Chapter 9
Andrea had braced herself for resistance when she ascended to the role of Queen, but she had not anticipated the storm of hostility that followed. The metaphorical crown weighed heavier than she could have imagined, each act of rebellion sharpening into a deliberate attempt to tear her down. What began as quiet defiance had transformed into a relentless assault on her authority.
The first blow came at breakfast. Sophie slid into the seat beside Andrea, late and uncharacteristically subdued. Her complexion was pale, her hands trembling as she toyed with her food. The usual spark in her eyes had been replaced by something brittle and broken.
“What happened?” Andrea’s voice was low but edged with concern.
Sophie hesitated, her gaze darting around the dining hall as if someone might be watching. Finally, she leaned closer, her voice barely a whisper. “They wrote on the bathroom mirror. Red lipstick. They called me a leech. Said I’m nothing without you.”
Andrea’s grip on her fork tightened, her knuckles whitening as anger surged through her. “Who?” she demanded, her tone colder than the morning air.
Sophie’s head shook, her eyes wide with unease. “I don’t know. It was there when I walked in.”
Andrea exhaled sharply, forcing herself to remain calm. Whoever had done this wanted her to react, to show weakness. She couldn’t afford to crack. Not now, not ever.
But the fury bubbling beneath her skin refused to be extinguished.
The harassment escalated quickly, each incident more calculated than the last. During lunch, Ethan—one of Andrea’s staunchest allies—found his locker ransacked. Its contents were scattered across the hallway like debris from a storm.
At the center of the mess, taped mockingly to the inside of the locker door, was a single playing card: the Joker. Red paint smeared across its surface dripped like fresh blood.
Andrea arrived just as Ethan stood frozen, his face pale and stricken.
The hall was a cacophony of laughter and whispers, the jeering red-tied elites reveling in their cruelty. Fury flared in Andrea’s chest, a wildfire igniting with a single breath.
“Who did this?” Her voice rang out, cutting through the noise like a blade. The chatter stilled, and all eyes turned to her.
The group of elites closest to Ethan smirked, their confidence radiating like heat. None of them answered, but their silence was telling.
Andrea stepped closer, her eyes narrowing. Her voice dropped, low and lethal. “Clean it up. Now.”
One of the boys, tall and broad-shouldered, stepped forward, his arms crossed in defiance. “And if we don’t?” he taunted, his tone dripping with mockery.
Andrea didn’t blink. She met his gaze, her own steady and unyielding. “You’ll regret it.”
The challenge hung heavy in the air. For a moment, the boy hesitated, his confidence faltering under the weight of Andrea’s stare. Then, with a muttered curse, he bent down to gather Ethan’s belongings. The others followed, their defiance crumbling as Andrea’s authority held firm.
Andrea knelt to help Ethan collect the rest of his things, her movements deliberate and calm. She could feel the weight of the stares around her, some impressed, others filled with resentment. This wasn’t victory—not yet. But it was a start.
The retaliation came swiftly, more insidious than before. Rumors began to spread through The Blackthorn like venom, each one more personal and cutting than the last. Scholarship students’ secrets, their struggles and vulnerabilities, were laid bare for all to mock. Notes began appearing in lockers, scrawled with cruel messages that struck like daggers to the heart.
Andrea wasn’t spared. One afternoon, she found a note tucked into her bag. The letters, cut from magazines like some sinister ransom demand, formed a message that hit her like a punch to the gut:
Your father gambled away your future. You’ll never escape his mistakes.
Her breath hitched as she read the words, the pain sharper than she expected.
Old wounds she thought long healed split open anew, the words cutting deeper than any whisper in the hall ever could. Andrea crumpled the note in her hand, her grip tight enough to wrinkle the paper into a ball. She shoved it into her pocket, but the sting lingered, haunting her like a ghost.
Her decrees, meant to protect the scholarship students, were openly challenged. In class, red-tied elites smirked and whispered as Andrea spoke, their defiance an open rebellion against her authority. During one heated moment, a girl with a sharp smile leaned back in her chair, her arms crossed.
“And what are you going to do about it?” the girl sneered.
Andrea’s jaw tightened, but her voice was steady, cold as ice. “You’ll find out if you keep pushing me.”
The room stilled, tension crackling like electricity. The girl’s smirk faltered for just a moment, but it was enough. Andrea stood her ground, her resolve unshaken despite the battle raging around her.
The fallout from the confrontation reached Andrea’s study session with Damien that evening. He sat across from her at the long oak table, flipping through his notes with the same calm efficiency he always exuded. But tonight, there was a glint in his eyes, sharp and calculating.
“You know,” he said, breaking the silence, “my family has a… method for handling rivals. Efficient, if not entirely ethical.” His tone was casual, almost conversational, but there was an edge to his words that made Andrea’s spine stiffen.
Her eyes snapped to his. “Are you suggesting I stoop to their level?”
Damien’s lips curled into a faint smile, the kind that never reached his eyes.
“I’m simply pointing out that power must be wielded decisively. It’s your choice how to use it.”
His gaze lingered on her for a moment longer before returning to his notes, leaving Andrea with a sour taste in her mouth. The weight of his words clung to her, dark and unsettling.
Nathaniel, on the other hand, didn’t bother with subtlety. When a teacher humiliated Andrea in front of her classmates, dismissing her as a “lucky scholarship case,” the elder Sinclair’s intervention was swift and absolute. By the next morning, the teacher was gone. No explanation. No farewell. Just an empty desk and an air of finality.
Andrea cornered Nathaniel in the hallway later that day, her tone sharp with accusation. “You didn’t have to do that.”
Nathaniel turned to her, his expression calm but tinged with an unmistakable authority.
“Of course I did,” he said, his voice matter-of-fact. “You’re the Queen. It’s necessary to ensure you’re treated accordingly.”
His words were a reminder of the precarious balance she had to maintain. Nathaniel’s presence was both a shield and a warning—a reminder of what it meant to wield power in Blackthorn.
Liam’s approach was lighter, but no less impactful. His diversions were loud and flamboyant, designed to draw attention away from Andrea and her supporters. One afternoon, the school was thrown into chaos when balloons filled with confetti erupted from the ceiling, followed by an impromptu fire alarm.
Andrea found him leaning casually against a locker afterward, his grin as bright as ever.
“Anything for my Queen,” he said with a wink, his tone breezy as if he hadn’t just orchestrated a scene straight out of a prankster’s playbook.
Despite herself, Andrea felt a flicker of gratitude. Liam’s antics might have been over the top, but they were a welcome reprieve from the unrelenting tension.
Gabriel’s support was quieter, almost invisible. Anonymous warnings began appearing in Andrea’s bag and locker, subtle hints about potential threats and traps laid by her enemies. Though he never openly acknowledged them, Andrea knew they came from him. The pain in his eyes whenever their paths crossed spoke volumes.
One evening, she caught him lingering near the library entrance, his expression shadowed with something unreadable.
Their eyes met for a fleeting moment before he turned and walked away, leaving Andrea with a mix of gratitude and heartache she couldn’t fully articulate.
Aiden, however, was a storm. His protective instincts manifested in raw, unrestrained violence. Andrea found him in the courtyard one afternoon, his knuckles bloodied and a red-tied student slumped against a wall, groaning in pain.
“Aiden,” she hissed, grabbing his arm. Her fingers tightened around his wrist, trying to pull him back. “What the hell are you doing?”
He shook her off, his dark eyes blazing. “Keeping their fucking mouths shut,” he growled. “They don’t get to talk about you like that.”
“This isn’t the way,” Andrea insisted, her voice trembling but firm. “You’re making it worse.”
Aiden’s gaze locked onto hers, raw and desperate. “You don’t understand,” he said, his voice cracking. “This is the only way. It’s the only thing they respect.”
But the breaking point came that night, sharp and brutal as a blade. Andrea pushed open the door to her dorm and froze, her breath catching in her throat. Sophie lay sprawled on the floor, her body motionless, her skin deathly pale. The room seemed to tilt, the edges of her vision blurring as panic surged.
“Sophie!” Andrea’s voice cracked as she dropped to her knees, her trembling hands reaching out to cradle her roommate’s face. Sophie’s skin was cold, her breaths faint and shallow, each one barely audible. Andrea shook her gently, her heart pounding in her chest. “Sophie, wake up! Please, wake up!”
Her desperate pleas echoed in the room, unanswered. Andrea’s gaze flicked upward, and her stomach twisted violently. On Sophie’s bed lay a playing card crown, its edges soaked in thick, crimson paint. The red dripped onto the pillow like blood, the stark contrast against the white fabric sickening.
________________
