Page 1 of Ruthless Court

Prologue

HANNAH

By seven fifteen on the morning Ryan McBride is supposed to ask me to prom, I have stolen approximately two hundred dollars’ worth of my mother’s face.

Her Dior lipstick.

Her waterproof mascara.

Three careful drops of the perfume she saves for weddings, funerals, and restaurants with cloth napkins.

I consider borrowing her foundation too, but Mom and I are not the same shade. Arriving at school with an orange jawline might weaken the romance.

The lipstick is called Rosewood Blush.

In the gold tube, it looks elegant.

On me, it says I tried very hard not to look like I tried.

Perfect.

I lean closer to the bathroom mirror and press my lips together.

My dark hair falls past my shoulders after forty minutes with a blow-dryer, a round brush, and enough smoothing serum to waterproof a small animal. The pale-blue shirt I ironed last night is clean, tucked into my best jeans, and free of the red licorice dust that mysteriously appears on everything I own.

I look pretty.

Not Brooke Ellison pretty.

Brooke is the kind of girl who enters a room and makes every other person look temporarily unfinished.

I look more like the intelligent best friend in a movie who removes her glasses during the final twenty minutes and shocks everyone by having cheekbones.

Except my glasses are staying.

My contacts declared war before breakfast. The left lens scraped my eye until I started blinking like I was sending an emergency message in Morse code.

I slide on the oversized tortoiseshell frames.

My eyes triple in size.

The intelligent best friend returns.

“Work with what you have,” I tell my reflection.

The girl staring back looks terrified.

I add another swipe of lipstick.

Better.

Today, Ryan is asking me to prom.

He hasn’t said those exact words, but he has spent the past week behaving like a boy hiding either a surprise or a body.

He asked whether I liked public gestures.

He wanted to know what color dress I might wear.