Sweet Like Revenge

05 - United They Stand

If Satan had a fallen angel guarding the gates to hell, it surely looked something like Sienna Hawthorne.

She boasted pale porcelain skin that had never seen a break-out, offset by a head of sleek black hair as dark as ravens taking a midnight flight. Her blue eyes pierced her prey like dazzling crystal shards, luring even the most resilient of men to a bloody, painful death.

Sienna had always been the most infuriatingly beautiful person I'd ever seen. I'd always hated her for it. Neither of those two things had changed in my absence.

"This ... problem has a simple solution," she suddenly declared, her tone as soft as a gentle, careful breeze rippling through the quiet of night. She appraised her awaiting squadron one by one, a sickly sweet smile lining her cherry-red lips.

I couldn't help but question Sienna's definition of a simple solution. Staring me down? Hurling insults at me until I ran away in tears? Ordering the football team to drag me from my chair and toss me into the hall outside? With the tape of our past encounters playing over and over in my mind, nothing would have surprised me.

But, true to her unpredictable nature, Sienna didn't do any of that. Instead, she took a moment to glance up and down the table, then turned to fix her winged eyes upon her second-in-command.

"There are, what, fifteen seats here?" she asked innocently.

Poppy's snarl faltered as she transitioned her gaze from me to Sienna. Her expression changed, too, her sheer disgust melting down into relative confusion. "Uh, I think so..."

Sienna's dainty hand inched over to Poppy's lunch tray. So quickly that I almost missed it, she took one of her french fries. She plucked it right from the tray, then crushed it between her pearly-white teeth.

"So we can spare one, don't you think?"

Poppy's lips parted ever-so-slightly, stuttering the beginnings of a question she never got the chance to ask. It was just no use. Her best friend had made up her mind.

I could stay.

"All that fuss for nothing." Matt grinned, rubbing salt in Poppy's wound.

Sienna rolled her icy eyes, then spun quickly on the heel of her shoe, her long hair flowing out behind her as she walked closer and closer towards me. I tried to prepare myself for our encounter—not that there really was any way to adequately prepare for a clash with the devil incarnate.

But, to my surprise, Sienna redirected herself without so much as sparing me a second look. She took her place at the head of our table, popped open the lid of her diet soda, and took a small, considered sip.

Those who'd arrived with Sienna took that as silent permission. Instantly, they each spilled forward to fill the remaining chairs, chatting animatedly as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

"Elle, right?" the girl who'd arrived with Sienna asked, her excited, high-pitched voice jolting me out of my observation. "I'm Kat. You're new, aren't you? I heard some of the guys talking about you." She lowered her voice to avert Matt's ears, nodding to him subtly. "Him mostly, but don't tell him I told you that. We haven't had a new girl in ages, you see. We did have a transfer student from upstate, but he's a boy and smells like string cheese..."