Page 15 of Lessons in Cruelty

Time to return the favor.

Unlike her, I’m going to take my sweet fucking time.

Chapter 5

Haven

“Hey, you’re holding up the queue.”

I jerk out of my thoughts, glancing at the guy behind me. He rolls his eyes at me, and I snap my attention back to the cashier. The bored-looking girl glances down at my bottle of orange soda and then back at me.

“That all?” she drones.

“Uh, yeah, thanks.” I smooth out the rumpled bill I found in my jeans before handing it to her.

The food in the cafeteria smells fucking delicious. It looks even better. I walked past lasagna, pizza slices, mac ’n cheese, health rolls overflowing with lettuce and tomatoes. But despite my growling stomach, this crumbled bill is all I have on me at the moment. I can’t even afford the peanut butter cups I was ogling on the shelves of candy near the register.

Hopefully, this sugary soda will see me through my next two classes.

The cashier hands me back barely any change. At the impatient sigh of the guy behind me, I don’t hang around to make sure she got it right, I just move the hell out of his way.

A low drone fills the cafeteria.

Students chatting to each other, or watching videos on their phones. Chairs and cutlery scraping.

I twist open my soda and take a few slugs as I head for an empty seat. Two sets of large glass doors lead into an immaculately landscaped garden on the west side of the main building. The open doors let in a warm summer breeze. Probably the last we’ll be getting this year.

Fall comes early in Agony Hollow, and there’s always two to three weeks of heavy rains to signal the end of summer.

I’d love to go sit outside, but then I’d have to wind my way through a bunch of tables, and I’m really not in the mood to make eye contact with anyone⁠—

“Great,” someone mutters.

I’d been staring out at the garden reaching to pull out a chair, but I stop at the sound of a voice a foot away from me.

It’s the redhead from Professor Rooke’s class. She has her phone in her hand, and she’d been reaching for the same chair as me.

We stare at each other a second before she says, “Share?”

I give her a quick nod, and we both pull out a chair and take a seat opposite each other.

Light glitters off the metallic thread doodled like abstract art over her black designer top. She’s not the first student I’ve seen wearing clothing I’d expect to see in a Wall Street investment firm.

I guess the kids around here dress for the CEO position they want, not the trust funds they have.

She brushes invisible lint off her fitted beige slacks, glances at the soda in my hand, and then gives me a millisecond-quick smile. “Soda’s really bad for you,” she says, holding up her can of diet cola.

My laugh turns heads and heats my face. The redhead just shakes her head and takes a sip from her can.

I twist my cap on, then off. On. Off. Trying to work up the courage to say something. Fucking anything.

“Melissa,” she says, and then points at me. “Haven, right?”

“How—”

She waves away the question. “Slow news day.”

I give her a grudging smile.