Vagabonds

Chapter One: Life at Meru

If there's a hell, I bet Meru Academy could give it a run for its money, Eliza thought as she made her way across campus, shouldering her backpack and glaring at the intricate Latin that decorated the arch of the Liberal Arts building. She rolled her eyes at the pretentiousness of it.

A Liberal Arts building for a high school? Please.

But after the fourth time Eliza had gotten into a fight at school, her parents had made up their minds. There had been no discussion, no bargaining, just a sit-down at their mahogany dinner table and a stern command.

You're going to boarding school, Elizabeth Mason, and that's final.

Now, with a frustrated sigh, Eliza waited on the steps beneath the inscribed Latin as she watched the other students milling through the double doors, all on their way to homeroom or gym or advisor meetings or the parking lot behind the athletic facility where they could get high while cutting class.

No one so much as looked at her.

Guess that's what I get when the most popular girl in school hates my guts.

"Howdy," came a familiar voice from behind her.

Eliza's brooding scowl cracked down the middle as one side of her mouth twitched up.

"Joe, you can't say howdy and not expect to have your head shoved in a toilet."

"Aw, come on, that's old-school stuff. No one does that anymore." Joe leapt up the final stair. "Besides, who would hit a kid with glasses?"

Eliza couldn't help but chuckle as her best friend in the world — well, her only friend really — stood beside her, those very same glasses winking in the morning sun. Joe Fagan was cursed with an endlessly entertaining last name, coke-bottle glasses, and skin so pale that it looked almost translucent, except for the spattering of freckles. It didn't matter that he was tall and handsome in a rangy sort of way. He was a nerd who read books older than their headmaster and watched more Marvel movies than was good for him. If it weren't for the fact that his parents ran the most successful news outlet in the United States — Hermes News Network, HNN for short — he would have spent his days shoved in lockers and picking his lunch off the cafeteria floor.

Which meant that he and Eliza basically had to be friends.

Eliza opened her mouth to greet him when a burly hockey player knocked into Joe from behind.

"Watch where you're walking, queer."

Joe grabbed Eliza's shoulder with one arm as she made to lunge after the jock, ready to tackle him from behind.

"Let me go," Eliza snarled, but Joe just adjusted his glasses with his free hand.

"That dumb Neanderthal didn't even get it right," Joe said with a half-smile. "My last name is similar to faggot," he shouted into the swinging doors. "At least insult me correctly."

Eliza took a deep breath, glaring into the bustling entrance hall.

"Why do you always have to be such a pacifist?" she said, shrugging off his hand.

"What can I say, the sight of blood makes me queasy. Come on, Rambo, let's get to homeroom."

Eliza followed Joe inside. She was already seething and it was only eight o'clock. And the heady atmosphere of a school on Friday was only making it worse. Everyone was talking about the parties and dances they were going to that weekend, some driving as far as Boston to spend their parent's money and make bad choices. But of course, Eliza and Joe would be here. Him because he had no interest in being a proper teenager. And her because her parents had cut her off, taking the car and the credit card away to 'ensure good behavior'.

"I'm not, you know."

Eliza started, pulled from her thoughts as Joe bumped into her shoulder.

"What?"

"Gay. Not that I have anything against the idea," he said, the words tumbling out of him. "I'm sure it would be awesome to be gay. Then at least I could respond to them with an enthusiastic hell yeah." Eliza laughed as Joe continued. "But I'm not."

"Joe, I've seen your collection of Taylor Swift posters."

He ducked his head, pale cheeks flushing with color.

"Too many?"

She shoved him gently.

"Come on, you weirdo, we're late."

Eliza and Joe were the last to enter homeroom, which of course made things more awkward than usual. Mrs. Henderson immediately launched into her disapproving lecture about timeliness and work ethic, but Eliza wasn't listening. She could feel the eyes on her, hot with malice and cunning. The female student population at Meru seemed to think that Eliza was a barely tamed zoo animal, still reeking of the wild. She guessed that the stories about her last school — where she'd been suspended twice for bloodying a bully's nose — had circulated enough to give her what her mother would call a reputation. But not enough to make them back off. If anything, it was like they were poking her. Looking for a weakness, a button, a trigger. Wanting to be around to watch the show.

And it didn't help that deep down, Eliza wanted to give them one.

Finally released from the early bird gets the worm sermon, Eliza followed Joe to the back of the classroom, hunching her shoulders to avoid the haughty stares. Worst of all was Tori Bent, as beautiful and cruel as a winter storm.

And unfortunately, Eliza's roommate.

"Did you get lost on the way to class?" Tori hissed as Eliza slid into her seat, Joe taking the one behind her.

Eliza made a coughing sound shaped suspiciously like the word harpy.

"Look, I know we aren't exactly friends —" Eliza snorted "— but I want to make it up to you. The girls and I are having a bit of a, shall we say, affair in the woods tonight. By the Fitzgerald Base fence. You know, that clearing off Exit Two."

Suspicion prickled along Eliza's arms. Disgruntled by the sudden appearance of a roommate in what had been a private room the year before, Tori had taken on the mission to exclude or humiliate Eliza as if it were her holy calling. So Eliza knew there must be something more to the affair than Tori was letting on. Especially since Joe was kicking her seat from behind in silent warning.

"I think I'll pass," Eliza said, swallowing the urge, the need even as it welled inside her.

"Come on, are you scared?"

It was as if Tori knew the passcode to Eliza's brain. She fought it, tried to breathe through it, but the instinct to prove herself ran marrow deep. Ever since Katie's death, Eliza hadn't been able to resist a call to action. A way to stand out.

A dare.

And this was just that.

"Fine," Eliza said, ignoring Joe's foot now hammering on the underside of her molded plastic chair. "What time should I be there?"