3. Quinn

3

QUINN

" W e're sorry to do this to you, sweetheart. It's for your own good. Your education is more important than anything else. More important than fleeting friendships that won't last." My mother squeezed my hand.

Next to her, my dad nodded. "We just want what is best for you. A clean break is what you need. Time away from those bad influences in your life. My secondment to the Swiss office came at just the right time. You'll soon forget about Hatherley Hall and those people you should never have come into contact with. Especially that Roman Cavendish. Mark my words, that boy will end up expelled, and it wouldn't surprise me if he ends up in prison with the way he's going."

My dad tugged my phone from my grip, ignoring my shocked gasp.

"A clean break," he repeated, throwing my phone into his desk drawer and then slamming it shut. "That's what you need. No more contact with anyone from that school. We know the Cavendish boy was mostly to blame for your grades dropping. He was your biggest distraction, and we should have done something about it sooner. But he wasn't the only one." Exchanging glances with my mum, he placed a heavy hand on my shoulder. "I know some of the other students were your friends, but you'll forget about them when we're gone. Your grades are the most important thing, Quinn. You'll thank us in the long run."

The rest of the day was mostly uneventful, and I managed to avoid Roman. I didn't get to speak to Aria again, as she was nowhere to be found. Thankfully, Penelope came to find me after the assembly, and we ate lunch together, surrounded by the popular girls. Penelope's roommate, Freya, was at a netball team meeting, so my first interaction with her was delayed, and I was grateful for that. Although I'd probably been building everything up too much inside my head, the thought of more than one confrontation on my first day back was enough for me.

When the warning bell rang to inform us that curfew was thirty minutes away, I was already in my dorm room, collapsed on my bed, earphones in and an audiobook playing on my phone. My roommates were nowhere to be seen—my guess was that they were in the common room. Each house had its own common room, shared between two school years. Our common room was located on the same floor as my dorm, and Epi students from years twelve and thirteen, aka A-level students, shared it. In the daytime, it was mostly used as a study area, but in the evenings, it played host to board games, card games, film nights, gossip sessions, students flirting with each other…all the usual stuff, I guess. The staff generally turned a blind eye as long as everything remained discreet and no one got too loud. I should have been there, integrating myself with the members of my house and reforging old acquaintances, but the day had been a little draining, and I needed some peace. To be back at Hatherley Hall, surrounded by so many people…it had been everything I'd wanted since I'd left here the first time, but it was a big change after over two years of being homeschooled.

The door suddenly swung open, and I reached for my phone, pausing my audiobook and removing my earphones. Three girls piled into the room, the first one stopping dead when she saw me, and the other two crashed into her back with muffled cries.

From the back, Aria stepped around the other two girls, throwing them an eye roll, then turned to me. "Meet Quinn. Despite being one of the goddesses, she's actually nice."

"Ugh. Don't start with that whole gods-and-goddesses thing." Grimacing, I returned her eye roll with one of my own. It was like no time had passed between us.

She just laughed. "You can't deny it. You were one before, and you'll be one again."

There was a tradition at Hatherley Hall—every May, there was a Greek gods and goddesses–themed ball. Each ball had a slightly different theme, but it was always based around Greek mythology.

I loved the ball itself—who wouldn't love a chance to dress up, dance, and have fun with all your friends in a beautifully decorated space? But part of the ball was essentially a popularity contest, where people would vote for their favourite gods and goddesses in the run-up to the ball, and towards the end of the evening, the winners would be announced. When I was younger, I'd always hoped to be voted as one of the goddesses, for the crown styled like a laurel wreath to be placed on my head, cementing my place as one of the elite. The year I left Hatherley Hall, I'd become one. I'd been the youngest-ever goddess, according to the then-head girl, and apparently, I'd narrowly beaten Penelope to the spot—if the head girl at that time had been telling the truth since the votes were supposed to only be seen by the staff. Of course, Penelope was nothing but happy for me, even though it meant that she missed out on the prize—although we both agreed there was no way of knowing if it was true.

This time around, things had changed. While my mother would no doubt love nothing more than for me to be one of the goddesses, especially since she was a Hatherley Hall alumni and had been a goddess two years running during her time as a student, I didn't want that.

Because there was no doubt in my mind that Roman would be one of the gods.

He'd always affected me, had always been beautiful, but now? He took my breath away. That chiselled jaw, those deep blue eyes, like the depths of the ocean, fringed with thick, inky lashes, his raven hair, artfully dishevelled, falling into his eyes, that body I'd felt pressed against me today—all lean, toned muscle, no doubt from his hours of swimming and rowing and whatever else he did to get such definition—and that sexy, low rasp to his voice that sent shivers through me. Whether or not he was still a troublemaker, there was no denying how utterly gorgeous he was. Not to mention, it seemed like he was friends with Tristan now, who was the head boy, and that more or less guaranteed him a place as one of the gods.

"I have no interest in being one of the goddesses," I said firmly, and Aria raised a brow.

"You might not get any choice. Everyone's eligible." She seemed to read something in my face because she gave a small shake of her head and stepped closer. "Anyway, enough about that. Quinn, meet Samira and Gracelyn, our roommates."

I recognised both of them, although I'd never spoken to either of them before. Samira was striking, all dark hair and flawless brown skin, and Gracelyn was a pretty redhead with pale skin dotted with freckles.

They both eyed me curiously, and before the silence became awkward, I spoke up. "It's nice to meet you both. Thanks for letting me crash here."

"It wasn't like we had a choice." Samira's reply was accompanied by a smirk that changed into a bright, genuine smile, and I relaxed. "Only joking. Welcome back to Hatherley Hall." Glancing over at her friends, she grinned. "Grace is my girlfriend, by the way. I thought I should mention it upfront in case things get awkward if you start wondering why we're all over each other."

I glanced between them both, taking in the way they were curled around each other. "I did wonder, but honestly, I miss the signs all the time, so thanks for telling me."

Samira's grin widened. "No probs. Hey, we'll have to introduce you to our other new friend, Elena. Wait, Aria, have you already introduced her?"

We chatted for a bit, and I relaxed even further. By the time the curfew bell rang, I was curled up on Samira's bed in pyjamas and a hoodie, catching up on everything I'd missed while I'd been gone, while Gracelyn painted her toenails in rainbow colours and Aria sketched something that she refused to show to any of us. Now the bell had rung, we had around ten minutes before we had to be in bed with the lights out, so we all made our way to our own beds.

Aria leaned into me as she passed. "One hour."

I gave a small nod, climbing into my bed and discreetly waking up my phone under the covers, turning the screen brightness right down and making sure it was on silent. I passed the hour by playing games on my phone, and once I heard Aria's bed creak, I made myself wait another few minutes before slipping out of the room into the silent, dark corridor.

The corridors were occasionally patrolled by security, but in a building this large, it was easy to avoid them, especially since their numbers were minimal. They were mostly concerned with covering the grounds, anyway, stopping anyone who might want to sneak out. Inside, they relied more on the cameras sparsely dotted around the school, but once you knew where they were, it was fairly easy to avoid them. There were no cameras in the old bell tower, either, since the entire area was off limits to students. The entrance was completely blocked off, and most people had forgotten all about it. Except…Aria had found the hidden entrance, through a small door under a set of stairs. It looked like a cupboard—in fact, it was a cupboard—but it had another exit on the other side, which opened onto the set of stairs that led up to the tower.

I made my way to the cupboard, which Aria had left ajar for me, and once I was inside, I flipped on my phone torch so I could see the bit to push on the panelled wood that doubled as an interior opening for the bell tower door. It opened with a soft creak, and then I was out on the other side with the cool night breeze snaking down the stairs and wrapping around me.

Pulling my hoodie sleeves down over my hands and tugging my hood up, I made my way up the stairs to the room right below the ruins of the top level, where the bell had once stood. Aria was on a blanket on the floor, leaning her back against the wall with her legs outstretched and a joint already in her hand.

Crossing the room, I took a seat on the blanket next to her. "Where do you manage to get these things?" I indicated towards the joint clasped between her fingers.

"I have my ways." After inhaling deeply, she held it out to me, but I shook my head.

"No, thanks. I just want to get all this off my chest first, and I need a clear head to make sense of everything."

"Fair enough." She leaned her head back against the stone wall, exhaling a stream of smoke that the wind immediately whipped away through the sizeable gap where a window used to be. "Okay. I haven't had a proper conversation with you for over two years. So, I think it's time you caught me up."

Our eyes met, and there was no judgement in hers.

I opened my mouth and began.

I'd always had an expectation on me to be the perfect daughter. I was an only child, and my parents had provided me with everything I needed. Everything I needed, but not everything I wanted. They didn't believe in spoiling me, although I was never deprived of anything. Their primary goal for me seemed to be for them to have a child they could boast about to their friends and colleagues, a child who excelled at everything. No expense had been spared in my education and extracurricular activities. Ballet, tap, and jazz were three of the dance disciplines I was expected to perform. I played tennis, rode horses, and even learned to kayak (the only discipline I was allowed to choose myself). I was coached in French and German and played piano and violin. For any child, it would be a lot, and I was left constantly exhausted, under pressure to do better every time I achieved one of my parents' goals. When I received my letter of acceptance to Hatherley Hall, my parents threw me a huge party filled with all kinds of influential adults and very few people my age. Penelope had been there, though, and we'd escaped to my bedroom after the cake-cutting ceremony, which included an incredibly long, drawn-out performance from a string quartet. That night, I remember that the thing I felt most was a sense of relief and anticipation because Hatherley Hall meant getting away from my parents, and whatever the school pressures were, surely the other students would be dealing with similar pressures and expectations. We were all children of rich and influential people, after all.

Everything had gone well to begin with. I settled into the routine of school, carving out a place for myself. Penelope shared my dorm, and we'd stay up late talking about boys and our plans for the future, making up wild stories that a secret prince of some obscure European state would fall in love with us and take us back to his homeland to be his princess. Looking back, it was clear that we spent far too much time in our formative years watching The Princess Diaries .

As I grew older, though, the pressures gradually returned, with the weight of the expectations on me becoming clear again. My parents were friendly with several members of Hatherley Hall's staff, and they used their connections to stay updated on my progress. I'd receive regular messages and phone calls from my mother that would make it clear that my best wasn't good enough.

One day, I snapped. I'd been on my way to a biology lesson when everything had hit me all at once, the pressure suffocating me. I'd ducked into the toilets, and then afterwards…that was when I'd met Roman for the first time.

That first taste of rebellion, of the freedom to make my own decisions, was an addiction. I continued to meet up with Roman, I met and became clandestine friends with Aria, and I carried out small acts of rebellion—adapting my uniform, cutting classes, slacking on my homework, dabbling with contraband drugs and alcohol.

It didn't take long before word reached my parents. Their spies must've been almost everywhere because they somehow knew everything, except for my friendship with Aria, which had somehow remained a secret. It had to have because there was no way I'd have been allowed to room with her this year otherwise. It wasn't that they disliked her as such—it was more that in their eyes, she was useless because she didn't have an influential family name like my other friends did.

My punishment was taking me away from the school I loved. I also had to relinquish my phone, to cut ties with everyone and everything to do with Hatherley Hall, even Penelope.

Since my parents were moving overseas temporarily while my father took a secondment in Geneva, they took me with them. I was assigned tutors who homeschooled me, and while I threw myself back into my schoolwork to prove I wasn't a failure, I grew increasingly withdrawn. The simple truth was that I was lonely. So, so lonely. I missed my friends, my school, the daily routine, the old buildings surrounded by gorgeous English countryside. In Geneva, despite the beauty that was all around me and the people who welcomed our family, I was completely alone. My parents had a schedule, so I had no company day to day other than my tutors, with my father working long hours and my mother out doing whatever she did all day with her friends.

Eventually, things changed. My parents weren't monsters, and finally, their concern for me began to outweigh their need for me to succeed.

"What did they do?"

I blinked, my gaze flying to Aria at my side. I'd almost forgotten she was there; I'd been so lost in my memories.

"When we came back to England, they allowed me to come back here. I have conditions, though."

"Of course you do." She flicked the tiny stub that was left of her joint out of the window, then sighed. "Let me guess. You have to toe the line? Be the perfect student? Interact with the right people?"

"Quinn. We want to make this clear. We took you away from Hatherley Hall because your grades were slipping, and we'd received word that you'd taken up with unsavoury company." My dad clasped my shoulder. "Your mother and I don't want to see you suffer, and so we've re-enrolled you as a student at Hatherley Hall now my secondment has finished." His grip tightened. "We want you to do your best and succeed in the way we know you can. If we hear any whisper of you interacting with the Cavendish boy, or anyone who we know to be a bad influence, we will take action."

"I-I'm not planning on speaking to him," I whispered.

My dad smiled, satisfied. "Good. If Roman Cavendish comes near you, we will ensure he's expelled. Your mother and I have plenty of influence with the school board, and he already has a record. Stay away from him, and we won't have to worry about you."

"Yeah, all of that. I expected that, though. And although they've always put a lot of pressure on me to succeed, I have to look at it from their point of view. They're paying a lot of money for me to be here, and they don't want me to squander my education."

Aria's fingers tapped against the stone floor, her mouth thinning. There was silence while she gathered her thoughts, and then she spoke gently. "I get that, but, Quinn, it almost sounds like you're a commodity to them. They want you to do well because it makes them look good."

A lump came into my throat that I desperately tried to ignore. "I know," I whispered. "But that's okay."

It's not , she mouthed, shaking her head sadly, and I blinked again, sudden tears obscuring my vision.

"That's not even…there's something else. I'm not allowed to even speak to Roman. I can't be friends with him, and I definitely can't be anything more. If…if word gets back to my parents…it can't happen. They made it clear that they'd find a way to get him expelled. You know how he was in and out of all those different schools before he came here, and this is really his last chance." A tear crystallised on my lashes, then fell. "He's happy here. I could see that the second I saw him with Tristan. I can't do that to him. I can't risk it. This is his life, his future. If anything happened and I had a hand in it, I'd never forgive myself. My parents more or less blame him for my rebellious phase. I mean, it was easy enough for them to jump to conclusions, based on his reputation, but the thing was, it wasn't him. It was all me. I made all my own decisions, and I was the only one who deserved to face the consequences."

Aria studied me for a moment. "This is fucked up," she muttered. "You still like him, don't you?"

I pulled up my knees, resting my arms on them and dropping my head. "So much. It took me aback…I…I wasn't expecting to still have such strong feelings for him. The things I said to him, I—" My voice cracked. "The way he looked at me, Ari. I feel like the worst kind of monster for making it seem like he was nothing to me."

"Do you think it's worth telling him?"

"No. I know him, and I know he'd try and find some way around it. He lives for the thrill of danger, doing what he thinks he can get away with, without being caught."

"Yeah." She gave me a wry grin. "His arson stunt was talked about for months. But he's been quiet since then. I heard he was on his last warning."

"You see?" I raised my head to stare at her. "This is why I can't say anything. This is his last chance, and we're in our final year. I'm not going to do anything to jeopardise that for him."

"I—"

Whatever she was about to reply was lost with the unmistakable sound of footsteps on the stairs.