A Scarlett Ruin

Chapter One

Part I

Scarlett had never been the type to live in squalor, but there wasn't much to be said for her cramped dorm room. It smelt of stale weed and chokingly expensive perfume. The window was jammed shut – no one was quite sure when that had happened.

Her roommate had become a queen of dark glances and passive aggressive sighs with little conversation to break it up. There was a quite visible line in the middle of the room. It wasn't drawn on, but instead made up of the mess that the Hester had refused to clean up after the first month.

The perfectly made bed was what greeted Scarlett's eyes when she groggily blinked into the watery sun straining its way through the window.

And then the air was coloured a brilliant blue with curses burning the end of her tongue. Slept in again and Hester couldn't be fucked to toss something at her head. It was becoming a habit, somehow strangling her down into the bed despite the early hours she bundled herself in the blankets. The effort that had her swinging out of bed these days was almost herculean. There was already a throbbing beginning behind her eyes as she yanked the sweater over her head that was emblazoned with the school crest. It smelt strongly of the last night's dinner, but they all had crosses to bear.

The campus was rather ghostly by the time she managed to push her way out of the girls' dormitories. It was made of stone and gold and blue. Always aloof and just out of touch. It was practically something out of fucking Harry Potter, but coloured in a gloss that attempted to cover the grit beneath – like mouthwash on the breath of stale red wine and cigarettes.

When she pushed open the heavy door, it gave a treacherous groan, because of course it did.

It was only a little into her second month at the school, yet she was fixed with a rather familiar weary expression. Apparently they were both tired of meeting this way. She tilted her head in the face of it, feeling rather unimpressed by both the teacher and class.

"Miss Elliot," the professor greeted, "Always a pleasure."

There was a titter of laughter and raised eyebrows sent in her direction from the boys and girls that lined the classroom. Scarlett only smiled tightly in place, swinging into an empty seat that just happened to be right beside her beloved roommate. She was all rounded edges with broad cheekbones and dark skin that complimented the almost black eyes.

It was probably the heated look she was fixed with that had Hester edging away. "I didn't know you were bothered with class," she hissed just for Scarlett's ears.

She only fixed the girl with a flat look. "Would you fuck off?"

*

The Annandale Academy didn't manage to intimidate Scarlett, though it tried. Uniforms and posh accents aside, it was all too easy for her to shrug off. The walls may as well have been papered with money. Yearly tuition was nothing to be scoffed at, even for the wealthiest of families and they gave out pitifully few scholarships. Probably as an attempt to keep out the riff raff. It reeked of old money.

Scarlett had already done the private boarding school routine before to some rather poor results, though that time it had been in Switzerland. After being tossed out of that one, she'd finished up her school year at the family house in Upstate New York with the finest of tutors.

When that was determined to be far too much work, she was carted off to the prestigious school somewhere in the English countryside. She'd only been accepted after a rather hefty donation to the school. It was always nice to know what lengths were gone through in attempt to keep her on the other side of the ocean.