart lurched in my chest, like it had momentarily forgotten how to pump blood. For some reason, her words twisted like a knife in my gut, and I hated the feeling. After what Adena had done to me last year, jumping me with the help of her fucking minions, it stung to know Mason would still want her, would still take her back.
But what did it matter?
The tall, brown-haired Prince had never been mine, in any sense of the word. And given what I knew about him now, maybe I should be happy he and Adena were together again. They fucking deserved each other.
And who knows. Maybe Mason was the one who told Adena to attack me.
He and the other Princes had seemed shocked and angry after it’d happened, and Elijah had taken me back to my room and tended to my cuts and bruises. But if so many other things last year had been lies, why not that too?
Some part of my mind still couldn’t believe it—couldn’t believe that Mason would’ve deliberately sent Adena after me like that. But that was the part of my brain I refused to listen to anymore. The part that hoped to find goodness in a world inhabited by monsters.
“Good,” I forced out. “I hope the two of you have a long and awful life together. And I hope when you have kids, your demon baby’s horns shred your fucking vagina.”
Adena’s mouth dropped open as her face reddened, and she shoved my shoulders hard, knocking me back into the side of the trophy case. “Watch it, you bitch!”
I pushed myself away from the large wooden case, hands curling into fists as I stepped toward her. But maybe she’d learned a thing or two from Sable, because before I could do anything else, she turned and hurried off through the dwindling trickle of students.