The Raven by Dani Lamia

Author:Dani Lamia
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Level 4 Press, Inc.
Published: 2023-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

17

Sometimes, the people Rebekah tormented showed up the next day at school. Sometimes they didn’t. Her guess was that it had to do with how visible the result of their tortures were; Scotty and Eddie had needed to go to the hospital. Veronica had taken a half-day, like Scotty, but had looked like she’d wanted to take more.

Tom didn’t show up the next morning. Rebekah found his friends walking together into the school, but not him. Had he been visibly injured, or was he afraid of her? She hoped it was both.

Good. That was one problem dealt with.

Rebekah leaned back on her planter, crossing her legs and staring up at the sky as it scraped past Grant High’s spires. The clouds had come and gone over the course of the week. If they planned to make a return that day, it wouldn’t be until later. Right then, the sky was bright and clear, rays of sunlight casting dark shadows through the trees. She took a long, deep breath, closed her eyes, and relaxed in the unseasonably warm morning.

She felt connected to her body, her limbs, the beats of her heart. She focused on her arms, her chest, her legs, filling herself with the glimmering evergreen scent. Fresh dewdrops and sharp pine.

The way Tom had begged her, the way he’d desperately apologized . . . just like Eddie’s pleading eyes and Andrea’s drowned-out screams. It reminded her of the panic in Scotty’s eyes, that very first taste of the same power Coralie wielded every day.

She hadn’t felt so calm, so sure of herself in . . . in how long? It was like she was finally free. She could sit back with full confidence that she would be left alone, that nothing would bother her or demand repayment for the indecency of her existence.

Then Rebekah opened her eyes and saw Coralie gesticulating in the parking lot, and her moment of indulgence came to an end. She couldn’t relax, not fully. Not until Coralie had met the Raven.

Rebekah was ready. She’d dealt with Coralie’s friends; she’d defanged her rich boyfriend and all his friends. It was time to stop circling the queen bee like a rat hugging the edges of the room. Like a vulture over a corpse. She’d thinned the herd enough.

It was time to go in for the kill.

Alice walked quietly toward the doors when the bell rang, a direct route from her squat little Apollo. She didn’t spare a glance; she had her hair up in a brand-new braid, hugging a textbook to her chest. Did she still have suspicions? Was that why she wouldn’t even make eye contact?

Then she was gone, through the school’s automatic doors, and Rebekah was alone again.

Alice had been so quick to turn away. So quick to stop trusting her. Hollowness filled Rebekah’s chest. Alice had offered to hang out once in a while, sure, but had she ever actually cared about Rebekah? At her loft, Alice had spent most of the time talking about boys.

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