4

MERRIELLYNN.

I sat in the chair across from Mr. Aldridge, hands folded in my lap, trying to look like someone who hadn't just agreed to be a boy's personal puppet for the foreseeable future. Cormac sat beside me, perfectly composed, legs stretched out like he owned the room. Which, knowing his family's donation history to this school, he practically did.

Mr. Aldridge looked between us, his reading glasses perched low on his nose.

"I don't need to tell either of you how inappropriate today's disruption was." He folded his hands on the desk. "This school has a reputation to uphold. What happened in that auditorium was nothing short of a circus."

Cormac tilted his head slightly. "I completely agree, sir."

I wanted to throw something at him.

"Mr. Wilder." The headmaster leaned forward. "We have reason to believe you organized what happened today. Would you like to tell me your side of things?"

Cormac let out a breath that almost sounded like a laugh. "I was as shocked as everyone else, sir. I don't know why my name got pulled into this."

I stared at the wall straight ahead.

"Miss Forbes." Mr. Aldridge turned to me. "The signboard referenced your name specifically. Do you have any explanation for that?"

"No, sir," I said quietly. "I didn't organize anything. I don't know why my name was on it."

There was a pause. Mr. Aldridge studied me for a long moment, and I held his gaze as steadily as I could, even though my insides were doing something horrible and anxious.

He sighed.

"I'm going to be honest with both of you. Without concrete proof of who organized this, my hands are somewhat tied. But I want to be very clear." He looked at Cormac, then at me. "If anything like this happens again, there will be serious disciplinary action. Are we understood?"

"Yes, sir," we both said.

And that was it.

We were dismissed with a warning each and sent back into the hall.

I walked out first, moving quickly, needing distance and air and at least three walls between Cormac Wilder and me. My footsteps were fast and sharp against the tile floor. Students were still filtering out of the auditorium nearby, and I could already feel eyes following me. Whispers threading through the crowd.

That's her. Merrielynn Forbes. The girl from the assembly.

I kept my head down.

I made it almost to the main corridor before his voice caught me.

"Hey."

I stopped. Not because I wanted to. Mostly because my body had apparently already decided to start taking orders from him, and the thought made me sick.

I turned slowly.

Cormac was leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets, watching me with that same unbothered expression he always wore. Like the world was a mildly entertaining show and he had a permanent front row seat.

"Saturday morning," he said. "Nine o'clock. There's a fundraiser on the east lawn. You're going to help set it up."

I blinked. "That's a student council event."

"I know."

"I'm not on student council."

"I know that too." He pushed off the wall and started walking in the opposite direction. "Nine o'clock, Merrielynn. Don't be late."

He disappeared around the corner.

I stood there for a second, breathing through my nose.

Then I turned and walked in the opposite direction, because there was nothing else to do.

---

Emorie was waiting for me by my locker. She had her arms crossed and her expression was doing that thing it did when she was trying very hard to be patient.

"Okay," she said the moment I reached her. "What happened in there? What did Aldridge say? And more importantly—" she grabbed my arm— "did Chaos actually orchestrate a strip show with your name on a sign? Because if he did, Mer, that is insane."

"It was one guy," I said. "Not a full strip show."

"He was naked."

"He had shoes on."

Emorie stared at me. "That is not the part I need you to focus on right now."

I opened my locker and leaned my forehead against the cool metal door. The whole afternoon had settled on me like something heavy and wet, the kind of tired that wasn't really about sleep.

"Aldridge let us both off with a warning," I said. "No proof, nothing to pin on either of us officially."

"And Chaos?"

I pulled my bag out and straightened up. "He got a warning too."

Emorie looked like she didn't fully believe me, which was fair, because there was clearly more I wasn't saying. She had always been good at reading the space between my words.

"Mer." Her voice dropped. "Did something happen between you two? Before or after? Because you look—"

"I'm fine," I said. "Just tired."

She let it go, but barely. I could see it sitting on the edge of her expression, waiting.

We walked out of school together into the grey afternoon, the kind of Friday sky that couldn't decide between rain and cloud. Everything felt muted and dull. Students spilled out around us onto the front steps, loud and relieved in that end-of-week way, already making plans and laughing about the assembly like it was a good story.

To them, it probably was.

I pulled my jacket tighter.

Somewhere behind me, I heard Cormac's name thrown around in a conversation, someone saying something about how unbelievable he was, how untouchable. There was genuine admiration in the voice.

I thought about Saturday morning. Nine o'clock. East lawn.

I thought about the photos on his phone, and how easily he'd dropped them in my lap like they were nothing. Like my future was just a card he could play whenever the moment suited him.

I thought about the way he'd smiled when I said okay.

And I realized with a cold, sinking clarity that agreeing hadn't been the end of anything.

It had been the beginning.