The Devouring Gray(13)
And the only thing Harper could do about that was something she should’ve done the second she realized he’d abandoned her.
She could let Justin Hawthorne go.
Harper turned back toward the front of her classroom. She wondered how long it would take before Violet was sitting in the back of the room on purpose, in the spot that should’ve been hers.
She wondered if she would ever truly be able to stop herself from caring.
Violet arrived home from her first day of school to unfamiliar cars parked in front of her new house. Her first day at Four Paths High School had been the complete opposite of her high school in Ossining—her classes were tiny to the point where Violet recognized most of her grade by the end of the day. Her muscles ached from the effort of biking, but taking the Porsche to school was out of the question. Rosie had been driving when her car was T-boned by a semitruck. Violet hadn’t touched a steering wheel since.
She yanked her bike over the rough gravel of the driveway, frowning at the vehicles. A flurry of exterminators and cleaners had swept through the mansion since they’d moved in, but this many at one time seemed excessive.
As she dragged the bike through the garden, a series of deep, throaty barks rang out from behind the porch. Two gigantic mastiffs, one black, one mottled brown, padded forward. They were chained to the rotting wood of the railing.
The look in their eyes reminded her of the boy who’d been reading in the Diner, who’d been so hostile to her in homeroom—a quiet, menacing confidence that could only come from creatures too dangerous to be frightened. Violet had seen the boy and his friend—Isaac and Justin, those were their names—engaged in some kind of intense meeting in the courtyard after school, along with a blond girl who looked so much like Justin that she had to be his sister.
There was something eerie about the way everyone automatically deferred to them; how the other students had practically lunged out of their seats to say hello when the boys had walked into her homeroom. In Westchester, the popular kids had been standard-issue athletes and student body presidents who were headed straight for the Ivy League. This trio was something different.
They weren’t the kings and queens of Four Paths High School—they were its gods.
“Good boys.” Violet leaned her bike against the opposite side of the porch. “Nice giant, possibly people-eating dogs.”
She pushed through the front door, wondering who would want to own an animal that could probably bite off a limb if you made it angry.
Inside was sloppy, chortling laughter and faint, twangy music. Violet followed the noise to the living room, where maybe twenty adults stood in small clumps, drinks in their hands, heads bobbing to the country music playing on Juniper’s high-end speakers.
The scene was bizarre. Her mother hated parties. And besides, they hadn’t even been in Four Paths a week. How had she possibly rounded up this many old friends?
Violet made the executive decision to hide in her room until the party was over. But before she could flee, her name was squealed at a pitch only the mastiffs outside should’ve been able to hear.
“Violet Saunders!” A Black woman Violet recognized from homeroom tugged her into the room, her dark braids twisted atop her head. “So good to see you again.”
Violet resisted the powerful urge to run. “Thanks,” she said. “Good to see you too, Mrs., uh…”
“Mrs. Langham, honey.”
Another woman sidled up to them, this one pale-skinned and freckled. Two chunky stone bracelets adorned her wrists. “And I’m Ma Burnham. Or at least, Ma to everyone under twenty-five.”
Violet shook Ma Burnham’s hand. The woman’s beady gaze was narrow, assessing. “You’re Juniper’s daughter?”
Violet nodded. “Yes.”
“You look like her.”
It was the first time Violet had ever heard that. Rosie and Juniper were the ones who looked alike—frizzy hair, round faces, wide smiles with slightly crooked incisors. Violet had her father’s thick, straight hair and an inability to step outdoors without getting sunburned—something Rosie, who loved to tan in the backyard while sketching, had never worried about.
But Rosie was gone now. She and Juniper were the only ones left.
“I guess,” she said hoarsely. “So, you were friends of my mom’s?”
Mrs. Langham chuckled and nodded. “As friendly as someone like her would be with the likes of us, sure.”
“What do you mean?” Violet asked.
The women exchanged quiet, knowing glances as they sipped from their wineglasses.
“None of you founders were ever really friends with us.” There was a bitterness in Mrs. Langham’s voice that Violet hadn’t noticed before. Now it was all she could hear. “You’ve always had other things to worry about.”
“Founders?” Violet echoed.
“Now, Clara.” Ma Burnham placed a warning hand on Mrs. Langham’s arm. “You have to understand, Violet, she doesn’t intend to speak badly of your mama. You can’t blame her for leaving us, really, especially after all that nasty business with Stephen….”
Another name Violet didn’t recognize. But before she could ask about that, too, a low, cool voice cut both women off.
“Gossiping, I see.” The white woman who’d joined them was a behemoth of a person, muscular but regal, a queen and a bodyguard all wrapped up into one. “Don’t you ladies think you’ve told her enough nonsense for one evening?”