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Chapter 4

ELODIE

The morning smells like rust and burning toast.

I crack my eyes and wince at the plume of fog that gathers on my breath. Somehow, it’s even colder in my room at seven a.m., which is impressive since I’m convinced it dropped down to somewhere in the twenties in the night.

If my father cared one iota about me, he would not have sprung this transition on me mid-semester. The smallest kindness he could have shown me would have been to relocate me during a break, but no. Colonel Stillwater decided that uprooting me out of the blue on a weekend was the best course of action. Far be it from me to disrupt his schedule; since he needed to disappear off on a training exercise at oh-four-hundred hours on a Sunday, it seemed perfectly logical to turn my shit upside down and expect me to be fine with moving country, having my world turned upside down, and starting class at a new school all within a thirty-two hour period.

This is the least of his sins. He has done much, much worse.

So here we are. Monday morning. My new life. From the strict itinerary my father shoved into my backpack, I’m supposed to be downstairs at the administration offices twenty minutes before my first period of the day, which leaves me forty minutes to get myself showered, dressed and organized. Since I showered last night, I normally wouldn’t bother showering again, but I still feel gross from the journey somehow, and honestly, I think I’m going to need to soak my feet in some scalding hot water in order to defrost them anyway. It’s only the middle of January; it’s probably going to get colder before it gets any warmer here in New Hampshire, so I’m definitely going to have to do something about the climate control in this room.

I pull back the thin sheets, my teeth chattering uncontrollably, and I make sure to grab my own towel and my wash bag this time. In the hallway, a number of the doors to the other rooms are open, and a line of girls has formed against either wall, waiting for the bathrooms. My heart sinks. Things were miserable at home, but at least I had my own fucking bathroom. Having to share the facilities at Wolf Hall is going to take some getting used to.

I join the end of the line waiting for the bathroom on the right-hand side of the hallway, and the girls ahead of me fall quiet in unison. Eight pairs of baleful eyes look me up and down. None of the girls seem all too friendly. One of my new classmates angles away from the redhead she was locked in conversation with and turns to me, offering me half a smile.

Her brown hair is curled tightly into an enviable afro. Her skin is almost as pale as mine, though. Her doe-eyed features and deep brown eyes give her the look of a young Natalie Portman. “Hey. Four sixteen, right? You must be Elodie.”

I give her a tight-lipped smile in return. “Guilty as charged.” This whole new girl thing isn’t actually new. I’ve had to do this at least four other times since I reached high school age. It’s been a while, though. After three whole years back at my last school in Tel Aviv, I allowed myself to get comfortable.

Big mistake.

“I’m Carina,” the girl says, holding out her hand. “Glad you made it here in one piece. Some of us waited up for you last night, but it got late and…” She shrugs.

I shake her hand, a little warmed by the idea that some of the girls here might have shown me that kindness, had the hour allowed. “All good. I totally get it.”

“Curfew here’s pretty strict,” the redhead chips in. She’s tall. Like really tall. Almost as tall as the miserable bastard who gave me directions to my room last night. “We have to be in our rooms by ten thirty,” she says. “Although Miriam, our floor monitor, turns a blind eye sometimes if we bribe her with chocolate. It’s cold as shit up here but count yourself lucky. First floor girls don’t have it so easy. Their floor monitor’s a fucking bitch.” “Hey!” the girl first in line for my bathroom snaps. “Watch your mouth, Pres. Some of us are friends with Sarai.”

“How could I forget,” Pres, the redhead fires back, pulling a face at her. “You’re shoved so far up her ass, it’s a miracle you haven’t earned your Sphincter Patrol badge yet, Damiana.”

Damiana’s a cool name. Shame the girl herself doesn’t seem that cool. She’s three shades blonder than me and wearing a full face of makeup even before she’s stepped foot inside the bathroom. Maybe all that eyeliner is tattooed on.

“Wow. Your comebacks are getting a little better, Satan Spawn. Still need work, though. Maybe you need to practice in the mirror some more.”

The bathroom door opens, and a beautiful girl with a mass of black curls and cinnamon colored skin steps out, dressed in a towel. She immediately rolls her eyes. “God, not even seven-thirty and you’re already sniping, Dami. Give it a rest.”

Damiana growls as she shoves her way into the bathroom, nearly knocking the other girl off her feet.

“Rashida, this is Elodie,” Carina says, nodding in my direction.

Hiking her towel up and pinning it under her arm, Rashida gives me a perfunctory shake of the hand, too. “We’ll talk once you hit the three-month mark,” she says, then hurries off down the hall, walking into room 410 and slamming the door closed behind her.

“Sorry about her,” Carina says, leaning back against the wall. “The last couple of girls who arrived mid-semester all transferred out again pretty quick. I s’pose making the effort to get to know people if you’re not sure they’re gonna stick around is more difficult for some of us than others.”

“Transferred out?” Pres says, her eyebrows rising up her forehead. She sounds as if she disagrees with the term Carina used, but the other girl shoots her a sharp look.

“Don’t,” she warns. “Not yet. Jesus, let the girl settle in a little first before you go dredging up that shit, yeah?”

Uh…this has me slightly worried. “Dredging up what shit?”

“Nothing.” Carina says this firmly, eyeing the other girls. She’s daring them to open their mouths and breathe another word, which none of them do. Apparently, they’re willing to defer to Carina, because everyone standing in the hallway, Pres included, looks down at their feet.

“Okaaaay.” If there’s one thing I hate, aside from my father, it’s secrets. There have been so many in my past, far too many things kept from me over the years, that I have a really low tolerance for this kind of shit. It’s my first day, though. I just met these girls ten minutes ago. I can’t go demanding one hundred percent candor from them before I’ve even properly learned their names. I do my best to shrug it off.

“Hey, knock on my door before you go down, okay?” Carina offers. “I’m student-teacher liaison. I can take you to the office and grab your paperwork with you. And then we can head to English together if you like?

I think a lot of our classes are gonna match up.”

I might be small in stature, but I’m still a big girl. I’m perfectly capable of finding my own way to the office and onto class. I learned my lesson a long time ago, though. If someone offers you an olive branch in the cutthroat waters of international schooling, you grab hold of that fucker and you don’t let go.

“Sure. Thanks. That’d be cool.”

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