Free Physical by Gabriella Luciano Page A

principal as she rolled her eyes.
    “ Good. You have done very
well here at Ivy Glen. I’d like to see you leave here with an
upstanding record.”
    Valentina just stared back at him, not
saying anything. The principal rose from his chair to escort her
out. When he opened the door, two of the other girls on the list,
Lucy and Sara, were sitting there. Their eyes met for a moment in
mutual fear and understanding. Valentina got a hall pass from the
principal’s secretary and then headed toward her next class.
    She paced slowly down the empty hallway, not
really wanting to go back to class at all. She stopped at her
locker and took an extra long time to open it. She rummaged through
her things and took out her math book. When she slammed the locker
door shut, she nearly had a heart attack. Brittney was standing
right next to her. She hadn’t even heard her walk up.
    “ Don’t even think about
trying to snitch. It’s not going to work,” Brittney told her
immediately.
    Valentina just glared at her with a look of
fury.
    “ Why are you doing this to
me?”
    “ Why? Because you’re a
slut and you need to know it,” she announced to her in vicious
glee.
    “ You don’t know anything
about me, Brittney.”
    There was always a strange intensity between
the two of them every time they talked. It was like this powerful,
vibrating feeling of combativeness that was just demanding some
kind of conflict.
    Brittney just sneered at her and then
reached into her bag to pull out her phone. She tapped on the
screen a few times and turned it toward Valentina. It was a video
of her and Tyler hooking up the previous night on the roof of the
club. It showed Tyler reaching up her skirt and his fingers moving
in and out of her. Her heart started racing and she frantically
thought back to everything else she had done with him.
    It suddenly all made sense. She had heard
that she had a thing for Tyler but that he was not interested in
Brittney. This was all some wild plan of revenge or something.
    “ This goes online
tonight,” Brittney told her. “Along with a link to the article in
The New York Times. Everyone will know who you really
are.”
    “ Please, Brittney. Don’t.
They’ll kick me out,” Valentina pleaded, trying to rationalize with
her.
    Brittney just rolled her eyes.
    “ Not my problem. You
should have thought about that before last night,” she told her. “A
slut needs to know her place.”She took the phone and put it back
into her bag. “I’ll see you online,” she added with a laugh as she
went to walk away.
    Valentina grabbed her by the arm to stop
her.
    “ Please, Brittney. Don’t.
What do you want from me?” she begged.
    Brittney turned back toward her, looking at
her up and down before she spoke.
    “ Like I told you this
morning, you are the top slut. You and the rest of the girls on the
list are mine.”
    “ I don’t understand,”
Valentina told her.
    “ You do what I want, look
how I want you to look and be with who I tell you to be with,” she
told her, and then she raised her eyebrows to accentuate her
intentions.
    Valentina wanted to slap her across the
face. There was no way she was going to do this. She couldn’t
possibly subject herself to such humiliation. There had to be a way
out of this. There had to be a way that she could turn the tables
and get her in trouble for blackmailing her. She needed to just
tell her step-mother what happened and see if she could help her.
Her step-mother was the one who got her into Ivy Glen in the first
place so maybe she could talk with the principal. In any event, she
needed to buy some time to figure out what to do.
    “ Okay, okay, but please
don’t put the video online. I’ll do whatever you want,” she
pleaded.
    Brittney eyed her suspiciously and then
reached up to take her chin in her hand. She turned her head to own
side and then to the other.
    “ You have a cute face. I
haven’t quite figured out if it’s exotic or just