Chapter 4
When I walked out of the restroom, the gasps came quick. Every eye in the room zeroed in on the bruises blooming across my face and hands.
Back in class, I reached into my desk for a book and froze. My fingers hit something sticky.
A used pad.
Even though I’d given Ruth exactly what she wanted, she wasn’t done with me–not even close.
Then it got worse. Homework? Gone. Textbooks? Doodled all over with the nastiest insults you could imagine. Random strangers on the street? Whispering, throwing out lirty words as I passed.
Finally, one classmate stepped up, her voice shaky. “Suri, this is… too much, Should we tell the teacher? Or, I don’t know, the police?”
I turned them all down.
It wasn’t until the halls were empty, the school eerily quiet, that I climbed up to the rooftop and let out a laugh.
Ruth was such an idiot.
Sure, she could follow my lead, but she’d never get rich.
She might even end up dead.
Compared to that, her little pranks? Nothing.
When Ruth shoved me against the wall, her hand clamped around my throat, I wasn’t even surprised.
Her bloodshot eyes locked on mine, blazing with fury. “What’s going on? You said Jeremy would get rich–why didn’t it happen like that?”
“What do you mean?” I asked calmly.
She flinched, her voice cracking. “Nothing happened that night! Nothing!”
