This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab Page B

look at her and see someone who deserved to be there. Because she’d be damned if she’d let him send her away, not this time.
    She’d fought her way here, and she’d fight to stay.
    I am my father’s daughter , she thought as she walked down the hall, arms at her side and head up, medallion and metallic nails glinting beneath the lights (she thought of the monstrous teeth shining in the footage, and it gave her strength). Eyes followed her through the halls. Lips moved behind cupped fingers. To every side, the students swarmed and parted, rushed forward and drew back like a wave, a flock of starlings. All together. All apart.
    â€œYou have to break them early,” her father once said. Of course, he’d been talking about monsters, not teenagers, but they had a lot in common. Both had hive minds; they thought—and acted—in groups. Cities and schools were both microcosms of life, and small schools came with their own delicate ecosystem.
    St. Agnes had been the smallest of the bunch, with only a hundred girls, while Fischer, her first private school, weighed in at a considerable six hundred and fifty. Colton Academy was four hundred strong, which was small enough to feel intimate but large enough toguarantee at least a modicum of resistance.
    It was natural—there were always those who wanted to challenge the ruling power, to stake their own claim to authority or popularity or whatever it was they were after, and Kate could usually pick them out within the first few days. They were a disruption to the hive mind, those few, and she knew she’d have to deal with them as soon as possible.
    All she needed was an opportunity to establish herself.
    And to her surprise, one presented itself almost immediately.
    She’d known there would be whispers about her. Rumors. They weren’t inherently bad. In fact, some of them were practically propagandistic. As she moved through the halls between classes, she cocked her head, catching the loudest ones.
    â€œI heard she burned her last school down.”
    â€œI heard she’s been to jail.”
    â€œI heard she drinks blood like a Malchai.”
    â€œDid you know she axed a student?”
    â€œPsychopath.”
    â€œKiller.”
    And then, as she stepped into her next class, she heard it.
    â€œI heard her mother went crazy.”
    Kate’s steps slowed.
    â€œYeah,” continued the girl, loud enough for her to hear. “She went crazy, tried to drive them off a bridge.” Kate set her bag down on a desk, and ruffled through it absently, turning her good ear toward the girl. “I heard Harker sent her away because he couldn’t stand to look at her. She reminded him of his dead wife.”
    â€œCharlotte,” whispered another girl. “Shut up.”
    Yes, Charlotte , thought Kate. Shut up .
    But Charlotte didn’t. “Maybe he sent her away because she was crazy, too.”
    Not crazy , Kate wanted to say. No, he thought she was young, thought she was weak like her mother. But he was wrong .
    She dug her nails savagely into her palms, and took her seat, eyes on the board. She sat like that all through class, head high, but she wasn’t listening, wasn’t taking notes. She didn’t hear a word the teacher said, didn’t care. She sat still and waited for the bell to ring, and when it did, she followed Charlotte out, and down the hall. Whatever class she had next wasn’t as important as this.
    When the girl detoured into the nearest bathroom, Kate followed, throwing the bolt behind her.
    Charlotte, pretty in such a boring way, was standing at the sink, retouching her makeup. Kate came up besideher, and began rinsing the crescents of blood from her palms. Then she tucked her hair behind her ear, showing the scar that traced her face from temple to jaw. The other girl looked up, found Kate’s gaze in the mirror, and had the audacity to smirk. “Can I help