1

Standing in the dimly lit corridor, Jenna felt her heart thudding in her chest as she stood lingerint by the door, her ear pressed up against the glossy wood panels.

"Urrrrrrrrrgh!" she heard her stepbrother groan. It was long, drawn out and exasperated. He followed it up with an annyed tut before continuing.

"Is it not bad enough that she's here to start with. Now you're saying I have to be nice to her? Take care of her like some sad lost lamb"

Those words felt like a stab to the chest. What exactly had she done to upset him this much exactly? Besides merely existing...

"I'm not... I'm just asking you to please look out for her om her first day in a new school," Harry urged. His tone was pleading but whiny as if he were losing patience with his son. "Cab you manage that? I'm not asking you to be her new best friend. Just... don't make this any harder for her. First days at a new school aren't easy, and she doesn't have anyone to help her settle in besides you. We have to look out for her until her Mum gets back from France."

Kai let out a non-committal grunt before falling silent. Jenna didn't hear his footsteps approach and almost had a heart attack when he pulled the door away from her face. For someone as tall and well-built as Kai, he wasn't at all heavy on his feet. More like some ninja than a mere mortal.

His pale blueish - greeny eyes sparkled with rage as he tutted. "Are you spying on me? You best not embarrass me by acting like a complete freak at school. If you do, I'm disowning you and I'll make sure everyone else there knows what a complete freak you are too."

As he barged past her and disappeared up the stairs, Harry shrugged and gave her one of those looks that asked, "What can I do?"

'You could tell your spoiled kid to stop treating me like crap,' she thought but didn't dare say. Harry wasn't so bad, and he'd been good to her mother. If it wasn't for him, they would have been forced to move back in with her grandparents who lived in a small village by the sea, and nobody wanted that, especially her grandparents.

"I guess I'll just going to get to bed. Big day tomorrow," she said and rolled her eyes.

"You'll be fine," Harry assured her, but his eyes were filled with doubt. "It's never as bad as you think it will be."

'He knows I'm going to have a terrible time,' she thought. 'I can tell by that sad tone in his voice.'

The pair said goodnight and Jenna left, making her way to her new bedroom. A figure in the dark hallway caused her to pause. Kai. Was he waiting for her?

She tried to step around him, but he blocked her way.

"What do you want now?" she asked, not hiding the sadness and greaveance in her voice.

"Watch your tone when you speak to me," he growled, screwing up his face. With white-blonde hair, piercing blue eyes and a strong jawline, he could be really good-looking... if he didn't frown so often. But Jenna wouldn't know—she was yet to see him with any other facial expression other than thinly disguised hatdred.

He cocked his head and leaned in closer, opening his mouth in shock.

"Di—did you just roll your eyes at me?" he whispered, curling his top lip ip in disbelief.

Jenna opened her mouth to say protest--she genuinely hadn't meant to roll her eyes—but no sound came out when she tried to explain as much to the agry man facing her.

Without warning, he lifted her off her feet and shoved her through her bedroom door with one swift, effortless motion.

"Ahh," she let out a small yelp as he held her up.

"You need to learn your place—" he started.

"I didn't!" Jenna cried in protest. She tried to pull out of the grip he had on her clothes, but he was just too strong. "I swear I didn't mean to, I mean, I—"

"And now you're interrupting me." He tutted, sighed, and shook his head. "My Dad keeps harping on at me to use my popularity at school to help you. But I could do the exact opposite. You realise that, right? I can make your life hell in that place. It's already a shitty school compared to your last posho place."

'Do it!' Jenna thought but did not dare say. There were only two terms of the final year remaining. After that, she was free to go off to college wherever she wanted. As far away from this jerk as possible.

When she looked up, staring back into his cold blue eyes, Jenna saw nothing but calculating cruelty. His glare chilled her to her bones, melting away her bravado. She didn't want to make an enemy of him, and couldn't figure out what she'd done to make him so aggressive towards her.

'Why do you hate me so much?' she wondered. 'I've been nothing but nice to you.'

"I'm sorry," she whimpered. Surely that was what he wanted to hear, right? Or maybe he wanted her to argue so he could push her about some more.

Kai released his grip on her shirt and shoved her backwards. Luckily, the bed was behind her to break her fall.

"Aww, you best get some sleep little lost lamb," he said with fake sympathy. "It's going to be a long day for you tomorrow. I can promise you that much at least."

Jenna said nothing. She wasn't about to beg for his charity. If he wanted to make her life a misery... well he could go ahead and try. It wasn't as if her life could get worse.

After her dad had been arrested for embezzlement, most of her so-called friends in what Kai called the 'posho school' had given her the cold shoulder. Without the child support income from Dad, her Mum had been forced to take a job that required her to be overseas for months at a time and to top it all off, her boyfriend went and dumped her on the day she moved away.

He said he didn't want a long-distance relationship after she moved a measly hour's drive away. A few days later, he had been spotted out at the cinema with his well toned armed placed around the sholders of her former best friend.

"I have no boyfriend, zero friends and a stepbrother who hates me," Jenna muttered to herself after Kai left her alone. Tears welled up behind her eyes, and as much as she tried to force them away, they spilt out, leaving an array of little dark spots on her pretty new bed sheets.

She wiped at her cheeks, worried that Kai might come back in and see her crying. She didn't want him to have the satisfaction of seeing how upset she was. To be fair, he wasn't the main reason for her sadness, just a cerry on the cake of awful that was her life right now.

'Weak idiot,' she scored herself, wishing she was the kind of girl who could stand up for herself instead of crumbling like a week old pastry.

Before sleeping, one last check of her phone revealed a text from her mother. None of her old friends ever bothered to message her anymore.

"How is everything going? Are the guys looking after you?" it read.

"Everything is great," she replied, sniffing back tears. A complete lie.

"Good luck with school tomorrow!" her mum texted back.

She dropped her phone onto the bed and slumped.

"Yeah," Jenna scoffed to herself, pursing her lips. "I think I'm going to need it."