CHAPTER 1
At Oakridge Preparatory Academy, your zip code wasn't just a part of your address; it was your entire identity, your armor, and your shield. If you lived on the Northside, you drove a matte-black Tesla to school, your parents donated six figures to the alumni fund, and your future at an Ivy League was secured before you even hit puberty.
If you lived on the Southside, like me, you were a ghost. We were the "charity cases." The diversity quota. The kids who only got to walk these pristine, manicured halls because the school board needed a tax write-off and a good PR spin.
My name is Maya. And my uniform was a bright, neon-blue polyester apron that felt like sandpaper against my skin.
It was the universal symbol of the Oakridge Work-Study Program. While the trust-fund babies were using their lunch periods to trade crypto on their iPads, gossip about their weekend trips to Aspen, or complain about their trust funds, I was standing behind the steaming metal vats of the cafeteria line, serving them baked ziti and trying to pretend I didn't exist.
I didn't have a choice. My mom worked double shifts at a diner just to keep the electricity on in our cramped, two-bedroom apartment. The "generous" scholarship Oakridge provided covered tuition, but it didn't cover the exorbitant meal plans, the mandatory extracurricular fees, or the custom textbooks that cost more than our monthly rent.
So, I worked. I scrubbed tables, I hauled trash bags that weighed more than I did, and I stood on the serving line, wearing that ridiculous blue apron, swallowing my pride every single day.
Usually, the rich kids just ignored me. To them, I was part of the furniture. A vending machine that breathed. They'd hold out their porcelain plates, taking the food without making eye contact, too absorbed in their own golden bubbles to notice the dark circles under my eyes or the exhaustion in my posture.
But Mrs. Eleanor Vance was different.
Mrs. Vance was the AP European History teacher, and the unofficial gatekeeper of Oakridge's elite status. She was old money personified—crisp Chanel suits, pearls that cost more than a small house, and a permanent, pinched sneer on her face, like she was constantly smelling something rotten.
She despised the work-study kids. She believed we were diluting the "prestige" of the academy. She never missed an opportunity to remind us of our place at the absolute bottom of the food chain.
If I raised my hand in her class, she looked right through me. If I handed in a perfect essay, she'd give it a B-minus with a red-inked note about "lack of cultural refinement."
But the cafeteria line? That was her favorite hunting ground. That was where the power dynamic was stripped down to its rawest, ugliest form. She was the master, and I was the servant.
It was a Tuesday. The second week of November. The kitchen staff had prepared a massive vat of New England clam chowder for the faculty lunch special.
It wasn't just hot. It was boiling. The industrial warmers beneath the steel tubs were cranked up to maximum, keeping the thick, creamy soup bubbling violently. Every time I lifted the heavy metal ladle, a cloud of thick, scalding steam would hit my face.
The cafeteria was packed. Four hundred students buzzing, laughing, the chaotic symphony of teenage entitlement echoing off the vaulted ceilings.
I was at station three, my arms aching from lifting the heavy ladle for the past forty minutes. My cheap blue apron was already stained with a splash of marinara sauce from earlier, making me feel even more unkempt and out of place among the sea of designer clothes.
Then, the crowd parted.
It was like Moses parting the Red Sea, but instead of a prophet, it was Mrs. Vance, gliding toward my station with her nose in the air. She was wearing a brand new, cream-colored silk blouse and a pair of Jimmy Choo heels that clicked menacingly against the linoleum.
My stomach instantly twisted into a tight, heavy knot. I gripped the handle of the ladle tighter, my knuckles turning white. I just wanted to get through this interaction without an incident. Just serve the soup. Keep my head down. Survive.
She stepped up to the glass sneeze-guard, looking past it directly at me. Her cold, pale blue eyes scanned me from head to toe, lingering on the marinara stain on my apron. A look of profound, visceral disgust washed over her face.
"Bowl," she snapped, not a request, but a command issued to a dog.
"Yes, Mrs. Vance," I mumbled politely, my voice trembling slightly. I reached under the counter, grabbing one of the large, heavy ceramic bowls reserved for the faculty.
I placed it carefully on the metal tray resting on the counter between us. I dipped the massive stainless-steel ladle deep into the boiling vat of chowder. The heat radiating off the liquid was intense, making the air shimmer. I carefully, steadily lifted the ladle, bringing it over to her bowl.
"Not the watery part at the top, you insolent girl," she hissed, her voice low enough that only I could hear. "I want the clams at the bottom. Do I have to explain how gravity works to you people?"
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Vance," I whispered, my cheeks burning with humiliation.
I dumped the first scoop back into the vat. It splashed slightly, a drop of boiling liquid hitting the back of my hand. I winced, but didn't dare make a sound. I dug the ladle deeper, scraping the bottom of the metal tub, pulling up a thick, heavy scoop of steaming clams, potatoes, and boiling cream.
I brought it over to her bowl and poured it in perfectly. Not a single drop spilled.
"Is that all?" she sneered, leaning closer to the glass. "For what we pay to keep you charity cases fed, the least you could do is fill the bowl."
My jaw tightened. I was biting the inside of my cheek so hard I tasted copper. I dipped the ladle in one more time, getting a half-scoop, and carefully added it to the bowl. The boiling soup was now sitting just a fraction of an inch from the rim.
"Thank you, Mrs. Vance," I said, forcing my eyes to stay locked on the counter, desperate for her to just take the tray and leave.
She didn't take the tray.
Instead, she reached out with her perfectly manicured hands and picked up the heavy ceramic bowl directly.
"You missed a spot on the rim," she said, her voice dripping with venom.
"I—I'm sorry, I'll wipe it—"
I reached out with a clean paper towel.
I will never, for the rest of my life, forget the look in her eyes in that exact fraction of a second. It wasn't an accident. It wasn't a slip of the fingers.
Her eyes went completely flat, utterly dead, filled with a calculated, malicious cruelty that chilled me to the bone.
She shifted her weight, feigned a tiny stumble, and forcefully, deliberately, shoved the bottom of the heavy ceramic bowl upward and outward.
She didn't drop it. She launched it.
The entire bowl of boiling, thick, sticky clam chowder flew over the glass divider and hit me dead in the center of my chest.
The impact knocked the breath out of me. The bowl shattered against the steel counter, sending sharp shards of ceramic flying in every direction.
But the bowl wasn't the problem.
It was the soup.
It hit my cheap polyester apron, and because the fabric was basically plastic, it didn't absorb the liquid. The boiling cream and chunks of scalding potatoes clung to the fabric, instantly melting the synthetic fibers directly into the skin of my chest, my neck, and down my stomach.
For one agonizing second, my brain didn't process what had happened. There was just a heavy, wet shock.
And then, the pain arrived.
It wasn't just hot. It was a searing, flesh-eating agony. It felt like someone had opened the door to a blast furnace and shoved me inside. A horrific, guttural scream ripped its way out of my throat before I could even try to stop it.
"AHHHHHHH!"
I stumbled backward, clawing wildly at the front of my shirt, desperate to get the boiling liquid off me. But the sticky chowder clung to my clothes, trapping the violent heat against my skin. I could literally feel my skin blistering, bubbling up underneath the melted polyester.
The entire cafeteria, a room that had just been deafeningly loud with the chatter of four hundred teenagers, went dead, terrifyingly silent.
The only sound was my own frantic, gasping screams as I fell to the slick linoleum floor.
I curled into a ball, shaking uncontrollably, tears blinding me. The pain was radiating in massive, blinding waves. My chest felt like it was on fire. I couldn't breathe. The smell of the soup mixed with the sickening scent of melting plastic and burned skin.
I looked up through my blurred, tear-filled vision, gasping for air, expecting—hoping—that someone was calling for a nurse. Hoping that Mrs. Vance was horrified by her "accident."
She wasn't.
Mrs. Eleanor Vance was standing perfectly still on the other side of the counter. She was looking down at me, her face completely impassive, save for a slight twitch of annoyance at the corner of her mouth.
She looked down at her feet. A tiny, dime-sized splatter of soup had landed on the toe of her left Jimmy Choo heel.
"Look what you've done," she said. Her voice wasn't panicked. It wasn't apologetic. It was ice-cold and laced with pure, unadulterated fury.
I couldn't speak. I was choking on my own sobs, holding my burned chest, rocking back and forth on the hard floor.
"I… it burns…" I managed to gasp out, my voice breaking into a pathetic whimper. "Please… I need… water…"
"What you need," Mrs. Vance snapped, her voice carrying through the dead-silent cafeteria like the crack of a whip, "is to learn some basic competence. You careless, clumsy, ungrateful little wretch."
She reached over the counter, grabbed a filthy, gray, chemical-soaked rag that we used to wipe down the grease traps, and threw it over the glass. It hit me right in the face, the harsh smell of ammonia mixing with the agony of my burns.
"You ruined my shoes," she hissed, her eyes blazing with a terrifying elitist rage. "Clean it up. Now."
I just lay there, paralyzed by the pain and the sheer, incomprehensible cruelty of the moment. Around me, the wealthy students of Oakridge stood frozen. I saw the flashes of cell phone cameras. They were recording me. They were watching me writhe in agony like an animal in a zoo, too afraid of Mrs. Vance's power to step in, or maybe just too apathetic to care about a Southside girl.
"Did you hear me?" Mrs. Vance barked, slamming her palm against the glass divider. "Get on your hands and knees and scrub this floor! You made this mess, you filthy little charity case, now you clean it! Scrub it!"
The pain in my chest was making me dizzy. Black spots danced in my vision. The humiliation was a physical weight, pressing me into the dirt. I was broken. The system had won. They could literally burn me alive, and my only option was to apologize.
Trembling, sobbing so hard I couldn't catch my breath, I slowly, agonizingly rolled over onto my hands and knees. Every movement pulled at the blistered skin on my chest, sending fresh spikes of hellish pain through my nervous system.
I reached out with a shaking, blistered hand, my fingers wrapping around the filthy gray rag. I lowered my head, the tears dripping off my chin and splashing into the puddle of boiling soup on the floor.
I prepared to scrub. I prepared to surrender the last shred of my dignity.
But my hand never touched the floor.
Because suddenly, the ambient light in the cafeteria seemed to dim. A massive, looming shadow fell over me, completely blocking out the harsh fluorescent overhead lights.
The ground literally vibrated.
Thud. Thud. Thud. The heavy, unmistakable sound of steel-toed boots walking across the linoleum.
I froze, still on my knees, clutching my burning chest. I slowly looked up.
A pair of dark denim jeans, thick as tree trunks, planted themselves firmly between me and the counter.
I looked higher. A black t-shirt stretching over a chest the size of a brick wall. A black varsity jacket with leather sleeves.
Jaxson Thorne.
They didn't call him 'The Reaper' on the football field just for his stats. Jaxson was 6 foot 5, 240 pounds of pure, terrifying muscle. He was the star defensive lineman, the undisputed king of Oakridge High, and a guy who almost never spoke a word. He was notorious for his ruthless aggression on the field and his icy, unapproachable demeanor off it. He came from money—the kind of money that made Mrs. Vance look middle-class—but he despised the social games of Oakridge.
He never bullied the work-study kids. But he never helped us, either. He just existed in his own violent, untouchable orbit.
Until right now.
Jaxson stood there, an immovable mountain of muscle, completely physically blocking Mrs. Vance's view of me.
"Excuse me, Jaxson," Mrs. Vance said, her tone instantly softening, a sickeningly sweet, fake smile plastered onto her face. "Could you step aside, please? The hired help is having a bit of a tantrum and needs to clean up her mess."
Jaxson didn't move a single inch.
He didn't look down at me. He kept his eyes locked dead onto Mrs. Vance.
His jaw flexed, a hard, sharp line of pure danger.
Slowly, deliberately, Jaxson lifted his right foot. He brought his heavy boot down, planting it squarely on top of the dirty gray rag I was about to use, pinning it to the floor.
He then reached into the pocket of his varsity jacket.
Mrs. Vance's fake smile began to falter. A flicker of genuine uncertainty crossed her pale eyes. "Jaxson, I really must insist—"
Jaxson pulled out his phone. The latest, most expensive model.
He didn't say a word. He just turned the screen around, holding it up so that it was mere inches from Mrs. Vance's face.
I couldn't see the screen from where I was kneeling on the floor, still weeping from the pain.
But I could hear the audio.
Clear as day, echoing in the dead-silent cafeteria, the sound of Mrs. Vance's voice came out of Jaxson's phone speakers.
"Not the watery part at the top, you insolent girl… I want the clams at the bottom… Do I have to explain how gravity works to you people?" Mrs. Vance's face drained of all color. She went as white as a sheet.
Jaxson's thumb tapped the screen again. The audio continued, perfectly capturing the sickening, wet thud of the heavy bowl being violently, deliberately shoved.
"Look what you've done… You careless, clumsy, ungrateful little wretch." Jaxson had recorded the whole thing. From a perfect, unobstructed angle. He had caught her intentional, malicious attack in 4K resolution.
Mrs. Vance took a stumbling, panicked step backward, her perfectly manicured hands trembling violently.
"Jaxson… Jaxson, sweetheart, you don't understand," she stammered, her arrogant facade completely shattering. "That… that's out of context. She dropped it! You saw her!"
Jaxson finally spoke.
His voice was a deep, gravelly rumble that sent a shiver down the spine of every single person in that room. It wasn't loud. It was dangerously, terrifyingly quiet.
"I saw you," Jaxson said, his dark eyes burning with a cold, lethal fire. "And in exactly ten seconds, the police, the school board, and all three million of my followers are going to see you, too."
He held his thumb over the 'Post' button on his screen.
"Now," Jaxson growled, stepping forward, forcing the teacher to retreat another terrified step. "Back the hell away from her."
Chapter 2
The cafeteria was so quiet you could hear a pin drop, or in this case, the sickening sizzle of boiling soup continuing to melt the synthetic fibers of my uniform into my skin.
Mrs. Vance, the untouchable queen of Oakridge Preparatory, was physically shrinking. Her crisp Chanel suit suddenly looked too big for her. The manicured hands that had just launched a ceramic bowl of boiling chowder at my chest were now trembling so violently she had to cross her arms to hide them.
"Jaxson," she whispered, her voice cracking, stripped of all its haughty, aristocratic venom. "You… you wouldn't. I am your teacher. I write your college recommendations."
She was actually trying to play the academic leverage card. She had just committed third-degree assault in broad daylight, and her first instinct was to remind the star athlete about his Ivy League prospects. That was Oakridge in a nutshell.
Jaxson Thorne didn't flinch. His dark eyes, usually completely deadened to the petty dramas of high school, were locked onto her with a terrifying, predatory focus.
"I don't need your recommendations, Eleanor," Jaxson said, dropping the 'Mrs.' entirely. The disrespect was a physical blow to her. She gasped, taking another step back. "My stats speak for themselves. But your career? Your reputation? That's hanging by a thread, and my thumb is hovering right over the scissors."
"It was an accident!" she shrieked, her voice pitching up in genuine panic as she looked frantically around the room. She was looking for an ally. Anyone. But the sea of wealthy students—the very kids she catered to and protected—were frozen, their phone cameras still raised, capturing her complete meltdown.
"The video says otherwise," Jaxson replied, his voice a low, gravelly hum that vibrated with suppressed violence. "I saw you check the distance. I saw you shift your weight. You aimed. You fired."
A fresh wave of agony ripped through me, pulling me back from their confrontation. The adrenaline that had momentarily numbed the shock was wearing off, leaving nothing but the raw, unadulterated hellfire on my chest and neck.
I let out a ragged, suffocating gasp, curling tighter into a fetal position on the cold, sticky linoleum. The edges of my vision were going black. The pain was so intense my teeth were chattering.
Jaxson's eyes snapped down to me. The cold, calculating fury directed at Mrs. Vance vanished in a fraction of a second, replaced by something I had never seen on the 'Reaper's' face before: sheer, unfiltered alarm.
He shoved his phone back into his varsity jacket and dropped to his knees right beside me, completely ignoring the puddle of boiling soup soaking into his expensive denim jeans.
"Hey," he said, his voice dropping to a surprisingly gentle timbre. He hovered his massive hands over me, unsure of where he could safely touch without causing more pain. "Hey, look at me. Stay awake."
"It burns," I sobbed, my voice sounding weak, pathetic, and far away. I clawed weakly at the collar of my shirt, desperate to pull the melted fabric away from my blistering skin, but my fingers wouldn't work right.
"Don't pull at it," Jaxson commanded, his tone instantly shifting into authoritative gear. He grabbed my wrists, his grip surprisingly light, stopping my frantic scratching. "If it's melted, pulling it will take the skin off with it. You need cold water. Now."
He looked up, his eyes sweeping the frozen cafeteria.
"Is everyone in this damn room paralyzed?!" Jaxson roared, the sheer volume of his voice making several kids in the front row physically jump. "Someone get the nurse! Call 911!"
The spell broke. The cafeteria exploded into chaos. Kids started shouting, running toward the heavy double doors.
Mrs. Vance, seeing her opportunity in the confusion, tried to slip away. She took two hurried steps toward the faculty lounge.
"Don't you take another step, Eleanor," Jaxson snarled without even looking up at her, his hands still gently holding my wrists to keep me from hurting myself.
Mrs. Vance froze mid-stride like a deer in headlights.
"If you leave this room before the cops get here, I hit post," Jaxson promised, his voice devoid of emotion. "Stand exactly where you are and look at what you did."
I was hyperventilating. The pain was a living, breathing entity wrapping its claws around my ribcage. I felt a heavy, warm liquid trickling down my stomach, and I vaguely realized the blisters were already weeping.
Finally, the frantic click-clack of sensible heels echoed through the crowd. It was Nurse Higgins, a perpetually exhausted woman who usually dealt with nothing more serious than rich kids faking migraines to get out of AP Calculus.
She pushed through the crowd, carrying a flimsy red first-aid kit. When she saw me writhing on the floor, and the steaming, viscous mess of soup and melted polyester, all the color drained from her face.
"Oh, sweet Jesus," Nurse Higgins breathed, dropping to her knees on my other side. She opened the kit with trembling hands. "Maya? Maya, honey, can you hear me?"
"Do something!" Jaxson barked, his patience instantly evaporating. "She's going into shock."
Nurse Higgins pulled out a tiny, pathetic bottle of saline solution and a few sterile gauze pads. It was like bringing a squirt gun to a five-alarm fire.
"I… I can't put gauze on this," she stammered, her eyes wide with panic. "It's a third-degree chemical and thermal burn. The fabric is fused. If I try to cool it too fast with what I have here, she'll go into hypothermic shock. We need paramedics."
"Where are they?" Jaxson demanded.
"Security is holding them at the front gate," Principal Davis's voice boomed over the crowd.
Principal Davis was a tall, imposing man who operated Oakridge less like a school and more like a Fortune 500 company. He strode through the parting sea of students, his face a mask of perfectly controlled PR panic. He was flanked by two burly campus security guards.
"Holding them?!" Jaxson stood up, his massive frame towering over the principal. "Are you out of your mind? She's burning alive!"
"Keep your voice down, Mr. Thorne," Principal Davis said smoothly, though his eyes darted nervously to the dozens of cell phones still recording. "We need to manage this situation carefully. We cannot have an ambulance flashing its lights in the main courtyard while the Board of Trustees is touring the new science wing."
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Through the blinding haze of my agony, the reality of my social standing hit me harder than the boiling soup. They were keeping the paramedics at the gate. They were delaying my medical treatment to save face for a bunch of billionaire donors.
Because I was just Maya. A Southside charity case. My pain was an inconvenience. My permanent scarring was a PR liability.
"Manage the situation?" Jaxson repeated, stepping so close to Principal Davis that the older man had to crane his neck to look him in the eye. "You're delaying medical care for a student who was just assaulted by your staff."
"It was an unfortunate accident in the kitchen," Principal Davis corrected smoothly, shooting a warning glare at Mrs. Vance, who was currently trembling near the faculty tables. "Mrs. Vance tripped. It's a tragedy, but it's an internal matter. We will escort Maya to the nurse's office through the back corridors, and the EMTs can meet her there quietly."
"Moving her will rip the skin off her chest," Nurse Higgins interjected weakly, but Principal Davis silenced her with a sharp look.
"Security," Principal Davis ordered, gesturing to the two guards. "Help Maya up. Get her out of the cafeteria. Now. And the rest of you, put your phones away immediately, or face immediate suspension!"
The guards stepped forward, their massive hands reaching down to grab me by the arms. If they pulled me up by my shoulders, the fabric of my shirt would stretch. It would tear the fused plastic directly out of my blistered flesh.
I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing for the inevitable, excruciating pain. I knew I couldn't fight them. I was weak, dizzy, and just a broke kid. The house always wins.
"Don't touch her."
The words weren't yelled. They were spoken with a quiet, lethal finality that stopped the two security guards dead in their tracks.
Jaxson stepped perfectly between me and the guards. He rolled his broad shoulders, a subtle, intimidating movement that showcased the sheer, terrifying power of his physique.
"Mr. Thorne, step aside," Principal Davis warned, his smooth veneer finally cracking. "You are interfering with school protocol. I will bench you for the state championship if I have to."
Jaxson actually laughed. It was a dark, humorless sound that sent chills down my spine.
"Bench me," Jaxson challenged, opening his arms wide. "Do it. Explain to the alumni why your star recruit isn't playing. Explain to the press why you suspended the only guy who tried to stop a teacher from mutilating a work-study student."
Principal Davis's face flushed a deep, angry crimson. He was trapped. He knew Jaxson's family donated more money to this school than the next five families combined. He knew Jaxson was untouchable.
Jaxson didn't wait for a response. He turned his back on the principal, completely dismissing the most powerful man in the building, and knelt back down beside me.
"Maya," Jaxson said softly, using my name for the first time. "I know this is going to hurt. But I am not letting these corporate suits touch you. I'm taking you to the hospital myself."
"My… my mom," I gasped out, the tears still streaming down my face. "I can't… the ambulance bill… the ER…"
Even in the middle of being burned alive, the crushing reality of poverty was the loudest voice in my head. An ambulance ride in America could bankrupt my mother. An emergency room visit without our terrible, high-deductible insurance could mean eviction. I was lying on the floor in agony, mentally calculating the cost of my own survival.
Jaxson's eyes softened, a flash of profound understanding crossing his features. He knew exactly what I was panicking about.
"I've got it," he promised, his voice steady and completely unshakeable. "Every single dime. The bills won't even touch your mailbox. Do you trust me?"
I looked into his dark eyes. I didn't know him. Not really. He was a gladiator from the Northside, and I was the girl serving him extra carbs before game day. But in that moment, looking at the absolute fury he harbored for the people who had hurt me, I nodded.
"Okay," Jaxson breathed. "I'm going to pick you up. I'll support your back and your knees so your chest doesn't stretch. Ready?"
I squeezed my eyes shut and nodded again.
Jaxson slid one massive, heavily muscled arm under the back of my knees, and the other gently behind my upper back, perfectly avoiding the burns on my neck and chest.
"Three, two, one."
He lifted me as easily as if I weighed nothing at all.
Despite his care, the shift in gravity pulled at the melted fabric. A sharp, white-hot blinding spike of pain shot through my entire torso. I screamed, burying my face into the leather sleeve of his varsity jacket, my teeth biting down on my own lip until I tasted blood.
"I know, I know, I'm sorry," Jaxson muttered, his chest rumbling against my ear as he held me tight. "I've got you. We're leaving."
He turned and began walking toward the main cafeteria doors.
"Jaxson!" Principal Davis shouted, finally losing his temper. "If you walk out those doors with her, you are expelled! You hear me? Expelled!"
Jaxson didn't even break his stride. He kicked the heavy double doors open with one steel-toed boot, carrying me out of the suffocating cafeteria and into the crisp, cool November air of the main courtyard.
The cold air hitting my burned chest felt like thousands of tiny needles, but it was a fraction better than the stifling heat of the cafeteria.
We bypassed the front gates entirely. Jaxson carried me toward the senior parking lot, his long strides eating up the distance. He walked straight up to a massive, matte-black Ford Raptor truck.
He managed to open the passenger door with one hand while holding me securely with the other. He gently, agonizingly lowered me onto the soft leather seat, leaning the chair back as far as it would go so I was practically lying down, preventing my shirt from pulling against my burns.
"Don't move," he ordered softly, slamming the door.
He jogged around to the driver's side, hopped in, and fired up the engine. The truck roared to life, a deep, guttural sound that matched the tension in the cab.
He threw it into reverse, tires squealing against the asphalt, and tore out of the Oakridge parking lot, completely ignoring the security guard waving his arms frantically at the exit booth.
We hit the main road, the truck accelerating fast. The hum of the engine and the blur of the wealthy suburban houses flying past the window were the only distractions from the pulsing, radiating heat consuming my chest.
I looked over at Jaxson. His jaw was clenched so tight a muscle ticked rapidly near his ear. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel. He was driving with terrifying precision, weaving through traffic like a man possessed.
"Why?" I finally croaked out, my throat raw from screaming.
He glanced over at me, his eyes quickly scanning my burns before snapping back to the road. "Why what?"
"Why are you doing this?" I whispered, fighting a wave of nausea. "You're going to lose… your championship. You'll get expelled. For me."
Jaxson let out a sharp, bitter exhale.
"Maya," he said, his voice heavy with a disgust that clearly wasn't directed at me. "I have watched these entitled, miserable people treat you and the other work-study kids like garbage since freshman year. I watched them ignore you. I watched them mock you. And I never did anything because I told myself it wasn't my business."
He gripped the steering wheel harder.
"But today? That wasn't just entitlement. That was pure, psychotic cruelty. She wanted to permanently disfigure you because she felt like it. And the fact that the principal's first instinct was to hide you like a dirty secret…" He shook his head, his eyes burning with a dark, uncompromising fire. "I'm done playing their game. Let them expel me. Let them try."
My phone, tucked into the pocket of my jeans, suddenly started vibrating frantically.
I winced, trying to reach for it, but the movement sent fire across my stomach. Jaxson reached over, slipping his large hand into my pocket and pulling the phone out for me.
He looked at the screen.
"It's Principal Davis," Jaxson said, his lip curling into a sneer. "He's calling your phone."
The phone buzzed aggressively in his palm. The man who had just tried to deny me an ambulance was now desperately trying to do damage control. He knew the narrative was slipping out of his perfectly manicured hands.
Jaxson looked at the ringing phone, then looked at me, lying in his passenger seat, my skin melted, my life altered forever because of a school that viewed me as collateral damage.
He didn't hand the phone to me. He didn't answer it.
Jaxson rolled his window down.
"Oops," he said flatly.
And with a flick of his wrist, he tossed my ringing cell phone out the window of the moving truck, sending it smashing into a million pieces on the side of the highway.
"I'll buy you a new one," he said smoothly, rolling the window back up. "Right now, we need to get you to the trauma center. And then…"
He looked back at the road, a dangerous, terrifyingly calm smile touching the corners of his mouth.
"Then, we tear Oakridge Preparatory Academy straight down to the foundation."
Chapter 3
The drive to the hospital felt like an eternity stretched over a bed of hot coals. Every bump in the road, every slight turn of the massive Ford Raptor, sent shockwaves of blinding, white-hot agony radiating from the center of my chest outward. I was shivering violently now, a cold sweat breaking out across my forehead as my body started to slide dangerously close to clinical shock.
Jaxson didn't take me to the overcrowded, underfunded county hospital on the Southside, where my mom and I usually had to wait six hours just to be seen for a flu.
He drove straight past the city limits and into the affluent medical district of the Northside, pulling up to the glowing, pristine glass entrance of St. Jude's Private Medical Center. It looked more like a five-star luxury hotel than an emergency room. Valets in crisp uniforms stood near the doors. There were no sirens, no chaos, just quiet, expensive efficiency.
Jaxson slammed the truck into park right in the middle of the red 'Ambulances Only' zone. He didn't even bother turning the engine off.
He was out of the driver's seat and around to my door in a fraction of a second. He opened it carefully, his jaw set so tight it looked carved from granite.
"Don't move," he commanded softly. "I've got you."
Once again, he slid his massive arms beneath my knees and my upper back, lifting me out of the truck with an agonizingly slow, calculated precision to prevent my melted uniform from stretching. But the movement still tore a choked, guttural sob from my throat.
"I know, Maya. I know," he murmured, his deep voice vibrating against my cheek as he held me close. "Just hold on. We're here."
He kicked the sliding glass doors open, ignoring the automatic sensors, and carried me directly into the hushed, marble-floored reception area of the ER.
A woman in scrubs behind a curved mahogany desk stood up immediately, her eyes widening in indignation.
"Sir, you cannot park your vehicle there, and you need to wait in the—"
"I need a trauma team. Now," Jaxson interrupted, his voice echoing off the high ceilings. It wasn't a panicked yell. It was a terrifying, authoritative boom that demanded absolute obedience.
The receptionist blinked, her annoyance faltering as she took in his massive frame, his blood-stained hands from where I had bitten my own lip, and my violently shaking, sobbing form. Then, her eyes landed on his face.
She recognized him. Anyone on the Northside who watched local sports or read the society pages knew the Thorne family. They basically funded half this hospital's oncology wing.
"M-Mr. Thorne," she stammered, instantly reaching for a red phone on her desk. "Right away. Trauma Bay One is open."
Within ten seconds, a set of double doors flew open, and three nurses and a doctor rushed out, pushing a pristine, high-tech gurney.
"What do we have?" the doctor asked, assessing the situation with rapid, clinical efficiency.
"Chemical and thermal burns," Jaxson stated, gently lowering me onto the sterile white sheets of the gurney. "Boiling, industrial-grade clam chowder mixed with melted synthetic polyester. Fused directly to the skin on her chest, neck, and upper abdomen."
The doctor's eyes widened in horror. "How long ago?"
"Twenty minutes. No cooling applied. The school refused to call an ambulance."
The medical team didn't waste another second. They grabbed the rails of the gurney and started moving fast, rushing me down a brightly lit corridor. Jaxson didn't stay in the waiting room. He matched their frantic pace, his heavy boots pounding against the linoleum, refusing to leave my side.
They wheeled me into a massive, heavily equipped room. The fluorescent lights above were blinding.
"Sir, you need to wait outside," a nurse said, stepping in front of Jaxson as they began to swarm the bed.
"I'm staying right here," Jaxson replied, his voice a low rumble that left absolutely no room for debate. He didn't raise a hand, but the sheer, imposing presence of a 6-foot-5, 240-pound furious defensive lineman was enough. The nurse backed off, looking to the doctor, who just shook his head and focused on me.
"Alright, sweetheart, I'm Dr. Evans," the doctor said, leaning over me. "We need to get this fabric off you right now, and it is going to hurt. We're going to give you something for the pain immediately. Nurse, push four milligrams of morphine, stat."
The word 'morphine' cut through my pain-hazed brain like a siren. Morphine meant a massive bill. This private room meant bankruptcy.
"No," I gasped, my voice a weak, pathetic wheeze. I tried to push the doctor's hand away, but my arms felt like lead. "No, please… I can't… I don't have insurance… I can't pay for this…"
The room went dead silent for a microsecond. The nurses exchanged uncomfortable, pitying glances. It was a reality they rarely saw in this zip code.
Jaxson stepped out of the shadows and came right to the side of my bed. He reached out, taking my unburned left hand in both of his massive, warm hands. His grip was grounding.
"Maya, listen to me," Jaxson said, leaning down so his face was inches from mine. His dark eyes were fierce and completely unwavering. "You are not paying for a single cotton swab in this room. My family is covering everything. Every pill, every bandage, every bill. Do you understand? It's handled. Let them help you."
"But—"
"I swear to God," he promised, his thumb gently brushing across my knuckles. "It's handled."
I looked into his eyes, searching for a lie, for a trap, for the catch that always came when the rich offered help to the poor. But there was nothing but a raw, furious protective instinct. I surrendered. I gave a tiny, imperceptible nod.
"Push the morphine," Dr. Evans ordered.
A nurse inserted an IV into the crook of my arm with practiced ease. Within seconds, a heavy, icy sensation crawled up my vein.
The edge of the agony didn't disappear, but it suddenly felt like it was happening to someone else. The room blurred slightly. The frantic beating of my heart began to slow.
"Alright, the pain meds are taking the edge off, but we have to do the debridement now," Dr. Evans said grimly. He picked up a pair of heavy medical shears. "We have to cut away the melted clothing and the dead tissue to prevent infection."
What followed was a horrific, agonizing blur.
Even with the heavy narcotics flooding my system, the sensation of them peeling the fused plastic and blistered skin off my chest was a nightmare. I screamed, arching off the bed, my fingers squeezing Jaxson's hand so hard my nails dug into his palm.
He didn't pull away. He stood there like a stone pillar, letting me crush his hand, murmuring quiet, steady words of encouragement while the medical team worked with ruthless efficiency.
They scrubbed the raw, weeping burns with sterile saline. They picked out tiny fragments of shattered ceramic that had embedded in my collarbone when the bowl exploded. Every touch was electric. Every wipe was fire.
Through the haze of the drugs and the pain, I watched Jaxson.
He was staring at the raw, mutilated flesh on my chest. I expected him to look disgusted. I expected him to turn away. Rich boys from the Northside didn't have the stomach for real, ugly suffering.
But he didn't look away. His eyes burned with a dark, uncompromising rage. He wasn't disgusted by me; he was disgusted by what had been done to me. I could see him mentally replaying the incident in the cafeteria, the gears in his head turning, calculating exactly how he was going to dismantle Mrs. Vance's entire life.
After what felt like hours, the scraping and cutting finally stopped.
"Second-degree burns across the upper chest and neck, borderline third-degree where the synthetic fibers melted the deepest," Dr. Evans announced, peeling off his bloody gloves. "You were incredibly lucky it didn't hit her face or eyes."
They slathered a thick, cooling layer of silver sulfadiazine cream over the raw flesh, and finally, the burning sensation began to genuinely recede, replaced by a deep, throbbing ache. They wrapped my entire torso in pristine white bandages, securing them tightly.
"We'll need to keep her overnight for observation and to manage the pain," Dr. Evans said, looking over at Jaxson. "She'll need a private room."
"Put her in the VIP suite on the top floor," Jaxson commanded without missing a beat. "And send the bill directly to my father's office."
The doctor nodded, entirely unfazed by the flex of wealth, and left the room to make the arrangements.
The nurses finished cleaning up the bay, dimming the harsh overhead lights, leaving only a soft, warm glow. They wheeled my bed out of the trauma bay and into a massive, private recovery suite that looked nicer than my entire apartment. There were leather couches, a flat-screen TV, and a panoramic window overlooking the city skyline.
Jaxson pulled a heavy leather armchair right up to the side of my bed and sat down. He looked exhausted. The adrenaline crash was hitting him. His varsity jacket was stained with my blood and the grease from the cafeteria floor.
"How are you feeling?" he asked quietly.
"Like I got hit by a truck," I mumbled, the morphine making my tongue feel thick and clumsy. "But… better. Thank you."
"Don't thank me," he said sharply, leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "I shouldn't have let it happen in the first place. I should have stepped in the second she started talking down to you."
"You didn't owe me anything, Jaxson. We don't even talk."
"That's the problem," he said, his voice laced with bitter self-reproach. "We all just let them do it. We let them treat you like you're invisible because it's easier than fighting the system. But the system is broken, Maya. And today, they crossed a line that I can't ignore."
Before I could respond, the heavy wooden door to the suite flew open with a loud bang.
My mother stood in the doorway.
She was still wearing her pink retro diner uniform, her apron covered in grease stains and coffee spills. Her hair was falling out of its messy bun, and her chest was heaving as she gasped for air. Her eyes were wild, darting frantically around the luxurious, intimidating room until they landed on me in the hospital bed, covered in bandages.
"Maya!"
She practically lunged across the room, falling to her knees beside my bed, her trembling hands hovering over me, terrified to touch me and cause more pain. Tears were streaming down her face, ruining her cheap mascara.
"Oh my god, my baby, what happened?" she sobbed, burying her face into the edge of my mattress. "The school called… Principal Davis said there was an accident in the kitchen… he said you spilled soup on yourself…"
My blood ran cold.
Principal Davis had actually called my mother and blamed me. He had spun the narrative before we even reached the hospital. He was protecting the school's reputation by throwing a poor, injured seventeen-year-old under the bus.
Jaxson stood up slowly. His imposing height instantly dominated the room.
My mother flinched, looking up at him with the ingrained wariness that working-class people have around the ultra-wealthy. She saw the varsity jacket, the expensive boots, the undeniable aura of privilege, and she immediately shrank back, assuming he was part of the problem.
"Who are you?" she asked defensively, her voice shaking. "Are you from the school? Because I want answers. My daughter knows how to handle hot food, she wouldn't just—"
"Ma'am," Jaxson interrupted gently, his tone incredibly respectful. He didn't tower over her. He intentionally took a step back, giving her space. "My name is Jaxson Thorne. I'm a student at Oakridge. I brought Maya here."
"A student?" My mom looked confused. "Where is the ambulance? Why did you bring her to St. Jude's? We can't afford—"
"It's paid for, Mrs. Miller," Jaxson assured her smoothly. "Every cent. Please don't worry about the finances."
"But Principal Davis said—"
"Principal Davis is a liar," Jaxson stated, his voice dropping an octave, practically vibrating with cold fury.
My mother froze. She looked from Jaxson to me. "Maya… what is he talking about?"
I swallowed hard, fighting the urge to cry again. "It wasn't an accident, Mom. Mrs. Vance… the history teacher. She got mad at me. She shoved the bowl of boiling chowder over the glass divider on purpose. It hit me right in the chest."
My mother's face went completely blank. The shock was so profound her brain couldn't process the words. She stared at me, the color draining from her cheeks until she looked like a ghost.
"She… she threw boiling liquid on you?" my mother whispered, her voice trembling. "A teacher?"
"And then she ordered Maya to scrub the floor while she was burning," Jaxson added, twisting the knife, making sure my mother understood the absolute depravity of what had occurred.
The sorrow in my mother's eyes instantly vanished, replaced by a primal, terrifying maternal rage. She stood up, her small frame suddenly looking rigid with pure, unadulterated fury. Her fists clenched at her sides.
"I'll kill her," my mom breathed, her voice dropping into a deadly, quiet register. "I will go to that school and I will rip her apart with my bare hands."
"You won't have to," Jaxson said.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a brand new, sleek smartphone—clearly a secondary device he kept on him. He tapped the screen a few times, then held it out to my mother.
"I recorded the whole thing," Jaxson said. "From a perfect angle. I have the audio of her belittling Maya, I have the exact moment she maliciously shoves the bowl, and I have her ordering Maya to clean it up."
My mother took the phone with shaking hands. She watched the video. I couldn't see the screen, but I saw the horrific reflection of the violence playing out in my mother's tear-filled eyes. I heard Mrs. Vance's cruel voice echoing softly in the quiet hospital room.
When the video ended, my mother was shaking so hard she almost dropped the phone.
"We're going to the police," my mom declared, her voice cracking with emotion. "Right now. We're showing this to the cops."
"The police are already involved," Jaxson told her. "But more importantly, the court of public opinion is already passing a sentence."
He took the phone back from my mother and tapped the screen again, navigating to his social media accounts. He turned the screen around so we could both see it.
"While you were in the trauma bay," Jaxson said, a dark, victorious smirk playing on his lips, "I hit post. I bypassed the school's PR department entirely. I didn't tag Oakridge. I tagged the local news stations, the national educational boards, and every single major sponsor that funds the school's athletic programs."
I stared at the screen, my heart pounding against my bruised ribs.
Jaxson Thorne wasn't just a high school football player. He was a five-star recruit with millions of followers, a verified checkmark, and massive influence in the sports world.
The video he posted just thirty minutes ago already had three hundred thousand views.
"Read the comments," Jaxson said quietly.
I squinted at the screen. The internet was exploding.
"Did that teacher just throw BOILING SOUP on a student? Put her in jail immediately."
"Oakridge Prep covers up abuse! They let the rich treat the work-study kids like slaves!"
"Cancel her teaching license. Arrest her for assault. This is sickening."
"Props to the guy who stepped in. The system is rigged."
"Principal Davis thought he could spin this as a kitchen accident," Jaxson said, locking his phone and putting it back in his pocket. "He thought he could bury you because you're from the Southside. But he didn't realize that in 2026, money can't hide a 4K video of a crime."
Just then, the heavy wooden door to my suite cracked open. A man in a sharp, tailored gray suit stepped into the room. He wasn't a doctor. He didn't look like hospital staff. He had the cold, calculating eyes of a corporate shark.
He looked at Jaxson, then at my mother, and finally, his gaze settled on me.
"Maya Miller?" the man asked, his voice smooth and heavily practiced. "My name is Arthur Sterling. I am the lead legal counsel for the Board of Trustees at Oakridge Preparatory Academy."
My mother instantly stepped in front of my bed, shielding me.
"Get out," she snarled, her diner uniform bristling. "We have nothing to say to you."
The lawyer held up his hands in a placating gesture, completely unfazed. "Mrs. Miller, please. I am here to offer a profound apology on behalf of the institution. What happened today was a horrific lapse in judgment by a rogue employee. Mrs. Vance has already been placed on indefinite administrative leave pending an investigation."
"Administrative leave?" Jaxson scoffed, taking a menacing step toward the lawyer. "She should be in handcuffs."
"And she likely will be, Mr. Thorne," the lawyer agreed smoothly, refusing to be intimidated. "However, the school recognizes its failure to protect Maya. We want to make this right. Immediately."
The lawyer reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a crisp, heavy white envelope. He placed it carefully on the edge of the table at the foot of my bed.
"Inside this envelope," the lawyer said, his eyes locking onto my mother's, calculating her financial desperation with practiced ease, "is a cashier's check for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Tax-free. Given as a 'medical distress grant' from the alumni foundation. It will cover any bills, any lost wages, and ensure Maya is entirely comfortable during her recovery."
My mother stared at the envelope. Her jaw dropped. Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That was more money than she would make in a decade of scrubbing tables at the diner. It was life-changing money. It meant moving out of our cramped apartment. It meant never worrying about the electricity bill again.
The lawyer smiled, a thin, predatory curve of his lips.
"There is, of course, a small stipulation," the lawyer continued, pulling a thick stack of stapled papers from his briefcase. "A standard non-disclosure agreement. Maya and her family will agree not to pursue civil litigation against the school, and Mr. Thorne will immediately delete the video from all social media platforms and issue a statement calling it a 'misunderstanding that has been resolved amicably.'"
He was buying our silence. He was purchasing the right to sweep my melted skin under a very expensive rug.
My mother looked at the envelope. Then she looked at me, lying in the hospital bed, wrapped in bandages, trembling from the chemical burns inflicted by a woman who thought we were nothing but trash.
The room fell dead silent, the heavy weight of class warfare hanging thick in the sterile hospital air. The lawyer stood there, supremely confident. The rich always believed that every poor person had a price.
My mother slowly reached out her hand toward the table.
Chapter 4
The silence in the room was deafening. I could hear the rhythmic hiss-click of the IV pump and the distant hum of the hospital's HVAC system. My mother's hand hovered just inches above that heavy, white envelope.
I looked at her. I saw the exhaustion in the slump of her shoulders, the way her knuckles were raw from industrial dish soap, and the way her eyes darted toward the check. This wasn't just money; it was an escape pod. It was a way out of the Southside. It was the end of choosing between groceries and the heating bill.
The lawyer, Arthur Sterling, smoothed his silk tie, his face a mask of practiced, condescending sympathy. He thought he had us. He'd seen this movie a thousand times: dangle enough zeros in front of a starving family, and they'll sign away their souls.
"It's a very generous offer, Mrs. Miller," Sterling said, his voice like oil. "More than a jury would likely award, given the complexities of 'intent' and the school's sovereign immunity clauses. We just want everyone to move on. Especially Maya. Stress is so bad for the healing process, isn't it?"
My mother's fingers touched the edge of the envelope.
Jaxson stood by the window, his arms crossed over his massive chest. He didn't say a word. He didn't try to influence her. He just watched, his dark eyes unreadable, waiting to see if we were as "buyable" as every other person he'd met in his privileged life.
My mother gripped the envelope. Then, she slowly turned it over in her hand, looking at the embossed Oakridge Preparatory Academy seal on the back.
"Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars," she whispered.
"Correct," Sterling smiled. "And a full scholarship for Maya to any state university of her choosing upon graduation. We really do care about her future."
My mother looked up at him. "My daughter has second-degree burns across her chest. She was forced to kneel in boiling liquid and scrub it like an animal while her teacher laughed. And your principal tried to hide her in a back room so the donors wouldn't see the 'mess'."
Sterling's smile didn't falter, but his eyes grew cold. "As I said, a series of unfortunate lapses in judgment. This 'medical grant' is intended to rectify that."
My mother looked at me. I saw the fire in her eyes—the same fire I felt burning in my chest, and it wasn't from the soup. It was the fire of someone who had been pushed too far for too long.
"My daughter isn't a 'lapse in judgment'," my mother said, her voice growing steady and dangerously sharp. "She's a human being. And you think you can put a price on her dignity? You think you can pay us to pretend my child wasn't assaulted?"
Sterling blinked, his confidence wavering for the first time. "Mrs. Miller, let's be realistic. You work at a diner. This money would—"
"This money," my mother interrupted, standing up straight and slamming the envelope back down on the table, "is blood money. And you can take it, along with your NDA, and shove it."
I felt a surge of pride so intense it almost eclipsed the pain.
"Get out," my mother commanded, pointing a trembling finger at the door. "Before I show you exactly how a 'Southside girl' handles someone who threatens her family."
Sterling turned a bright, indignant red. He snatched the envelope off the table, shoving it into his briefcase. "You are making a catastrophic mistake. By tomorrow morning, the school's legal team will have filed motions to sequester that video. We will bury you in litigation until you're bankrupt and homeless."
"They won't," Jaxson's voice rang out from the corner.
He stepped forward into the light, his presence making the lawyer look small and fragile. Jaxson pulled out his own phone and flipped the screen around.
"You're a little late, Sterling," Jaxson said, a predatory grin spreading across his face. "While you were busy writing that check, the video hit four million views. It's been picked up by The New York Times and ESPN. The hashtag #OakridgeAssault is trending number one in the country."
Sterling's face went pale.
"And here's the best part," Jaxson continued, leaning in close to the lawyer's ear. "My father just saw the post. He's the head of the Thorne Group. You know, the firm that manages Oakridge's entire endowment? He just called me. He's pulling every cent of his funding and resigning from the board effective immediately. He said he doesn't invest in 'asylums run by sociopaths'."
The lawyer looked like he was about to vomit. The Thorne Group was the backbone of the school's financial stability. Without them, the academy was a sinking ship.
"Now," Jaxson growled, grabbing the lawyer by the lapel of his expensive suit and physically hauling him toward the door. "Get out of this room. If I see you or anyone from that school near Maya again, I won't be using a phone to handle it. Do you understand?"
He didn't wait for an answer. He shoved Sterling out into the hallway and slammed the heavy wooden door shut.
The room went silent again. My mother collapsed into the chair, her face in her hands, shaking. Jaxson stood by the door, his chest heaving as he tried to control his rage.
"Mom?" I whispered.
She looked up, her eyes red and watery. "I'm sorry, Maya. I know that money could have changed everything. I know it could have fixed things for us."
"It wouldn't have fixed anything, Mom," I said, reaching out to take her hand. "It would have just made us part of their world. A world where you can hurt people as long as you have the cash to cover it. I don't want to be part of that."
Jaxson walked back to the bed. He looked down at me, and for the first time, the "Reaper" looked human. He looked vulnerable.
"You're tougher than anyone I've ever met at that school," Jaxson said quietly.
"I've had to be," I replied. "But Jaxson… you've lost everything now. Your football career, your school, your reputation with the Northside. Why did you go that far?"
Jaxson sat back down in the armchair, looking out at the city lights.
"I didn't lose anything I wanted to keep, Maya," he said. "The Northside is full of people like Sterling and Vance. I've spent eighteen years breathing that toxic air, pretending I didn't see the rot. Today was the first time in my life I actually felt like I was on the right side of a hit."
He looked at me, a strange, intense spark in his eyes.
"And besides," he added, a hint of his usual smirk returning. "The police just arrived downstairs. They aren't here for a statement from you. They're here because they just picked up Eleanor Vance trying to board a private flight to the Hamptons. They've got her in custody for felony assault."
My mother gasped, a small, triumphant sob escaping her.
"It's just beginning," Jaxson promised. "We aren't just going after the teacher. We're going after the whole damn system."
He was right. As the morphine finally began to pull me into a deep, dreamless sleep, I saw the notifications on Jaxson's phone on the bedside table. Thousands of messages. Thousands of people demanding justice.
The girl in the blue apron was gone. The "charity case" was dead.
And Oakridge Preparatory Academy had no idea that the fire they started was about to burn their entire world down.
Chapter 5
The morning light that filtered through the panoramic windows of the VIP suite didn't feel like a new beginning. It felt like an interrogation lamp.
I woke up to the steady, rhythmic beep of the heart monitor and a dull, pulsing ache in my chest that the dimmed morphine drip couldn't quite reach. My skin felt tight, itchy, and heavy under the layers of medicated bandages. Every time I breathed, I was reminded of the moment the world turned into liquid fire.
I looked to my left. My mother was fast asleep in the guest recliner, her mouth slightly open, her hand still clutching her phone like a weapon. She looked older than she had yesterday. The stress of the Southside usually aged you in years; the events of yesterday had aged her in decades.
Then I looked to my right.
Jaxson was still there.
He hadn't moved to the second bed or the leather sofa. He was slumped in the same hard armchair, his head tilted back against the wall, his eyes closed. The black varsity jacket was draped over his lap. In the morning light, without the terrifying mask of rage he'd worn in the cafeteria, he looked almost… human. Younger. Like a boy who had just realized the mountain he was climbing was a volcano.
I shifted slightly, a soft groan escaping my lips.
Jaxson's eyes snapped open instantly. He didn't yawn. He didn't stretch. He was fully awake in a heartbeat, his gaze darting straight to mine.
"Hey," he said, his voice a morning rasp. "You okay? Do I need to call the nurse?"
"I'm okay," I whispered. "Just… thirsty."
He was up in a second, pouring a cup of ice water from the pitcher on the nightstand. He held the straw to my lips with a hand that could crush a helmet but was now as steady as a surgeon's.
"Thanks," I said after a long sip. "Did you sleep at all?"
"Enough," he said, sitting back down. He picked up his phone, which was buzzing incessantly on silent. "The world didn't, though. Have you seen it?"
"Seen what?"
He hesitated, then handed me his phone.
It was a news clip from the 6:00 AM local broadcast. The headline scrolling across the bottom of the screen made my stomach do a slow, nauseating flip: "PREP SCHOOL HORROR: FACULTY MEMBER ARRESTED IN ASSAULT ON SCHOLARSHIP STUDENT."
The reporter was standing in front of the Oakridge gates. Even at dawn, there was a crowd. Protesters with hand-drawn signs—Justice for Maya, Eat the Rich, Not the Soup, Classism Kills. But there was something else. A line of black SUVs parked along the curb.
"The Board of Trustees is having an emergency meeting," Jaxson said, his eyes cold. "They're trying to find a way to fire Vance without admitting they created the environment that allowed her to flourish. They're also trying to figure out how to deal with me."
"Jaxson, your parents…" I started, worried. "You said your dad pulled the funding. Are they… are they angry with you?"
Jaxson leaned back, a bitter shadow crossing his face. "My dad? He's a shark, Maya. At first, he was furious. He called me sixteen times last night. He told me I was flushing my future down the toilet for a 'nobody'. He told me to delete the video and apologize to the school."
My heart sank. "And?"
"And then he saw the stock prices," Jaxson said with a shrug. "He saw that the Thorne Group's association with Oakridge was starting to tank his own brand. By midnight, he realized that being the 'heroic father of the boy who stood up for justice' was more profitable than being the 'benefactor of a scandal'. He's not doing this because he cares about the Southside, Maya. He's doing it because I gave him a choice between losing money or looking like a saint."
The sheer coldness of his world made me shiver. Everything was a transaction. Even morality was just another line on a ledger.
"But your football career?" I asked. "The scouts?"
"I've got three offers from SEC schools that don't care about my 'attitude' as long as I can sack a quarterback," he said, though I could tell he was downplaying the risk. "But that doesn't matter right now. What matters is that Davis is moving to Phase Two."
"Phase Two?"
"Character assassination," Jaxson said.
He tapped a few icons and showed me a private forum—an Oakridge internal board for parents and staff. I scrolled through the comments, my vision blurring with fresh tears.
"I heard the Miller girl was high on the line. She's been a discipline problem for months." "Vance is a saint. This was clearly a setup by a girl looking for a payout." "Check her records. I bet she's been stealing from the kitchen. This 'assault' is a convenient distraction."
They were doing exactly what the rich always did: they were making me the villain of my own tragedy. They couldn't argue with the video, so they were arguing with my existence.
"They're going to try to dig up dirt on you, Maya," Jaxson warned. "Every late assignment, every missed shift, every Southside friend with a record. They're going to try to make you 'unworthy' of the public's sympathy."
"I don't have anything to hide," I said, my voice shaking. "I work. I go home. I sleep. That's my whole life."
"It doesn't matter what's true," Jaxson said, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "It matters what they can make people believe. But they forgot one thing."
"What?"
"I know where the real bodies are buried at Oakridge," he said. "I've been in those locker rooms and private lounges for four years. I know which trustees are embezzling. I know which teachers are 'grading' based on the size of a parent's donation. If they want to play dirty, I'm the best player they've ever trained."
A knock at the door interrupted us.
It wasn't a nurse. It was two men in suits, but not the expensive, tailored kind the lawyer had worn. These were cheap, off-the-rack suits with badges clipped to their belts.
"Maya Miller?" the taller one asked. "I'm Detective Miller—no relation—and this is Detective Vance. We're with the County PD."
My mom woke up with a start, her eyes instantly darting to the officers. "Are you here about the teacher? Did you charge her?"
"Eleanor Vance has been formally charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and child endangerment," Detective Miller said, pulling out a notepad. "She's currently out on a half-million-dollar bond, but we're here to take a formal statement from Maya to solidify the DA's case."
For the next hour, I had to relive it. Every detail. The way the steam felt before the impact. The sound of the bowl breaking. The specific words she used. The detectives were professional, but I could see the flickers of disgust in their eyes as they looked at my bandages. They had kids, too.
When they finished, the shorter detective looked at Jaxson. "Mr. Thorne, we've reviewed your footage. It's the smoking gun. But we need the original device for forensic verification. You okay with that?"
Jaxson handed over his phone without a second of hesitation. "Keep it as long as you need. Just make sure she never steps foot in a classroom again."
As the detectives left, a nurse came in to change my bandages. I tried to look away, but I caught a glimpse of the skin on my chest in the mirror. It was a raw, angry landscape of red and purple, a permanent map of Eleanor Vance's hatred. I realized then that even if she went to jail, I was the one serving the life sentence. I would always carry this mark. I would always be the girl who was burned for being poor.
"Jaxson," I said, once the nurse had finished and my mom had gone to the cafeteria to get a real cup of coffee. "I can't go back there. Even if they don't expel me. I can't walk those halls."
Jaxson walked over and sat on the edge of my bed. He didn't say 'It'll be fine.' He didn't give me a Hallmark cliché.
"You're not going back," he said firmly. "I already looked into it. There's a private academy three towns over—not a 'prep' school, a real school. They've already reached out. They want to give you a full ride, no work-study required. No aprons. No ladles."
"How did they find out?"
"I might have sent them your transcripts last night," he admitted, a small, guilty smile touching his lips. "You have a 4.2 GPA, Maya. You're a genius. Any school would be lucky to have you. Oakridge didn't deserve you."
I looked at him, really looked at him. "Why are you doing all this? Is it just to spite your dad? To spite the school?"
Jaxson reached out, his hand hovering near mine before he finally let his fingers rest against the side of my palm.
"Yesterday, when I saw you on that floor," he said, his voice thick with emotion, "I realized that I've been a ghost my whole life. I had everything, but I didn't stand for anything. I watched guys on the team bully kids. I watched teachers be cruel. And I just… existed. But when I saw you, I didn't see a 'charity case'. I saw someone who was working ten times harder than me just to have a fraction of the chance I was born with."
He squeezed my hand.
"I'm not doing this for them, Maya. I'm doing this for me. Because I want to be the kind of man who would have deserved to know you before all this happened."
I felt a tear slip down my cheek. For the first time since the bowl hit my chest, the heat wasn't from the burn. It was a warmth I hadn't felt in a long, long time.
But our moment was shattered by the sound of shouting from the hallway.
I recognized the voice. It was high-pitched, nasal, and currently vibrating with a level of entitlement that could only belong to one person.
Principal Davis.
He was trying to push past the security guard Jaxson's father had hired to sit outside the door.
"I don't care about your orders!" Davis yelled. "I am the head of the institution! I have a right to speak with my student and her legal guardians!"
Jaxson stood up, his face hardening back into the 'Reaper' mask.
"Stay here," he told me, his voice like ice.
He didn't just walk to the door; he stalked toward it. He opened it just enough to slip through, and I heard the heavy thud of him slamming it behind him.
I couldn't see what was happening, but I could hear every word.
"You have five seconds to turn around and walk away, Davis," Jaxson's voice boomed through the door.
"Jaxson, don't be a fool," Davis hissed. "The school is under siege. We have donors pulling out. We have the press on the lawn. We need Maya to sign a statement saying the video was edited. That it was a kitchen safety accident. If she does, we will quadruple the previous offer. Half a million dollars, Jaxson! Think of what that does for a girl from her neighborhood!"
"I am thinking about it," Jaxson replied. "I'm thinking about how much it's going to cost you when I release the recordings of the football coach giving us 'performance enhancers' with your full knowledge."
There was a sharp, sudden silence in the hallway.
"You… you wouldn't," Davis stammered. "That would ruin the team. It would ruin you."
"I don't care about the team, and I'm already ruined in your eyes," Jaxson said. "But you? You're the captain of a sinking ship, Davis. And I'm the one who's going to make sure there aren't enough lifeboats."
"She's a Southside nothing!" Davis finally snapped, his composure breaking. "She's a statistical blip! You're throwing away a legacy for a girl who will be forgotten in a month!"
The sound that followed was unmistakable. It was the sound of a large man being shoved hard against a wall.
"Her name is Maya," Jaxson growled, and I could practically feel the heat of his anger through the wood of the door. "And by the time I'm done with you, the only name people will have forgotten is yours."
A few seconds later, the door opened. Jaxson walked back in, adjusting the cuffs of his t-shirt. He looked completely calm, but his knuckles were white.
"He's gone," Jaxson said, sitting back down.
"He's never going to stop, is he?" I asked, feeling a cold dread settle in my bones.
"No," Jaxson said. "But neither am I. And I've got a lot more friends than he does."
He picked up his phone and showed me a new notification. It was a direct message from a famous civil rights lawyer in the city—the kind who took cases for free just to take down giants.
"I've seen the video. I'm in. When do we start?"
Jaxson looked at me, a glimmer of true, righteous victory in his eyes.
"Get some rest, Maya," he said. "Tomorrow, we stop being the victims. Tomorrow, we become the storm."
Chapter 6
One week later.
The bandages were thinner now, but the weight of what they covered felt heavier than ever. I stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirror in the hospital bathroom, my hand trembling as I reached for the edge of the gauze.
The doctors had called it "significant progress." To me, it looked like a map of a war zone. The skin on my chest was a mottled landscape of angry pinks and deep purples. It would never be smooth again. I would never wear a low-cut dress without a story to tell. I would never look at a bowl of soup without feeling a phantom heat crawling up my throat.
But as I traced the edge of the scar, I didn't feel the shame I expected. I felt a cold, hard clarity. This wasn't just a burn. it was a receipt. Proof of the cost of surviving Oakridge Preparatory.
"Maya? You ready?"
Jaxson's voice came through the door. He wasn't the "Reaper" today. He was wearing a simple black hoodie and jeans, his face tired but set in that same iron-jawed determination that had saved my life.
I stepped out of the bathroom. "I'm ready."
Today was the day. The Oakridge Board of Trustees was holding a "Special Town Hall" in the school's auditorium. They called it a forum for "healing and dialogue," but Jaxson's father had leaked the real agenda: it was a carefully choreographed PR stunt to announce the resignation of Eleanor Vance and the "early retirement" of Principal Davis, designed to appease the mob and keep the donors from fleeing.
They thought they could control the narrative by ending the story on their terms.
They were wrong.
The ride to the school was silent. My mother sat in the back of Jaxson's truck, her hand resting on my shoulder. She wasn't wearing her diner uniform today. She was wearing her best black Sunday dress, her hair pulled back tight. She looked like a woman going to battle.
As we turned onto the winding, tree-lined road leading to the academy, the scenery changed. The quiet, manicured lawns were gone. In their place were hundreds of people.
News vans with satellite dishes lined the curbs. Protesters from the Southside had joined forces with students from other schools. They held signs that read: POVERTY IS NOT A CRIME and WHO PROTECTS THE PROTECTORS?
When the black Ford Raptor pulled up to the gate, the crowd erupted. They recognized the truck. They recognized the boy behind the wheel.
Jaxson didn't stop for the cameras. He drove straight through the gates, the security guards—the same ones who had tried to hide me in a back room—now standing aside with their heads down.
We walked into the auditorium. The air was thick with the scent of expensive perfume and nervous sweat. The front rows were filled with the Northside elite: parents in tailored coats, board members with stiff collars, and the remaining faculty who looked like they were waiting for an execution.
Principal Davis stood at the podium, his voice echoing through the speakers. "…and while we deeply regret the incident, we must move forward as a community. Oakridge has always stood for excellence, and we will continue to—"
The heavy oak doors at the back of the auditorium swung open.
The sound cut through Davis's speech like a gunshot. Five hundred heads turned at once.
Jaxson walked in first, his presence instantly sucking the oxygen out of the room. I followed him, walking slowly, my head held high. My mother walked behind me, her eyes like flint.
The silence that followed was absolute. It was the silence of a guilty conscience.
We didn't sit in the back. We walked straight down the center aisle, the clicking of my cheap shoes on the hardwood floor sounding like a countdown.
We stopped at the very front. Jaxson didn't ask for permission. He stepped onto the stage, moved Davis aside with a single look of disgust, and adjusted the microphone.
"My name is Jaxson Thorne," he said, his voice amplified, vibrating through the bones of everyone in that room. "And I have spent four years being the golden boy of this institution. I have won your trophies, I have boosted your rankings, and I have stayed silent while you built a wall between the 'worthy' and the 'charity cases'."
He looked directly at the Board of Trustees sitting on the stage.
"Last week, I saw what was on the other side of that wall," Jaxson continued. "I saw a teacher treat a student like a stray dog. I saw a principal try to bribe a family to hide their child's pain. And I saw all of you—the leaders of this community—prepare your press releases before you even asked if she was going to survive."
Jaxson stepped back and looked at me. He didn't say anything. He didn't have to.
I stepped up to the microphone. My heart was thudding against my ribs, right beneath the bandages, but my voice didn't waver.
"My name is Maya Miller," I said. "And for three years, I was the girl who served you lunch. I was the girl you didn't look at. I was the girl whose mother works sixty hours a week so I could have a seat in a classroom where I was told every day, in a thousand small ways, that I didn't belong."
I looked out at the sea of wealthy parents. I saw some of them looking away. I saw some of them crying.
"You can fire the teacher," I said, my voice rising. "You can let the principal retire with his pension. You can write your checks and hold your town halls. But you cannot fix the fact that you built a school that thinks some lives are worth more than others. You cannot scrub the floor and pretend the stain isn't there."
I reached for the top button of my cardigan.
The room gasped as I slowly unbuttoned it, pulling the fabric aside just enough to show the edge of the raw, angry scars climbing up my collarbone.
"This is Oakridge Preparatory Academy," I said, pointing to the burn. "This is your 'excellence'. This is your 'prestige'. And I am not going to let you hide it."
The auditorium exploded.
It wasn't just the protesters outside. It was the students. In the back, a group of senior girls stood up and started clapping. Then the boys from the junior varsity team. Then the parents of the other scholarship kids.
Within seconds, the entire room was on its feet, a deafening roar of support that shook the very foundations of the building.
Principal Davis tried to regain control, but he was a ghost. The Board members were scurrying off the stage like rats. The narrative had been ripped out of their hands, and it was never coming back.
As we walked out of the auditorium, the media swarmed. Microphones were shoved in our faces, flashes blinded us. But Jaxson kept his arm around my shoulder, shielding me from the chaos, guiding me back to the truck.
"You did it, Maya," he whispered as we pulled away from the school for the last time. "You really did it."
"We did it," I corrected him.
The aftermath was a whirlwind.
Eleanor Vance pleaded guilty to felony assault. She was sentenced to five years in state prison—a rare moment of actual justice for someone with her bank account.
Principal Davis was fired for cause, his "retirement" stripped away after Jaxson's father released the evidence of the bribe attempt.
The Oakridge Board of Trustees was dissolved, replaced by a new oversight committee that included—for the first time in history—parents from the Southside.
And me?
I started at the new academy on Monday. There are no aprons. There is no work-study. There is only a desk, a stack of books, and a group of teachers who look me in the eye when they speak.
My mother quit the diner. She's the manager of a community center now, funded by a private trust that Jaxson's family set up as part of their "rebranding." She doesn't smell like grease anymore. She smells like hope.
Jaxson didn't go to the SEC school. He turned down the big-name offers and signed with a smaller university in the city—one with a world-class law program. He says he wants to learn how to fight the system from the inside, so no one ever has to record a crime on their phone just to be believed.
Last night, we sat on the roof of my new apartment, looking out at the city lights. The Southside was glowing on one side, the Northside on the other. From up here, you couldn't see the borders. You couldn't see the zip codes.
Jaxson looked at the thin line of the scar peeking out from my shirt. He didn't look away. He didn't look sorry. He looked at me like I was the most powerful person he'd ever known.
"Does it still hurt?" he asked.
I looked out at the horizon, feeling the cool night air on my skin.
"Only when I stay still," I said, leaning my head on his shoulder. "But I don't plan on doing that anymore."
The world was big, and it was broken, and it was unfair. But for the first time in my life, I wasn't afraid of the fire.
I was the one holding the match.