BENNETT MAFIA

Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO

Thirteen years ago

“Riley, dear?”

I liked Mrs. Patricia. Most of our other instructors were mean, always snapping when they talked to us. Not Mrs. Patricia. She was nice, kind. She spoke in a soft voice, and maybe that’s why it took a few minutes before I realized she was calling my name.

We were taking a test. I was focused. Question sixteen was going to fail me. I knew it, but when I felt a tap on my shoulder from the student behind me, I jerked my head up.

Mrs. Patricia was standing at the door. The headmistress was beside her, and she was not wearing the same smile as my instructor. Wait. I sat up taller in my seat. The headmistress never came for me…and her forehead seemed pinched together, her always-disapproving mouth turned even farther downward now.

That’s when I took in Mrs. Patricia, really took her in. She wasn’t smiling at me. Well, she was, but it was lined with sadness and something else.

She motioned for me. “Can you come here, Riley?”

I started to feel the same numbness it had taken almost a year to shed as I stood from my desk.

Sympathy. I named her missing emotion then. She pitied me.

My mother…

I felt a ball in my throat, and it grew as I started toward her.

“Bring your test, Riley.”

The headmistress barked, “Bring everything! You’re not coming back.”

That got everyone’s attention. Their heads snapped up like mine had—those who hadn’t already been watching.

Mrs. Patricia stepped away, her lips pressing together as she shot the headmistress a look before approaching my desk. She bent to pick up my books.

Collecting everything for me, she nodded. “I’ll hold your things for you, Riley.”

I was in trouble? Was it my mom?

I tried to ask her with my eyes, but she wasn’t looking at me. In fact, as I walked next to her down the aisle and toward the door, she swallowed and looked away. She was now actively avoiding my gaze.

That wasn’t good. Not at all.

“Come, Riley.” There was that same curt tone from the headmistress. She flicked her hand to me, motioning toward the hallway. “You’re needed.”

I was needed? No one needed me.

But the headmistress was already striding away in brisk steps, and I hurried to catch up. I lowered my head, even though the hallways were empty. This was how I walked at Hillcrest. Brooke was the opposite. She held her head high, and her hands were always waving in the air. When she spoke, everyone listened, even if you didn’t want to.

That had started to grate on the nerves of some of the upperclassmen girls. I’d caught the envy and bitterness coming from them, but when I mentioned it to Brooke, she’d laughed and said, “What are they going to do? Take me out?” She’d been mocking as she added the last bit, but there was a roughness in her tone.

I never brought it up again. That wasn’t the normal Brooke I knew, but there were times I heard that side of her come out on the phone—when she was talking to her family. Always her family.

She was so secretive about them.

As I followed the headmistress down the hall, I’d assumed we would be going to her office, or even my room, but when she veered to the front entrance, I slowed down.

Going to the door, she turned and flicked her hand toward it, the same quick, sharp movement as before. “Your presence is needed outside.” Her hand smoothed down her pencil skirt and straightened her collar before she raised her chin and began to leave.

“Oh.”

I looked back at her.

A fierce frown clouded her face. Distaste flashed in her eyes. “You are not to speak a word of this to anyone. Do you understand?”

I nodded slowly.

She sniffed, rotating back around as if she were a soldier. “You are dismissed from all classes until Miss Bennett no longer needs your presence.”

And with that, she walked away, her heels clipping out a sharp staccato on the floor.