a/n: The meme in me: "Chapter 69! Make it sexy!" The predetermined plot: "Life-threatening danger! Intrigue! Lunch room fights!"

Georgina Saber stood just as Rosalie skidded in front of her, swinging to a halt with their chests mere inches apart. Rosalie gasped, her eyes trailing up the length of Georgina's braid before meeting Georgina's raised eyebrows and smug, psychopathic smile.

    Rosalie swallowed hard, but it felt as though every organ in her body was lodged in her throat trying to escape. She clasped a hand to her neck as she took a few wary steps back and looked around the room. Whitney was at her desk, hoisting her bag off of her chair, and Art was nowhere to be found.

    "I wasn't expecting a familiar face," Georgina said, and Rosalie wasn't entirely surprised to find that the girl's voice was deeper, huskier. She had the muscular physique of athletic women who needed their body hair regularly trimmed. The only reason Rosalie knew was because she had that issue herself.

    Rosalie flushed bright red. Stop thinking about body hair, she told herself, the hand at her throat now knotted in her hair.

    Whitney slipped past them, saying, "Have fun! I'm sure you'll love it here. Hopefully I'll see you around again, Georgina!"

    "Absolutely," Georgina said, tipping forward with a brilliantly dashing smile. She leant back then, pocketing her hands, and let out a delighted sigh. "Well, let's get on with it. It's convenient that I don't have to hunt you down."

    Hunt? Rosalie thought, but it was promptly followed with a panicked, Me?!

    She stepped back as Georgina stepped forward. The two of them hesitated on opposite sides of the threshold. Georgina's slim, dark eyes were lidded in that condescending, cocky guise of someone who had their prey right where they wanted it.

    Georgina put her hand on the doorframe and said, her voice lowering to a hushed whisper, "Rosalie Mason. So you're the one all over the papers with my beloved Joey."

    Rosalie said nothing.

    "Tell me why your student representative calls you Rose Jason?" she asked, head tipping to the side.

    "Th-There's another girl in the grade with that name."

    "Makes for an awful lot of confusion."

    "Tell me about it," Rosalie said, voice choked. She cleared her throat and looked away at the busy hallway.

    Every fiber in Rosalie's skin shivered at the touch of Georgina's finger grazing her jawline. She clammed her mouth shut, eyes wide, and out of reflex, she pushed Georgina's arm away.

    Georgina's eyes were calm, though, and she didn't move. Instead, she grabbed hold of Rosalie by the chin and tugged her head forward. It was a situation Rosalie had never been in and had no gut reaction at the ready. Instead, she managed a feeble, "Don't touch me."

    Georgina huffed, her amusement tugging a wide smile onto her lips. Her eyes lifted from where they had been focused elsewhere. "And here I thought I knew Joey. Seems she's downgraded."

    "What're you talking about?" Rosalie said, pushing on Georgina's arm again. This time, her fingers loosened and eventually dropped from Rosalie's face. "Don't touch me again—I mean it," Rosalie hissed, her composure back. She straightened up and rubbed her hand over her chin where her skin still crawled.

    "Feisty. Okay, I change my mind. I'm on strict business, Mason, and you're on my itinerary."

    "Excuse me?" Rosalie huffed, stepping away. She started down the hallway, and Georgina followed, falling into step with her. Rosalie couldn't stop herself from scowling at everyone and everything before at last pinning Georgina with a sour look.

    Georgina remained silent, but that smile was still there. It was then that Rosalie gathered that Georgina was wearing a uniform as close to Bradshaw as she could manage without having ordered the official apparel. Her tie was loose and the buttons on her shirt undone. Underneath was a plain white tee tucked into a pair of black slacks. It was more appalling than Joanna's everyday half-assed uniform.

    Rosalie bristled as they approached her locker. She stopped in front of it and Georgina leant into the locker beside hers as Rosalie spun the lock dial and opened the door. She hung her coat inside and pulled her books from her backpack, trying to ignore the fact that Georgina was staring at her.

    "What's the nature of your relationship with Joey?" Georgina asked.

    Rosalie almost choked. "That—I don't have to tell you," Rosalie said.

    "I already have a scholarship that can't be retracted," Georgina said, and before Rosalie could process this much, or argue its irrelevance to the conversation, Georgina said, "I don't need to attend Bradshaw. Your mom's a corporate bitch, not a criminal justice lawyer. We take care of that. Nothing is stopping me from breaking your legs, Rosie."

    Rosalie's chest hollowed out, her stomach caving in as if Georgina had punched her in the gut. She held her breath as she turned to stare at Georgina, whose smile only increased when their eyes met again. Rosalie nearly lost her grip on her books, and she clutched them tightly to her chest.

    Georgina laughed and looked down at her shoes. She scuffed the heel of her sneakers against the tiles before looking back up again and saying, "But that all depends on your answer."

    "She's just my goalkeeper," Rosalie said, voice rasping.

    They stared at one another until Rosalie blinked fast and looked away. She closed her locker and shook her head, scraping together the remnants of her poise to talk again. "She's the best goalkeeper I've ever seen in a high school league."

    "Courtesy of us," Georgina said. She pushed herself off of the locker with a sigh. "Shame. I am curious, though, as to why you know a damn thing about us."

    She means the Sisterhood, Rosalie thought. Georgina had no reason to threaten her so explicitly otherwise.

    "She trusts us."

    "Or maybe there are Sisters already here," Georgina said.

    They stood with their backs to the lockers. Rosalie scanned her eyes across the crowd of students in the hall before looking up to Georgina. Georgina pursed her lips and side-eyed Rosalie. "Three thousand kids, forty-seven percent female. I can't know them all," she said. "Lead the way."

    Rosalie almost didn't want to go to class. It was the strongest desire she ever felt to leave campus and not look back. Her other circumstantial absent marks were 1) from oversleeping and 2) Khoshekh going missing, and Rosalie was not about to go through that bullshit again.

    But this wasn't about her now.

    Joanna didn't have a phone, so Rosalie had no means of contact with her. Did Joanna already know? Would Joanna be in class today?

    Rosalie slowed near their environmental science classroom. Most of the desks were already filled, and when Rosalie approached, her eyes went to Joanna's occupied desk. Joanna sat near the front of the class ever since Principle O'Gallagher escorted her there on Day One of senior year.

    Joanna lowered her hand from her chin, perking up, only to freeze all motion. Rosalie watched her as she crossed the threshold and started for the back of the classroom. Joanna's wide eyes were stuck on them through it all, and she twisted around in her seat as Rosalie escorted Georgina to the lab tables in the back of the room.

    She pulled out a stool and pointed to it. "You can sit here for class," she said.

    "I'll stand," Georgina said. She crossed her arms as Rosalie raised her eyebrows at the girl, but Georgina's attention was stuck near the front of the room where Joanna was looking at them from between the capped jars of algae on the divider.

    Rosalie stepped away from the lab table. Georgina made no move to acknowledge her, so she went around the divider and to her own desk, two aisles away from Joanna. There, she dropped off her books and went to the teacher's office to inform him that there would be a guest in the room that day.

    When she emerged from the office, Joanna was just turning back around, her face pallid to an almost sickening degree. Rosalie dropped her eyes as she went to her desk and sat down, wishing she could text Joanna then and let her know what had happened with Georgina.

    As Rosalie sat there waiting for class to start, the events sank in and froze her in her seat through the remainder of class. Note taking became a task, and the number of mistakes were riddled in ghostly figures on her pages due to rubber marks and eraser smudges. Her fingers cramped from how tightly she gripped her pen.

    When she glanced over at Joanna, Joanna had yet to open her notebook. Not much was new there, but Joanna was rigid in her seat. Gone was her laidback attitude, and what replaced it was a robotic posture. Her forearms were resting on either side of the desk, fists clenched, eyes forward.

    Rosalie didn't question it when the bell rang and Joanna booked it from the classroom at a full-out sprint. It did, however, manage to catch the attention of their classmates, and their teacher called after her, "No running, Spencer!"

    Rosalie rose slowly from her desk as her teacher shook his head at where Joanna disappeared. She looked towards the back of the classroom, to the lab tables where Georgina Saber was smiling. When the class cleared out and the next class began filing in, Rosalie reluctantly went to where Georgina waited for her, now poised at the threshold, hands in her pockets.

    Georgina beamed down at her and asked, "So was that my only sighting of Joey for the day? If so, I'm disappointed. We didn't even get to chat."

    Rosalie walked ahead so Georgina wouldn't know just how furious she was. She ground her teeth together and fumed, It seems she'll be the opposite of disappointed when she finds out Joanna's in all of my classes. Her blood pressure was so high, she felt as though she were seconds from emitting steam out of her ears as she led the way to her next class.

    Rosalie hid her surprise when they arrived at second hour to find Joanna already there. She half expected Joanna to ditch, and Rosalie wouldn't have blamed her. It left a sour sensation in her gut, though, when Joanna refused to look at them and instead focused on engraving a nick on the surface of the desk with her fingernail. She shaved away at it all through lecture before hightailing it to third hour where Juliana startled at the sight of Georgina stepping into the classroom behind Rosalie.

    Rosalie took her seat next to Juliana in the circle, and likewise, Georgina claimed her other side. Juliana leant over to stare at Georgina again before snapping back out of view when Georgina met her gaze in an unaffected manner.

    "Georgina's shadowing me today," Rosalie explained.

    "Yes, and who are you, exactly?" Georgina asked.

    Juliana was at a loss. She continued to stare at Rosalie until realizing that Georgina had asked a question. By then, though, Georgina had scanned Juliana's face and come to her own conclusion. "You're centerfield, aren't you?"

    Once again, Juliana startled, eyes wide. She clasped a hand to the front of her shirt and said, "Yeah, how'd you know?"

    "I watched the recording of your State Championship," she explained. She pointed to Rosalie and said, "Little Miss Go-Getter went too hard and you filled in for her."

    Little Miss Go-Getter? Rosalie thought, appalled by the nickname.

    Across the room, Joanna was staring at the three of them, chewing on the end of her pen. Rosalie was certain that if she bit any harder, ink would go everywhere. Joanna didn't seem to care, though, as it seemed she was in a trance of sorts, stuck staring at Georgina throughout the course of their English class discussion on Frankenstein.

    When the bell rang, though, Joanna wasn't the first out of her seat. She went on staring until the moment Georgina rose from her seat.

    Joanna jolted as if struck. Rosalie heard it from where she was busy gathering her books, and she looked up to find that Georgina had taken two steps through the circle of desks. Georgina's eyes were on Joanna.

    Joanna scrambled to her feet, her hip bumping into the desk on the way. She tripped over the leg of the adjacent desk, and the student standing there reached out to catch her. Rosalie tensed as Joanna smacked the kid's hand away and hissed, "I'm fine."

    Georgina stuck to the middle of the circle. If she went after Joanna now, it would mean jumping over the desks, or making a ruckus plowing straight through them. Joanna skirted around the circle and out into the hallway.

    A hand touched Rosalie's arm. She looked back, a shiver rolling up her spine, only to stop at the concerned look on Juliana's face. Juliana nodded to her, and the tension momentarily faded from Rosalie's shoulders at the gesture.

    Juliana would check on Joanna.

    Still, Rosalie was hesitant to check her phone while Georgina was peering over her shoulder. So when her phone buzzed in her blazer pocket, she ignored it in favor of keeping an eye on Georgina as they stepped into the cafeteria.

    The moment they were through the archway and in view of the tables, Rosalie sensed that they were out in the open and obvious. Though, when she looked around, no one seemed to bother with her or Georgina. That is, until familiar faces started to arrive. Rosalie kept her eyes on the soccer girls table as the cashier swiped her food card.

    Georgina nudged her in the arm and said, "Thanks for paying."

    "So you do have some manners," Rosalie commented despite herself. She tensed at Georgina's laugh.

    "We're civilized, you know," she said.

    "For some reason, I find that hard to believe," Rosalie said.

    "I'd watch your mouth, Mason. We aren't enemies until you give me a reason to hate you," she said.

    Being in a relationship with Joanna probably qualifies, then, Rosalie thought, discomforted by Georgina's previous threat.

    Georgina sat at the head of the soccer table. Rosalie didn't question it, but she did take the side closest to her to keep an eye on the girl. It was odd enough to find Rosalie at the far end of the table, but when Ray appeared, she seemed nonplussed by the idea. Rosalie silently thanked Juliana for spreading the word.

    Ray eyed Georgina sharply before claiming the seat across from Rosalie. She dropped down and said, "Cox is pissed, but he's taking care of it."

    Rosalie didn't have to turn back and look to know what Ray meant. It seemed Joanna was back to sitting with the football team.

    "Good," Rosalie said.

    "Hartwood had to physically restrain him from busting some heads."

    The last thing we need is Dylan Cox getting his Ohio scholarship rescinded for starting a fight.

    Ray glanced sparingly at Georgina as Juliana sat down beside Rosalie. Georgina seemed uninterested in the conversation, but they all knew she was listening. Juliana was the first to clear her throat. "Mark seems bummed out," she said.

    Ray wrinkled her nose up and immediately erupted with a firm, "What am I supposed to do about it, huh?"

    Juliana snickered and said, "I don't know, I'm just throwing that out there."

    "Yeah right! Blaming me for Mark's bad attitude. Since when did you two talk anyway?"

    "What, so you can text the entire soccer team and I can't talk to the swimmers, is that it?" Juliana said, but she was already giggling by the time Ray threw her arms up and said, "That's not the same thing! You know what I'm after, Julie!"

    Conversation went on as usual, and it didn't take long for Rosalie to realize that it was merely a tactic to ignore Georgina. This passive ostracizing left an uncomfortable residue at the back of Rosalie's mind, and it made her smile strain with guilt when Ray and Juliana turned their bickering on to her. Brynn seemed eager to comply with the tactic, though Lu and Alyssa were less intent on conversing when a Kaiserslautern girl was nearby. Though, unlike Rosalie, it wasn't out of guilt. The sharp look in their eyes was cutting, skeptical, and altogether unwelcoming.

    Rosalie frowned at her lunch, appetite gone.

    The only person she ever really could ignore was Lennie Pittmen, and even that didn't last long. Her short-term hatred for him fizzled out about as fast as it took her to dismiss Georgina's threat. Despite the uncomfortable sensation Georgina gave her just by existing in such close proximity, Rosalie didn't want to make her feel left out. Georgina was a stranger tossed into an already established hierarchy at Bradshaw—that had to be daunting, even for heartless individuals.

    "So Darling is still at Adams?" Rosalie asked, lifting her eyes a fraction to look at Georgina. She couldn't quite meet the girl's eyes without wanting to vomit, though.

    Georgina eyed her before humming. "Yes. I assume Joey told you about her."

    "Yes," Rosalie said. She shut her mouth then, aware that the conversation next to her had ceased. Rosalie felt that Joanna's attitude towards Darling wasn't a dangerous piece of knowledge, so she said, "She spoke highly of Darling."

    "Good," she said, stiffly, and Rosalie figured there was a hidden threat in there. As if badmouthing Darling was a ticket to Georgina's bad side.

    "Is it true she cons men online?" Rosalie asked.

    Beside her, Juliana snorted and coughed, nearly choking on her food. Brynn reached out to pat her back, but Juliana waved her off.

    Georgina laughed darkly. She clasped her hands together under her chin, a devious grin on her face. "It is. She has a three grand allowance per month."

    "Jesus Christ," Ray muttered, looking away.

    Alyssa whistled. "Impressive."

    "I'm sure it'd be more impressive if you twats couldn't already buy whatever the hell you wanted," Georgina said with a flick of her hand. She leant back in her seat and crossed her arms, shrugging.

    "Is Darling staying at Adams?" Rosalie asked.

    "Seems like it. Dodge wants her here, though, so I imagine that will change soon," Georgina said with a wistful sigh. She spared a glance across the cafeteria and commented, "Less pretentious here, I can tell you that much."

    "I'll take that as a compliment," Rosalie said.

    "Don't let it go to your head. Any place with uniforms pisses me off."

    "Odd considering your family's in the military," she said.

    She thought she saw Georgina smile, but perhaps it was the shock at receiving the full force of Georgina's scowl. Georgina had her at the throat in a second. The instant tension set the entire table on edge, every eye darting in their direction. Ray lunged to her feet, her hand out to stop Georgina.

    Rosalie's breath caught in her throat where Georgina's hand wrapped around it. She felt her pulse thud against Georgina's fingertips, her eyes wide, heart pounding heavily in her chest. In the split second it took for Georgina to loosen her grip, Rosalie had already determined a crucial detail:

    Georgina's family was off limits.

    The bell rang, breaking the tense silence