3: 3
Kayla James walked in, and the loose, easy mood in the room went tight all at once.
Every girl climbed off her bed to greet her.
Kayla took in the sight, and a smile spread across her face.
She didn't come to me first. She made small talk with the girls, asking whether the dorm was comfortable, whether the trip had worn them out.
That motherly warmth won a lot of them over on the spot.
Only at the very end,
she came to stand in front of me, staring straight into my eyes, her voice pitched so low only the two of us could hear it.
"Don't push your luck. If you weren't so well-behaved, if I didn't think you could take good care of my son, you'd never set foot inside my home."
"Take my advice and do as my son says. Better yet, give my family a child, a son or a daughter, either one. Do that and I'll make sure this month goes easy for you. Otherwise I'll just have my son pick someone else, and when he throws you away, don't come blaming me."
"You know how many girls are at this camp, don't you? Not one of them is any worse than you."
Her words turned my stomach. I backed up a few steps. Was that really something a woman with a real education should be saying?
She was nothing but a feudal old busybody in a nice dress.
Done, she slid right into the same script the dorm manager had used.
"Your dorm is in the other building. Come on."
"I'll walk you over myself."
She caught my wrist, and cold shot through me, like a snake coiling around my arm.
I shook her off in one motion. I told myself, quietly and firmly, that I would stay in this dorm and not leave,
because I knew as long as I stayed here, someone would come to save me.
And the crowd outside was only getting bigger. They wouldn't dare try anything reckless.
Clive James took in the scene, and that leering look in his eyes went edged with impatience.
"Mom, hurry up and talk her into it, or it'll be too late."
He kept his voice low too, so only a handful of people could catch it.
Kayla shot her son a glare, and the message in it was plain:
You can't rush a good thing.
Being glared at by his own mother put Clive in a mood, so he turned that resentful stare back on me.
The look said it all. Tonight you're finished.
Kayla stayed perfectly serene through it,
taking half my luggage from Clive's hands. Who wouldn't look at that and praise her for caring so much about her students?
She told me to leave again, warmer now, almost affectionate.
I just stood there, blank, like a dead pig that had stopped fearing boiling water.
My refusal set the whole room off.
By now Kayla didn't need to lift a finger. The other girls took over, looking at me like I was some kind of bully.
First in line, again, was the girl who'd spoken up at the start.
"I'd heard the girls' dorm at this camp draws its share of weirdos. Now I've seen it for myself. Actually fighting someone else for a bed."
"Right? Someone comes to walk her out personally and she still won't budge. Who does she think she is?"
"So sad. Getting stuck with a student like this is just bad luck."
"If it were me, I'd have thrown her bags straight down to the ground floor. The nerve, no shame at all."
Line by line they nailed me to the pillory, and my heart hammered with rage while I cursed my own slow tongue, the way I never knew how to fire back.
That serene look on Kayla's face turned to certain victory.
She arched a brow at me.
I gripped the doorframe hard, and the panic in me rose and rose.
Why wasn't it here yet?
The voices around me pushed louder, turning to real attacks on me now.
One of them was even itching to shove me out the door.
Clive and the dorm manager saw their moment. Under the pretense of not letting me disturb everyone's rest, they moved to drag me straight out.
There was no way I could hold my own against them. Half my body was already out of the dorm,
and every mouth in the room curled into a smile.
Just then, a voice cut in.
"Let's see which one of you dares touch her."
