Hunting The Princes Of Veridian Prep Chapter 1

The night before I was due to start at the exclusive academy, I scrolled across a post that stopped my breath.

[The new Cinderella arrives tomorrow. Which of our Princes should we send out this time?]

[Heard she’s got a pretty face. Should we just ruin it first?]

[I bet this Cinderella won't last a year before she's gone.]

[I’ll take six months!]

[Hope this one sticks around longer, or we’ll be bored again.]

My hand paused, moving the contents of my carry-on. A heavy-duty taser, military-grade pepper spray, a vial of white phosphorus, a miniature fillet knife disguised as a barrette…

A year? I think I can manage a year.

* * *

I was born with something broken inside—a natural anti-social streak.

When I was ten, my stepfather tried to grope me. I met his burning expression with a blank stare, then calmly tossed a pan of scalding oil onto him before using my bare hands to crush the thing he prized most.

At eleven, the neighbor’s pit bull tore a chunk of flesh from my leg. After the incident, the old woman who owned the dog not only refused to pay for my stitches but swore I had tormented her pet while she was out, claiming I deserved the attack.

A few days later, while she was at the grocery store, I lured the dog—Buddy—out to an abandoned lot with some sausages. I meticulously sliced the hide from its body, then went home and made a slow-cooked dog meat stew.

When the old woman returned, I personally delivered the steaming bowl to her.

She ate it, lips slick with grease, complaining only that the meat tasted gamey.

Later that night, she realized Buddy was missing. She searched for a full month, growing sicker with worry until she collapsed in the street and was taken to the hospital.

I went to visit her, carrying a fruit basket. As she watched me, tears welling up from gratitude, I leaned in close.

“Hehe. Did you like Buddy’s meat?”

“I cooked a huge pot just for you. Did you love it?”

The old woman’s eyes bulged in absolute terror, her throat making a sound like a punctured bellows.

After I left, her heart rate spiked, her blood pressure shot up, and she died right there, a victim of her own shock.

When I was thirteen, a psycho classmate—a yandere in the online terms—filmed me in the bathroom and posted the video anonymously.

That same evening, I texted him, asking him to meet me on the school roof, wearing something deliberately revealing.

Under his feverish, predatory gaze, I hit him once with a brick. When he collapsed, I stripped him, bound him to the railing with duct tape, and left him exposed to the biting night wind.

“W-w-whimper… Queena, I’m so sorry. I’ll never do it again. Please, let me go!” he begged, tears mixing with snot on his bruised face.

I smirked, then logged into his heavily secured social media account, set up a tripod, and started a live stream.

Overnight, the boy became an international joke.

I deleted every trace of our conversation and, knowing exactly what I was doing, dropped a USB drive containing ten gigabytes of other girls’ videos—footage he’d taken—right outside the police station.

The investigation was launched immediately. His parents, desperate to avoid a larger scandal, chose to forgive me for the assault.

I sat in the interrogation room, laughing like a maniac.

Everyone learned to fear me, to avoid me.

Until I got the call from the hospital.

My sister, Stella, had jumped.

She was in the ICU, fighting for her life.

I hung up the phone without emotion and returned to tasting a sickeningly sweet slice of cake at a local café.

It was my fifteenth birthday. Stella had promised to come home for it.

I glanced at the long, emotional text message she’d sent—a final missive, probably, before she jumped. It was sentimental and mushy. I skimmed it, lost interest quickly, and powered off my phone.

The police tracked me down and gave me their conclusion.

They offered a flimsy explanation. “Queena, your sister, Stella Sullivan, was under immense pressure at Veridian Prep and, in a moment of depression, took her own life…”

Depressed? Suicide?

They handed me a leather-bound diary, her last possession.