He's never been in so much trouble before.

It's the funniest thing.

Teachers are outright glaring at him for making their lives a misery, pulling him out of class repeatedly for stunts that he hasn't even pulled. Stunts like setting fires and smoking and breaking school equipment. He's been accused of doing so much that Nick is beginning to wonder if he isn't actually pulling these off in his sleep or something.

The school can't expel him because of his mother's name but that doesn't mean that he can't undergo every creative punishment Redwood Academy can think to carry out, save from actual expulsion.

Nick thinks he might be breaking some kind of record.

It's an honour, really.

They want him to drop out of school and put them out of their misery. But that's just making Nick want to stay even more. Even the students are eyeing him with distaste and suspicion, but it just makes Nick laugh, if anything.

They are no threat to him.

They're scared of him and it's nothing new, but it's never made him laugh more.

Roaring in on his motorbike, Nick takes off his helmet, running a hand through his messy hair in an admittedly pitiful attempt to tame it. He feels his phone vibrate and shoots a dramatically dark look towards the bundle of students who are eyeing him. Most of them look scared of him, some are intrigued, eyeing him with something like interest, but in the end, they all scurry away like frightened mice.

Nick smirks to himself and picks up his phone.

"When are you hauling your ass back here, Cinderella?" Jacob echoes through the phone loudly. "The top 1% getting you down with all their fancy cars and finger food, yet?"

He winces briefly at the noise and rolls his eyes. Jacob thinks that just because he's not in the same city, he's on another planet. "I'm not on the other side of the world, Jake," he drawls. "And I told you, you think I'm going to give all this up for Mitchell and his crew? Do I look stupid?"

"Mitchell's been asking for you," Jack says and Nick stills. "Me and the boys have told you're gone for good but you know him. He's getting antsy, Nick."

"Tell him I've gone on to bigger and better things. I'm not going back there," Nick says, snorting. "Not until my lovely mother finally gets sick of me, anyway."

Even when she does, Nick's pocketed away enough money and things to sell that he'll be financially secure for, well, the rest of his life. Like he said, he's no idiot.

"You know Mitchell," Jacob says and his voice is rather strange. "He's a bastard but he's always hated you. You should be careful anyway, Nick."

"It's Mitchell who should be careful," Nick tells Jacob, smirking as he enters the school, "not me."

While he doesn't deny that Mitchell isn't an idiot enough not to search for him and find where he is, Nick doubts any of Mitchell's crew or even Mitchell himself could take him down. A lone wolf he had been, Nick admits, on the streets but his claws were sharper and wilder than any other. Nobody had dared to mess with him in the city, having heard of his no-nonsense, dangerous reputation and ability to send a person to the dirt, screaming.

If only sleepy Redwood would get the message, too.

*

It's only lunchtime when Nick has received a total of three detentions, been sent out of class five times, and called back after school to write lines, of all things.

Private school, Nick scoffs.

The headteacher calls for him, his name echoing out from the loud speakers, just before lunch and here's the thing. Nick would go to her office but one of the perks of private school was the food. Rich people food was so extravagant and over-the-top it was ridiculous. But Nick's not going to turn down a plate of lobster. And anyway, he has never liked people messing with his food. Even though they're calling for him, Nick moves to get his plate of food hungrily.

The selection is large and makes his stomach grumbles.

Today there is Beluga caviar trickling against freshly caught salmon, kobe beef, foie gras, slivers of white truffles placed delicately against white rice, black meats carved from the bone and cooked to perfection. It's mouth-watering and Nick is already looking forward to scarfing it down.

"Mr Hawthorne," says a taut, suffering voice.

Nick lifts his head and his lips spread into a welcoming smile. Mr Bates stands before him, his long face turned down into an unamused expression, his stocky build almost big enough to match Nick's own heavy form. He and Mr Bates have a special relationship, Nick likes to think. Every time Nick refuses to listen to whatever teacher is ordering him around that day, they always bring in Mr Bates, the muscle.

Suffice it to say, over the past week, they've gotten quite close.

The canteen has gone quiet and Nick can feel the curious gazes of the students lingering on him. If anything else, he's been a constant source of entertainment for their otherwise boring lives and he wouldn't mind being paid for it, either. They have the money for it, after all.

"Well, if it isn't my favourite teacher, Mr Bates!" Nick greets jovially. He reaches to pluck a few fresh, ripe grapes and crushes them between his teeth. "What seems to be the problem, mate?"

Mr Bates looks very long-suffering. It's a constant expression hanging over most of the teachers in this school, Nick has found.

"I am not your mate," he punctuates, his lip curling. "Seeing as you have turned selectively deaf and therefore have decided not to hear the constant stream of orders relayed unto you by way of the speakers which cost more than my pitiful excuse for a salary, I am here to escort you to the headteacher's office as she is calling for you, Mr Hawthorne."

"Don't get me wrong," Nick says, reaching for more grapes. "I would love nothing more than to sit in another office and get yelled at again. It's the highlight of my day, really. But do you know what else is the highlight of my day? Lunch. Rich people food, Mr Bates." He shrugs. "Can't ignore the calls of the stomach, can we?"

The teacher before him presses his lips together but a taut, irritated sigh escapes his lips nonetheless.

"No, Mr Hawthorne," he says tightly. "We cannot. But do you know what the highlight of my day is? My lunch break, that I look forward to every day, if only to relish those few single moments of bliss, where I can be free of annoying teenagers with too much money and time on their hands, and be at peace with my sandwich. You, Mr Hawthorne, are eating into that time."

"You make a good case," Nick comments, screwing up his face and pretending to think.

To his delight, Mr Bates looks even more distraught. But Nick takes pity on the poor man and nods to him. He's not to be outdone, though, so he picks up his tray, where the plates are heaving with food, and follows Mr Bates into the headteacher's office, wondering what havoc they're going to tell him he's wreaked today.

*

"...already suffered Mr Bradford with sufficient damage to his face, which would already be grounds for suspension, if not exclusion! And now this!"

In Nick's defence, he didn't mean to get into a fight the first day of school.

When the teachers had dragged him into the office, he had considered giving his side of the story to the school officials but changed his mind. They had already taken one disparaging look at his black leather jacket and his roaring motorbike and the dried blood on his knuckles and had already written him off as a lost cause.

Actually, they had thought he had gotten lost and was some stray student from a public school.

Nick had laughed in their faces when his mother had been called in and the headteacher had gone pale, her eyes wide. Really, he's almost disappointed at their incompetency. His old teachers were better trained and had, at the very least, a sense of humour.

Nick blinks at the teacher, reaching for a chip from his plate. "Sorry, Mrs Miller," he says. "I zoned out. What did I do, again?"

Mrs Miller is huffing at him but Nick cannot bring himself to care. They've already made up their minds about him, after all. They think he's some stupid delinquent of a boy, turning his generation out of their wits and a general embarrassment of the human race.

"Mr Hawthorne," she says. "You set the science block on fire. That's not to mention the punishment that is still pending, for your assault on Mr Bradford."

"I did?" Nick echoes. "Impressive, that I'd set the science block on fire when I don't even know where it is. Plus I've been in my classes all morning and the whole student body saw me getting food at lunch. Mr Bates himself is witness, too."

He's caught her out, he knows it.

Mrs Miller flushes painfully but all Nick does is narrow his eyes at the headteacher.

It's as though someone is purposely targeting him. His name means he can't be expelled but the school's efforts to get rid of him can't be because he has such a sparkling personality. Nick had genuinely thought this was a private school hazing thing but he wonders, if Mrs Miller obeys powers higher than herself.

"And Mr Bradford?" Mrs Miller is fumbling to regain power of the conversation. "His parents are furious, and rightfully so, Mr Hawthorne. Can I hear, at least, the reason why you thought reducing Mr Elliot Bradford to a beaten pulp was so duly needed? Will you put the chip down, Mr Hawthorne?"

Nick's fingers still over his plate and he genuinely considers arguing that Mrs Miller is trying to starve him but the headteacher is as frazzled and looking as distraught as Mr Bates. Instead, Nick lifts his head up to meet the headteacher's gaze.

He says, with a smirk curling at his lips, "Mr Elliot Bradford was being an asshole."

Mrs Miller has to visibly refrain herself from looking annoyed. It had taken a couple of teachers to pull him off the boy's back but then, Nick's fury had been so fierce, too. It wasn't his fault, he thinks, the anger thrumming through his veins.

Rich boy should have known better than to speak about things he knew nothing about.

The headteacher is still speaking but her words buzz around him like irritating flies and Nick has no interest. She's not going to suspend him or exclude him, he can already tell. The most she'll do is give him a lifetime worth of detentions, a la Breakfast Club, and even then, this is his last year.

Plus, apparently, Nick's too valuable to get rid of.

Instead, he turns his thoughts to which asshole could be targeting him.

He's barely been in the school for a week's turn. How could he have risked someone's anger and vengeance so quickly? How is he supposed to find out which rich bitch, out of the thousands that attend this private school, is pulling the strings?

"Are you listening to me, Mr Hawthorne?" Mrs Miller's voice echoes sharply and rattles around his head.

"Yeah, sure, detentions to the rest of my days and all that," Nick says idly, before he leans forward and his eyes narrow. "Which rich brat is behind this? How much are they paying you to make me want to drop out?"

Mrs Miller's eyes widen slightly but she regains her composure just as quickly. "Mr Hawthorne, I'll thank you not to make such silly –,"

"Because whoever it is," Nick says, interrupting loudly, "you should tell them that I'm never going to drop out. I'm going to stay here, out of spite."

The headteacher's face is ashen before him and when the bell rings, Nick lifts himself idly from his chair. He performs a mock bow and leaves, a smirk flitting about his features.

*

"Is it true?"

Nick stops, frowns at the tall, lean boy peering down at him over his glasses. Beside him, another stocky boy is dribbling a football, crashing it against the walls without a care. The boy's eyes are narrowed on him and Nick blinks.

"Is what true?" he asks.

"Did you set the science block on fire?"

Nick lets out an irritated huff of breath. "I would," he says honestly, "if I knew where it was."

There is a beat and then the boy barks out a surprised laugh. He reaches out a broad hand and Nick shakes it roughly. "Will. That's Theo," Will says, jerking a head towards Theo, who nods towards Nick. "You're doing well, for a newbie anyway."

He turns his head sharply towards them. "You know who's trying to set me up?"

Will blinks at him, looking incredulous. "You don't?"

Were all rich kids so oblivious?

"It might have escaped you but I'm new," Nick says dryly. "I have a record but even I'm not good enough to personally offend someone so quickly. Some asshole is trying to get me to leave school. Who is it?"

"She's not an asshole," Will puts in quickly and Nick watches in confusion as the boy smiles dreamily. "She's beautiful."

"She's amazing," Theo corrects.

"She's a bitch," one girl puts in.

Will rolls his eyes at her. "Go away, scholarship girl."

The scholarship girl gives an irritated huff before hitching her bag up further on her shoulder. She's been rummaging through her locker but she slams it and pauses to eye him. But Nick is too busy reeling. His lips part.

"She?" Nick echoes.

He would know if he annoyed a girl in the last week, right? Nick hasn't even been in Redwood long enough to get a girl, much less insult one. But there's something strange crossing across Will and Theo's faces, a dreamy, lovestruck expression. They look like puppies.

Nick clears his throat and repeats, "Who is she?"

"She who rules Redwood," Will replies and he lifts a finger to point. "Madison Sutton."

Nick's gaze follows Will's finger.

Oh.

Well.

Madison Sutton is beautiful.

A sheer vision of a Greek goddess, she is basked in the gold of the soft afternoon sunlight, her chestnut-brown locks tumbling effortlessly about her shoulders. Even dressed in the stiff school uniform, Madison Sutton looks carelessly stunning, the black skirt trailing dangerously around her knees, and as she walks with people who must be her friends, she lifts her head held high, like she's wearing a crown. There is an decadent beauty and elegance to her as she moves gracefully, like a ballerina, and Nick's breath is caught.

She looks like the kind of girl who'd break your heart for a laugh.

*