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SHE KNEW THEY WERE AFRAID OF HER.
Who wasn't afraid of Rory Hicks? She was the apex predator, stalking the halls. Capable of making anyone scatter like mice with a mere toss of her hair. She'd growl at a member of the crowd for merely her own amusement. Nothing made her feel more alive than when they cowered at her feet. Her hallways, her rules. The Queen Bee who couldn't quite keep a grip on her rule.
Because one ever expects for the ice queen to be melted down with such relentless flames. To leave her marked with so much red that she may never make a white dress trend again. Rory knew they talked about her. Her texts and social media DMs had been flowing with cut-and-paste "I'm so sorry about what happened to you" and loathsome 'get well soon's for the first day or two. Her second attack wasn't even reported on. The town was more caught up in the hospitalised state of old-town hero Dewey Riley and Then, she was old news. Until the scandal hit - boy, that did the trick. Amber Freeman was one of the killers, and God, did everyone know how much Rory and Amber hated each other. There were only speculative reasons why. Rory Hicks didn't need no fucking reason to hate somebody, they could smile at her the wrong way and be damned. She had a secret list of about a hundred reasons to hate Amber Freeman tucked away in the closet with her. But the gossip-hungry whispers were what made the return to school so daunting. It had been too long since Rory marked her territory and spun the narratives at her fingertips.
She felt it in the air the moment her car stopped in the parking lot. She couldn't even sit there to pull herself together because fuckers were already looking. Lights, camera, bitch, go. Her mind was still hazy from painkillers and her body still ached from the healing, but she was sure they weren't what was really affecting her breathing.
It was the moment some guy rushed to hold open the school's doors for Rory's grand entrance that she really felt them. Hallway silent, save for a few incoherent whispers that she could guess were of lies and surprise. And, of course, the clicking of her boots against linoleum designed to walk all over her victims. Her steps were a little more uncertain than usual. Dozens of wide-eyes begging for no attack watched Rory like they belonged to wounded hawks in a ravenous lioness' direct kill range. As she turns to her locker and silently commands that people turn back to their own, she can't help but let her mind drift. It was the whisper of 'You know she almost died too?' that got her. Would it have been more of a spectacle if she had died the perfect victim? These hormone-crazy losers were obsessed with a circus show after all. Now, it seemed like she got out of the massacre with a mere graze. Her mom and baby brother are the ones six feet under, aren't they?
