Poison Princess Read Online Free Page A

hadn’t even existed.
    But I’d dutifully oohed and aahed over their pics—blurred, cropped shots of the Eiffel Tower and all.
    Brand’s pics—of him smiling at the beach, or at his parents’ ritzy get-togethers, or on a yacht cruising the Gulf Coast—had been like a knife to the heart because I should have been in all of them.
    Last spring, I had been. He had an entire folder on his phone stuffed with pics and vids of us goofing off together.
    â€œGreat dress, Evie,” Catherine Ashley said.
    Grace Anne’s gaze was assessing. “Great everything . Boho braid, no-frills dress, and flirty, flirty heels. Nicely done.”
    With a sigh, I teased, “If only my friends knew how to dress, too.”
    As we walked toward the front doors, students stopped and turned, girls checking out what we were wearing, guys checking for a summer’s worth of developing curves.
    Funny thing about our school—there were no distinct cliques like you saw on TV shows, just gradations of popularity.
    I waved at different folks again and again, much to the bowheads’ amusement. I was pretty much friends with everybody .
    No one ever sat alone during my lunch period. No girl walked the hall with a wardrobe malfunction under my watch. I had even shut down the sale of freshman elevator passes on our one-story campus.
    When we reached the entrance of the white-stuccoed building, I realized school was just what I needed. Routine, friends, normalcy . Here, I could forget all the crazy, all the nightmares. This was my world, my little queendom—
    The sudden rumble of motorcycles made everyone go silent, like a needle scratch across an old record.
    No way they’d be the same creepers from before. That group had looked too old for high school. And wouldn’t we have passed them?
    But then, it wasn’t like the genteel town of Sterling had many motorcyclists. I gazed behind me, saw the same five kids from earlier.
    Now I was ready to meld into auto upholstery.
    Each of them was dressed in dark clothes; among our student body’s ever-present khaki and bright couture, they stood out like bruises.
    The biggest boy—the one who’d leered at me—ramped over the curb to the quad, pulling right up on the side to park. The others followed. I noticed their bikes all had mismatched parts. Likely stolen.
    â€œWho are they ?” I asked. “Have they come to start trouble?”
    Grace answered, “Haven’t you heard? They’re a bunch of juvies from Basin High School.”
    Basin High? That was in a totally different parish, on the other side of the levee. Basin equaled Cajun . “But why are they here ?”
    â€œThey’re attending Sterling!” Catherine said. “Because of that new bridge they built across the levee, the kids at the outer edge of the basin are now closer to us than to their old school.”
    Before the bridge, those Cajuns would have had to drive all the way around the swamp to get here—fifty miles at least.
    Until the last decade or so, the bayou folk there had been isolated. They still spoke Cajun French and ate frogs’ legs.
    Though I’d never been to Basin Town, all of Haven’s farm help came from there and my crazy ole grandmother still had friends there. I knew a lot about the area, a place rumored to be filled with hot-blooded women, hard-fighting men, and unbelievable poverty.
    Mel said, “My mom had to go to an emergency faculty meeting last night about how best to acclimate them or something like that.”
    I could almost feel sorry for this group of kids. To go from their Cajun, poor—and adamantly Catholic—parish to our rich town of Louisiana Protestants . . . ?
    Culture clash, round one.
    This was actually happening. Not only would I have to see the guy who’d shamelessly ogled me, I’d be in the same school with him.
    I narrowed my eyes, impatient for him to take off his