The Mess is fairly quiet, and we don’t have any showdowns at the high table like we did last year. Turns out Harper has carved a new niche for herself in the rear courtyard. Fine by me. I’d rather not battle over chicken cordon bleu with garlic mashed potatoes and roasted zucchini, thank you very much.

I pick at my plate and wonder about Isabella, if she really is my full sister like Harper is claiming, if she’s mixed up in Infinity Club bullshit already. I’ve asked the boys, but they all swear they have no idea, that if she is being sponsored by one of the Harpies, they don’t know about it.

“I haven’t heard anything,” Lizzie says, handing her plate up to waiter when he stops by. I send him with mine as well, even though I didn’t eat much. I’m too distracted, and all the boys (plus Miranda) are busy right now, so … it’s just me and her.

To say it’s awkward as hell would be an understatement. We’ve been back at school for several weeks now, and Lizzie and I only talk in group settings really.

I guess it’s hard to be friends when you’re both after the same guy. That makes me sad somehow, like girl power should extend beyond that. Girl code would dictate that Lizzie not go after Tristan at all, right? Not after you and him started dating. But I can’t begrudge her for her feelings, so I look up and try to make myself smile.

“If I could just get Isabella alone somehow …” I trail off and nibble at my lower lip. “The thing is, she’s always surrounded by Harpies or Company a-holes.” The hidden big sister gene inside of me flares to life, and I so desperately want to warn Isabella away from those guys. None of them are good for her. Then again, you’re dating five of the biggest assholes in school, so how can you really talk?

Dating five guys.

I’m an … interesting role model, surely.

I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with it if we’re all consenting adults, but I can’t get past the idea of the boys also dating multiple girls. I would hate it. I wouldn’t be okay with it. I … I’m a big, fat hypocrite.

Putting my hands over my face, I lean my elbows on the table and sigh.

“Are you angry with me?” Lizzie asks after a few moments, and I glance up, meeting her amber eyes. She was there for me at the lodge when I needed her; she’s helped me defend myself against the Infinity Club this whole time. How can I really be mad? “I mean, about Tristan and everything.”

Of course she’d have to add that. When she says his name, I …

“You can’t help who you love,” I say, tucking my hands into my lap. Lizzie nods, but she doesn’t look convinced.

“No, you can’t, can you?” Her voice gets soft, and she closes her eyes like she’s fighting against some sort of inner pain. I watch her for a moment, until she opens her gaze again and looks at me. “Do you know why Tristan’s dad hates me so much?”

I perk up a bit at that.

“Actually, no.” I pause, picking up my iced tea and holding it between my palms, waiting for her to elaborate.

“One of the Vanderbilt’s biggest debtors … is my family. They owe us nearly a billion dollars.” My mouth drops open and Lizzie shrugs. “My parents don’t want me with him because they don’t want his family benefiting from our money. That, and I guess they’d feel weird going after a family member for an outstanding debt. That’s all it is; it all comes down to money. But finally, finally, I got them to make a bet I could win.” She smiles, but I’m guessing she isn’t going to tell me what that bet was. The thing is, from what I’ve learned about the Infinity Club, it’s all about making the macro, micro, about compressing the big, wide world of money and politics, religion and economics, and making it work on a smaller scale.

Fortunes are won and lost in the Infinity Club.

Lives are ruined.

Allies are forged.

It’s a double-edged sword.

And frankly, it scares the shit out of me.

I’m a pawn in a much bigger game. A much, much bigger game.

“My parents lost, so they had to listen to me plead Tristan’s case. They had to consider him. He has a good bloodline, so …” She shrugs, but I already figured all of this out based on what Harper told me. I don’t need to know anymore. “Basically, we’d make pretty babies.” She flushes and tucks some of her hair behind her ear before looking up at me from under long eyelashes. “I hate to pry, but have you and Tristan …?”

My cheeks flush, and my mouth opens but no sound comes out. I close my lips and shake my head.

“Not yet.” Somehow, it sounds like I emphasized the word yet, even if I didn’t mean to.

“I see.” Lizzie says, and then she stands up, tucking her pleated black skirt under her thighs. “Shall we go find Tristan then? I’m pretty sure he’s in the physics lab working on a project.” I nod and follow her out, even though that doesn’t sound like the greatest way to spend an afternoon.

Tristan is, indeed, in the physics lab when we head over there, but he barely talks to either of us. Actually, he looks sort of pissed off when we walk in together.

“Did you two get tired of holding hands, skipping, and making daisy chains?” he asks sarcastically, and I notice he’s making a critical error with the formula on the paper next to him. I bite my lip and raise up on my toes, lifting the heels of my shiny black shoes off the floor.

“Just inside the parentheses, it’s actually one plus two times h times v to the third power.” Tristan pauses and looks up at me, his eyes practically glowing silver.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he growls as I grit my teeth.

“I mean, like no …” I gesture randomly at his paper as Lizzie looks back and forth between us, tucking dark hair behind her ear and forcing a laugh. “You literally wrote to the fourth power, and—”

“Get the fuck out of my classroom,” he snarls at me, but I’m sorry. I’m not about to walk away and just let him screw up the equation like that.

“You see, v is the frequency being observed and—”

“I know v is the frequency,” Tristan throws back at me, his fingers clenched so tightly around the pencil that they’re shaking. “And I know it’s to the third power. This is a typo.”

“How is it a typo when you’re writing with pencil?” I ask, and he seriously looks at me like he wants to kill me.

“I have literally no idea what you guys are talking about,” Lizzie adds with another giggle, reaching over to run her fingers down Tristan’s bare forearm. He’s taken his blazer off, and in a rare move, he’s unbuttoned his shirt until about halfway down. He’s even rolled up his sleeves a bit.

He glances over at her, but he doesn’t tell her to stop, turning back to look at me in stark defiance.

“You little smart-ass. You think you’re so knowledgeable with your public school education.”

“Clearly, I am,” I retort, lifting my own chin in defiant response. “Because I can see the frantically scrawled page of notes beneath your report. You’ve been messing the formula up this entire time. How do you expect to beat me out for valedictorian when you can’t even get the equation for the brightness temperature of the sun—”

Tristan sweeps his arm across his papers and knocks them all to the floor, panting furiously, teeth gritted at me in a snarl.

“Tristan, don’t, she’s just trying to be helpful,” Lizzie says, attempting to step between us. The look he gives her is cold hell.

“Get out,” he says, and she gapes at him. She glances back at me once, sympathetically, before scurrying out and closing the door behind her. I turn back to look at Tristan, but I’m not afraid of him, not anymore. He’s just a damaged boy with a cruel streak. I … shouldn’t want to hold him close and banish his darkness, but I do.

Fuck me, but I do.

I’ve fallen for the good girl fixes the bad boy stereotype.

I need to take more women’s studies classes at Bornstead. Because I will get in. I will. I absolutely will.

“Who the hell do you think you are,” Tristan whispers, his voice like freezing fog off the bay. His eyes are the same color, like a stormy sky above the ocean. He moves toward me, putting us so close that the toes of our shoes touch. “Coming in here like that, and getting all mouthy with me.”

“Whoever heard of the king of the school being a brainiac, hmm? Your stereotypes are all messed up. Then again, you got the equation wrong, so—”

Tristan grabs me around the waist and pushes me against the counter so fast that my head spins, positioning himself behind me so he can press his hardness against the curve of my ass. Considering I’m wearing the shortest skirt known to man, all I can do is moan as he reaches around and cups my left breast. With the other hand, he slides the pencil horizontally between my lips, so that I’m biting down on it.