Private School Kings

A Royal Reception: Part 1

I should have known by this point that Pruitt would never stop surprising me. That's what I thought as I followed Heather and her friends through the woods. I hadn't even known there were woods out here, behind the field house. But there we were, in the thick of it. The path was clearly not Pruitt approved, just a thin line of packed dirt marred by branches and fallen logs. My guess was that it had been forged by students. Trekking over this same stretch of land until they permanently scarred the landscape. How very Pruitt of them, bending even nature to their will.

"Just a little further girls!" Heather's voice came from up ahead. It was the most enthusiastic I'd ever seen her. She was already swaying slightly in her heels, fueled by the bottle of Jäger dangling from her hand.

We were a bigger group than I expected. Most of the lacrosse girls, but not all of them, and other girls I didn't know, freshman, sophomores, juniors, and seniors most of them I've seen with Heather at one time or another. All of them dressed to the nines and all of them beautiful. If these are my competitors for Lord's Girl then I'm in trouble.

I didn't have too much time to think about it because in a couple of seconds the path widened out into a clearing. Not just any clearing either. It was a broad stretch of land and in the center was a crumbling mess of brick and metal, an old, condemned, building.

I couldn't speak, couldn't even force a whisper, but I didn't need to. Heather turned, her black dress billowing in the wind, and threw her arms up, looking only at me. "Welcome to the ruins!" She stumbled and Talia raised a hand to still her. I was still getting used to this new side of Heather, trying to figure out whether or not it was just a new facade.

"What is this place?" I mustered the words, leaning in so only Maggie Fortworth, fellow junior, could hear me.

Maggie looked at me like I was a piece of rotting food, but answered anyway. "It's part of the old campus. From like the late 1800s. They tried upkeep for a while, but it's fucking toxic. So they moved everything into the main buildings."

It seemed crazy to me, keeping a random extra building, one that took up so much space. I guess when you were rich it didn't matter. You could just build new buildings.

"Are the parties always here?" I asked.

"No," Maggie said it with a sneer like I was the most ignorant person she'd ever met. I thought she'd elaborate, but she didn't.

The next thing I knew we were at the doors, and I was staring up at the ornate carvings that ringed its frame. Pruitt Hawks. Sometimes I dreamed about those hawks, the ones that looked down from the parapets and adorned my jersey. Always watching. It was almost like they were hunting me. Like I was the prey.

Inside, the building had mostly held up. It was all sweeping ceilings, that while cracked, seemed stable. There were large ornate bookshelves lining the walls, long since emptied of books. They were like the whole place, like a husk, a shell. It was beautiful. All of Pruitt was beautiful, but this place was also eerie. I felt a little shiver as I noticed the imperfections in the plaster and the holes in the rug. There were a lot of messed up buildings in Lamoni, but none of them were like this. None of them had ever been beautiful.

The setting's dissonance was not the only disturbing thing. The other was the boys. They were already here, and they were so much stranger than our surroundings. It was boys I knew and ones I didn't. All Pruitt kids. From all different years. Except for freshman. I didn't see any freshman. They were all dressed in the same suit. Each one black, tailored and pressed with a golden crown emblazoned on the breast. All except for Tim Watson. The king.

Tim lounged in one of the room's few chairs. His suit was all white, with no crest, but on his head sat a golden crown. Not a costume one that you would get at a party store. A real, glinting, gold crown. His hair was gelled beneath it, slicked into its usual gentle waves, but today they didn't look inviting. He looked cold, and dangerous, every bit the calm collected leader.