Chapter One
Palmer
“Move it!”
A shoulder hits my back with enough force to make me stumble and fall in the middle of the quad. Before I hit the cement headfirst, I manage to catch myself. This is not how I saw the first day of my senior year going.
Campus is in full disarray. Students are milling around, whispering about the latest news. The headlines read LOCAL GIRL GOES MISSING.
Even if everyone wasn’t distracted, I’d be the least of their worries.
This isn’t anything new here at Glass Heart Academy. Since last fall, four girls have vanished into thin air. The news report on them all read the same. Rich family. No note. Community confused.
Damn straight, we’re confused. More like frightened. My sister’s disappearance started the chain of events. The second girl was our star soccer player, Molly, destined to play for Team USA. Everyone knew it wasn’t a mere coincidence, but no one wanted to say the truth out loud. By the time Sarah Englewood’s dorm was found empty with the door wide open, everyone took a pause. That happens when the missing girl is the daughter of a Supreme Court judge.
Outside of my sister, Jessica Schuster is the first victim to feel close to me. She was our very own sweetheart and my lab partner last year in biology. I’ve never bought into her, though. Although she was nice, she once offered me a bump of cocaine at a party Reed had dragged me to. It’s hard to believe the act when a girl shows you her true self. Not that her recreational habit means she deserves whatever has happened to her. None of these girls did.
Life’s a cruel son of a bitch, though. I’ve understood that since the moment I’d found Reed’s blood splattered all over her apartment. She was the only girl to leave a clue, and still, no suspects. I’ve watched enough documentaries to know that’s as unlikely as finding a shark on land.
“What are you staring at, loser?” Quinn Herrington glares at me from across the quad.
Was I staring at her? Sometimes I get lost in my own thoughts, not realizing I’m staring dead at someone. To me, it’s like they aren’t even there. Embarrassing. I turn around and push my way through the crowd.
Why does everyone seem to hate me? That’s an easy answer. Reed Weston is . . . was . . . I don’t even know which one to say now, but she’s my sister. We’re approaching the one-year mark since she’s been gone. I’ve begged and pleaded to transfer out of Glass Heart Academy, even gone so far as to offer to move out west with my aunt and uncle, but my parents refuse to consider the idea.
Only the best is allowed within these walls, and no daughter of ours will be seen as mediocre. Those words will forever play in my mind. Their fear of me running the Weston name through the mud, overrides my need for any sense of normalcy and security. Instead, I walk through the same campus, eat in the same cafeteria, knowing my sister was targeted within these coveted walls. I’m meant to be grateful for my place at this school.
When news first spread of Reed’s disappearance, everyone at Glass Heart Academy treated me with kid gloves. No one wanted to upset me or show any inkling of animosity. Sometime between her disappearance and today, well, things have changed a bit.
I’m a social pariah. It’s not because I’m ugly or an easy target—let’s be real, I’m stronger than these idiots— but simply because I share a face with their queen. Their fallen queen. Reed and I may not be twins, but we might as well have been.
Grabbing my books and loose papers makes it seem as if I have some sort of order to this chaos, when, in reality, I have anything but. It’s my senior year, and I’ve managed to survive the last three at the academy, and the eight before that at our sister prep school, and yet, this year is already proving to be different.
All attention is on me. When another girl goes missing, it tends to dredge up the past. As I finish the war path through the garden and into one of the twenty buildings on campus, I hold tight to the necklace hidden under my uniform blouse.
Glass Heart Academy is everything one would expect from a private school. Each building contains a different lecture hall dedicated to its own unique subject.
We have the usual types. Rich kids mostly, which explains the cloud of Chanel No. 5 looming through the campus. The art kids thrive because arts are deemed most important, making us a pipeline straight to Juilliard. We are also one of the only academies that has a decent athletic program. Football, soccer, and lacrosse bring talented athletes from all over the country to our fields.
We have the best because we are the best.
It’s that damn simple.
Unfortunately, with that kind of mindset drilled into us since kindergarten, there is bound to be a giant heap of assholes to go to school with.
“Hey, Reed.”
And there’s Exhibit A. Dixon Decatur is the biggest asshole to walk through these halls. He’s the sneaky kind of asshole no one is ever quite ready for, but when he strikes, he strikes where it counts. He’s also a damn genius, which is even more infuriating.
“You know my name is Palmer.” I shove past him. He’s gone to great lengths to call me by my sister’s name any chance he can get.
His unwarranted disdain for me has set the tone for the rest of the student body’s hatred towards me. He’s one-fourth of the Glass House Boys.
“Yeah, sure, but when the only sister that actually matters dies.” He shrugs, a cocky gleam in his eyes. “You see where I’m going with this?” He runs his hands through his hair, checking out the ass of a freshman girl who passes by.
“Fuck off! The only reason you’re even here is because your daddy bought your way in.” I hold up two middle fingers and climb the stairs. This isn’t an insult. Most of us have opportunities given to us simply from being born into the correct bloodline. Me included.
“Is that the only reason why I got this job then, Miss Weston?” Fucking Byron Decatur. Their parents should have known to stop with one asshole, but instead, chose to spawn two of them.
His face is the last one I expect to see, especially with him wearing a teacher pin on his lapel, yet, here he stands in the flesh, a cocky smile on his lips. He’s the ruler of his world, and everyone around him bows down at his feet. With that kind of power, I’m not surprised he chose to come back here.
Reed and Byron dated when she was a freshman and he was a senior. Apparently, my parents were dumb enough to trust him based off his trust fund balance alone.
Byron Decatur is quick to fool everyone. Charming and witty are quite the cocktail. Everyone drinks him right up, and he knows it.
“Don’t you still have another year of school?” The pressure my teeth are under from seeing him is enough to crack them in half. Even when he dated my sister, I never felt quite comfortable around him. Maybe that’s why he’s never been my biggest fan, either. I can see through his bullshit, and he doesn’t like feeling exposed.
“Well, Miss Weston, a teaching assistant job opened up, and now, I get to spend the year here with you, finishing off the last part of my degree.” Just like his brother, Byron is ungodly attractive. He tosses his soft brown hair, and I’m greeted by a jawline that’s been chiseled from stone.
“Lucky us.” I plop down in the second row and flip open a blank notebook, hoping to ignore the brothers’ eyes on me.