Jerk-off surveys me calmly, not stepping out of the way. “I take it you’re the new girls,” he observes. “I heard you were coming.”
“Glad you got cc’ed on the e-mail,” I retort. “Oh wait, I forgot. You don’t have e-mail at this godforsaken place.”
His mouth quirks in a small smile. “And you’re supposed to be ... slayers of some sort?” he asks, giving Sunny a skeptical look.
“I swear they’re letting anyone in these days,” mutters the blonde to Jerk-off’s right. She shrugs her cloak over her shoulder, revealing a perfect hourglass figure accented by a brown leather corset and a long, midnight blue, Victorianesque skirt that falls to her feet. Suddenly I feel super underdressed in my black sweater accented only by Sunny’s dried-up snot.
But cool outfit or no, she’s so not getting the best of me. “They let you in, didn’t they, Little Red Riding Hood?” I sneer. I can feel Sunny poking me hard in the ribs, but I ignore her.
“Now, now, Little Slayer,” Jerk-off scolds. “Take care. Here at Riverdale, we’re taught to speak to our superiors only when spoken to.”
“I’ll have to keep that in mind if I run into anyone superior here.”
Jerk-off chuckles. “What school did you transfer from?” he asks, his voice filled with amused curiosity.
“School? Please.” I roll my eyes. “I, Rayne McDonald, was trained personally, one-on-one by Slayer Inc.’s vice president, Mr. Teifert, himself.” There, that ought to give me some street cred with these losers.
Instead, to my surprise, the group looks at one another, then bursts out laughing. “So you were home-schooled?” The red-headed girl standing next to the blonde chuckles. She’s wearing a short gold dress with black tights and platform heels and is the spitting image of Miley Cyrus. “That’s so ADORABLE.”
Argh! Of all the ... I mean ... ARGH! I squeeze my hands into fists, fury pumping through my veins. That bitch. I swear if I wasn’t a vegetarian vampire trying to keep a low profile in a school full of slayers, I’d so bite the crap out of her.
Instead, I raise my fists. “I’ll show you adorable. Right up your effing—”
“Rayne! Stop it!” Sunny hisses, this time stamping on my foot to get my attention. I look over angrily and she wags her finger at me. “Remember what Headmistress Roberta said,” she warns.
“Yeah, Rayne,” mocks the shorter boy, who’s stocky and wearing a tool belt lined with wooden stakes. “Remember what Headmistress Roberta said.”
I swallow hard, forcing my hands down to my sides. “Fine,” I manage to spit out. “But I’ll have you know, I’m no babe in the slayer woods just because I didn’t go to your stupid boarding school. I’ve taken down two big-bads through this so-called home-schooled program. And that doesn’t even count all the werewolves. All while you have been stuck reading, writing and ‘rithmatic’ing here at Riverdale I’ll bet.”
Jerk-off smiles nastily at me, then turns to the Miley Cyrus girl and nods. “Varuka, do you want to break it down for Home School?”
Varuka pulls out a small pad of paper from her Betsey John-son purse and flips through it. “Peter has staked seventeen vampires in total,” she reads. “Mara has eight under her belt—but she just transferred last year. Leanna”—she nods in the direction of corset girl—“has killed twenty-seven, though some of them were during the burning lair assignment. You tend to rack up kills pretty quickly that way. I just hit sixteen yesterday ...”
“And I, Corbin Billingsworth the Third,” interrupts Jerk-off, “have slain sixty-three since arriving at Slay School.” He pulls off his sunglasses and stares me down with flashing, cat-like green eyes. “All stakes, Little Slayer,” he adds, mockingly. “And all vampires.”
I swallow hard. Oh-kay then. Evidently they’re quite ... progressive ... here at Slay School. I’m suddenly really, really glad they can’t tell I’m a real-live vampire.
“Well, well,” I manage to say at last. “I stand corrected. And while I’d love to stay and pop the celebratory champagne for your oh-so-amazing feats of wonder and awe, my sister and I have to get back to the dorm. So if you lovely slayers will excuse us ...”
I attempt to elbow past them, but before I can break through, Corbin nods to Peter and the tool with the tool belt grabs me by the arms, whirling me around and effectively pinning me against his chest.
“Let me go!” I growl, struggling to free myself. But Peter just twists my arm, causing me to involuntarily squeal in pain.
“I’m sorry, Little Slayer,” Corbin says smoothly. “But you didn’t say ‘please.’”
Ooh, that does it. I’m so ready to kick some serious Slay School ass. Seriously, it’d be almost worth getting nano’ed just to get one good punch in ...
But no. For Sunny’s sake, I need to suck it up. “Fine,” I say, through gritted teeth. “May we, my good sir, PLEASE have permission to step away from your glorious presence for a short time?”
Corbin smirks and for a moment I think he’s actually going to deny me still, but then he nods his head at Peter. “Let her go,” he commands.
Peter does and I accidentally-on-purpose stomp on his foot as I stumble away. He howls in protest and Corbin’s cat eyes lock onto mine. “You’re a feisty one, Little Slayer,” he purrs. “I like that.” Giving me a mocking bow, he adds, “I’ll be keeping my eye on you.” Then he turns to his little minions and gestures for them to follow him down the hill, thankfully leaving Sunny and I alone at last.