In a flash of anger Cassie thought to swat the lipstick right out of Faye's hand. But that would be giving her exactly what she wanted. She was trying to push Cassie into giving in to her lowest impulses, to be as brash and reckless as she was.
But Cassie wouldn't do it. She wouldn't give Faye that satisfaction. Instead, she turned her back on her, and when she did, she caught sight of someone she hadn't seen before. A boy. Faye noticed him, too.
Together, they watched him walk up the hallway. He was tall and muscular with light brown hair, and he must have just finished working out, because he was wearing warm-ups and sneakers. He carried a gym bag in one hand and a lacrosse stick in the other.
"That boy is gorgeous." Faye capped her lipstick and stuffed it into her purse. "You know how I love those sweaty jocks."
Cassie rolled her eyes.
Faye immediately approached the boy to stake her claim. "Are you lost?" she called out to him. "I can help you find your way."
His head shot up when he realized he was being spoken to. Cassie saw that his eyes were green like emeralds, as beautiful as Diana's.
"No, thank you," he said, in a voice both rugged and cocky. "I know where I'm heading."
"To that boring assembly?" Faye wasn't about to give up that easy. "In that case, I can help you lose your way." That got a smile out of him, but he directed it at Cassie.
"Hi," he said. "I'm Max."
"This is Faye," Cassie said, returning Max's grin. "She's glad to meet you."
Max dropped his gym bag onto the floor and shook Faye's hand in a way that made it obvious he was used to girls fawning over him.
"Cassie," Faye said, still holding Max's thick hand in hers. "Won't Adam be waiting for you at the assembly? You should probably get going."
Cassie nodded. "She's right. I should."
As Cassie turned away, she heard Max call after her,
"See you in there."
Cassie made it into the auditorium just in time for the welcoming ceremony. She was relieved to find Adam waving her over to where he was seated in the last row. The auditorium was more crowded than she had ever seen it.
Groups of students were crammed in the back and up each exit row. The humming excitement Cassie picked up on in the hallway had carried over here, where it heightened like rough water constrained by a dam. But once Mr. Humphries tapped on the microphone to quiet the crowd and make some announcements, that restless energy died down to a low-level boredom. Assemblies were always fun until the assembly part.
Cassie let her eyes roam over the crowd. She found Diana all the way up front, seated with her AP English class. Melanie and Laurel had joined Suzan, Sean, and the Henderson brothers in the center rows about midway from the stage. And Deborah and Nick were just a few rows behind them. Cassie noticed that none of them looked concerned. They appeared as bored and apathetic as the rest of the school. Was she the only one still reeling from the last assembly they had to welcome a principal? Were they all just faking it, trying to put their best faces forward?
Or was everyone really that much better at moving on than Cassie?
Sally Waltman and Portia Bainbridge were sitting in their cluster of cheerleaders. Sally's rust-colored hair stood out from the rest of her mostly blonde friends, so she was easy to spot in their crowd. She was laughing at something Portia was saying, probably making fun of someone, like she always did. The Circle had come to an uneasy truce with Portia and her brothers, but Cassie still didn't like her.
"You okay?" Adam asked when Cassie settled into her seat. "You've got that I-just-had-a-Faye-encounter look."
"I'm fine. Faye was getting up in my face, but then a hot boy walked by, and she forgot all about me."
"That's our Faye." Adam took Cassie's hand in his and squeezed it. "Who was the boy?"
"I don't know, someone new. His name was Max." Cassie searched the auditorium for Faye and found her standing in the corner talking to Max - talking at him was more like it. He leaned with both hands on his lacrosse stick, like he might fall over from boredom if it weren't holding him up.
Cassie shifted her attention to the man she assumed was the new principal waiting off to the side. He wore a finely cut dark suit and had salt-and-pepper hair. He was tall, with broad shoulders, and kept his hands clasped behind his back. He was handsome, the way Mr. Brunswick had been handsome.
Weak applause welcomed him to the stage. "Thank you," he said, as he adjusted the microphone. "I'm Mr. Boylan, and it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance." His voice was deeper than Cassie had expected it to be.
His outer appearance was dapper and elegant, but he had the voice of a lumberjack - it had a toughness to it, a grit, and the slightest hint of an accent she couldn't place.
A shiver ran down her spine.
No, Cassie thought to herself. You're being paranoid.
Just because Mr. Brunswick turned out to be evil doesn't mean Mr. Boylan will. She figured she must have been suffering from some kind of post-traumatic stress, the way soldiers returned from wars startled at every harmless loud sound they heard.
But as Mr. Boylan continued speaking, every muscle in Cassie's body tightened in defense. She glanced at Adam to see if he sensed anything off about the principal, too, but he was calmly watching the stage with no expression of alarm.
"Thank you all for your gracious welcome," Mr. Boylan said. "I hope you'll do the same for my son, who will also be a student here." He pointed to the far corner, where Max was still leaning on his lacrosse stick, staring straight ahead.
Adam and Cassie looked at each other simultaneously.
Neither of them had to say it.
Of course. Faye's new crush was the principal's son.
Faye was smirking behind him, watching the back of his head as if she could burn a hole through it with her desire.
When she caught Cassie watching, she puckered her lips into a kiss and blew it Cassie's way. Then she stuck out her tongue, pretending she might lick the back of Max's neck.
"This can't be good," Cassie said.
Chapter 4
As she walked home from school that afternoon, Cassie finally had a moment to herself to think. Diana and some of the others were going into town to shop for spring festival outfits. You need a spring dress for the spring festival, Suzan had insisted when Cassie said she was feeling too tired to shop. But Diana interjected on Cassie's behalf, saying if she was tired it was best to rest.
Did that mean Diana didn't really want her there? Cassie wished she was feeling more confident about her friendship with Diana, but it seemed out of sorts, just like everything right now.