DELANEY'S LIPS STRETCH INTO A sardonic smile.

"Everything? That might take a few years."

I tell her, "Try."

My four friends ponder my request, but not for long. In fact, it only takes about a second of thinking before bad memories tumble around me like acid rain.

"I remember some stupid pranks the Monarchy pulled in freshman year," Leah recalls. "They'd put money in other people's bags, and report it missing. The teachers would search and find it in the bag of whoever they were targeting. So many suspensions were handed out that way."

Freshman year. The tactic is wily and cruel, thought up by a bunch of fifteen-year-olds – damn. It makes me worried about who I'm going up against. They've been terrorising the school with expertise, and for years. Within that time, how many different tactics of making other people's lives hell did they discover?

"I got food poisoning from them," Delaney adds. "It was never proved. But I know they paid off the lunch server to put something in my food."

My stomach clenches. Instinctively, I push my tray of food away from me.

"Then there was that time that Brittany sabotaged the Debate Club in the regional competition. We'd tried out together in freshman year, and I made the club when she didn't," Delaney continues. "Then once I became President, she personally blamed me for keeping her off the team. Like, it's not my fault she can't string together an argument."

Drew and I let out a sardonic chuckle.

"Anyways, in sophomore year she sabotaged the team by siphoning all the gas out of the school van. We were disqualified for being late. Last year, I took all the precautions I could think of to outwit her, and we won the State Championships unhindered." Delaney's eyes gleam with a cold pride. "Take that, biatch."

"Oh, that explains it," Benjamin exclaims, pressing his palm to his forehead.

I peer inquisitively at him. He seems quite worked up now. "Explains what?"

Benjamin elaborates, "Last year, Derek tried out for the Mathletes Club out of nowhere. He got onto the team fair and square. See, he's not bad at math."

Nodding solemnly, I find myself easily believing Benjamin. Derek is taking AP Calculus with me. He also is the type of student to ditch class — albeit rebelliously — because he doesn't think the lessons will be of use to him. The periods he does attend, he has a quiet, assured confidence about him.

"But he never enjoyed the club practices," Benjamin continues quizzically. "I was so confused why he joined if he didn't want to be there, but Brittany must have put him there when she realised Debate Club was impregnable that year. We came second in the State Championship, which earned us a trip to New York for the East Coast finals." A congratulations is about to pour out of me, but the abrupt darkening of Benjamin's eyes halt the words in their tracks. "Guess what day Derek decides to ditch?"

"The day of the finals?" I guess reluctantly.

"Yup. Disqualified for having an incomplete team," Benjamin scowls. He drops his fork onto his lunch tray, pushing the whole meal further from him. "A whole fucking season's worth of work, down the drain. A whole fucking year before we could get that chance again. I'll never forgive Derek," he vows, shaking his head vehemently. "Not for what he did to us, but for the place on the team he took away from someone who would have made it count. I hate him."

"I don't get it," I remark. "Why would sabotaging Mathletes be a substitute for sabotaging the Debate Club? You and Delaney aren't exactly best buddies."

Delaney laughs humourlessly. "Why even sabotage the Debate Club in the first place? Fact is, Brittany hates it when people are smarter than her, prettier than her, more popular than her. Then you show up on the first day, and you've got potential to be all those things. She's such a narcissist."

"Oh." I almost shoot Delaney a grateful smile for thinking those things of me, but her stormy expression makes it clear she wasn't even intending to compliment me — roundabout or not. That's just her objective observation, and it means more to me than she knows.

I'm appalled by what Brittany did to her, and what Derek did to Benjamin. The Debate Club and Mathletics Club are clearly very important to them. From the way they talk about the competitions, and the work they must have put in, it's a matter of passion to my two friends. Whereas for Brittany and Derek it was a matter of petty revenge. My fury burns beyond articulation.

Then Drew pipes up, "Derek wasn't like that. He was different. When we were friends."

I splutter, "What?"

Benjamin exhales heavily, clearly acquainted with what Drew's talking about. Delaney sports a surprised expression, but it soon melts into recognition as some distant memory bubbles up into her mind. Leah looks just as lost as me. Thankfully, I'm not the only clueless one now. It seems there was a time before the Monarchy's tyranny, but it's just deeply buried underneath their current vile personalities.

Drew scratches his ear. "It's shocking, I know. We went to middle school together. Derek was always sort of the loner, but he'd sometimes tolerate my presence, and Reece's."

"What, what?" I ask. "Reece was your friend, too?"

"Reece and Derek weren't like they are now. The only thing they really have in common with their past selves are their names. Reece was my best mate since kindergarten and super skinny, like, even skinnier than me." Drew lifts his arm, gesturing to the scrawniness of it.

"I would always tease him because he was weaker than me. He was — is — super, crazy fast though, and played on some sports teams." I can't imagine Reece, the tallest guy in school and inarguably the most athletic, being some lanky, awkward kid.

"Derek played in the band, multiple instruments and he loved it. Back then, he was the band geek."

That's even more of a shocker. I suspected Derek had musical inclinations after he tuned Ashley's guitar by ear, but I never expected him to be a band geek. He never brings any instruments to school. In Music class, he wastes as much time as all the other students looking for an easy elective. I wonder what he played.

"They were both pretty insecure," Drew admits, to my surprise. Then he shakes his head. "Hm, maybe insecure is not the right word. They were really aware of how they looked, who talked to them, what other people said about them."

Sounds familiar. But I wonder how such common traits turned them into such monsters.

"Some people were so judgmental, too, and it was somehow decided that studying classical music theory, which Derek did in his spare time, was lame. Reece went through the same thing, the mocking he got because he was the weakest and skinniest guy on the basketball team. When we got to high school, everything changed."

Someone's about to ask what changed. I don't know who, but the question is so close to being heard. I can sense it.

"They met Brittany," I state.

Drew nods. "She was scary, even then. We thought she was just some wannabe, and her fifteen seconds would be over soon. But she began hanging out with Reece, not so much Derek and I. He started working out that week, something that he refused to do before. It wasn't a bad thing that he did, but Derek and I questioned why he suddenly became all about buffing up."

"Then Reece left our group, just like that. I remember how suddenly it happened. He stopped sitting with us, began avoiding us at all costs and even pretended that he didn't know our names." Drew rubs the back of his neck, uncomfortable reliving these nasty memories. "For a few months, both Derek and I were loners. I was never as close to him as Reece was, so I guess it wasn't a massive surprise when he joined Brittany."

Wonderstruck at how the Monarchy formed, I can do nothing but stare. They sound so different. Drew's voice is bitter, but it's obvious that the hatred he holds for Reece and Derek was once incredible fondness.

I feel a bizarre sense of separation as I listen to Drew. They were all just kids when it happened. My fifteen-year-old self might have been reading in my school library while Drew was watching his best friend desert him, and Brittany was building her empire.

I've never seen Drew like this. He's my funny, light-hearted friend. What is usually a warm, golden yellow feels like a faded, icy grey. Now he looks wounded. The negative air in our group seems electrically charged, making the hairs on my cheeks and the back of my neck prickle.

"Early exposure. Guess it's no surprise Reece turned out so mean," Leah grits out. "He's violent, and gets into so many fights if he thinks people even look at him the wrong way. The school really tries to defend him because he's so integral to all the sports teams, but sometimes he goes too far for even them."

"Plus he'll screw anything that moves," Delaney scoffs. Her grey eyes catch mine, and she arches an eyebrow in my direction. "I heard he laid the moves on you the first week of school."

That I can't really deny. He did flirt pretty unashamedly with me, though I'm sure he knew nothing but my name, and that I was new. I shudder. "Yeah. It was so uncomfortable."

The list goes on. Leah glances around the table. Her voice tremors, but she is heard by all of us. "Do you guys remember Suki?"

"Yeah," the table choruses.

No. "What happened to her?"

No-one is particularly eager to explain. Delaney being the blunt one, as usual, takes the job upon herself with a no-nonsense tone of voice. "They tricked her family into believing she had a baby and aborted it. Madison was the one who started the rumour that reached her parents. She was taken out of school."

It's almost as if she rattled off a grocery list for me, the candid manner in which she speaks. I stare, transfixed, at Delaney's calm face for several moments. That's how I notice the pain swimming in her eyes. I reason, "That seems a bit far-fetched—"

Delaney cuts me off again, adamant about what she says. "Suki and I were friends. Her parents were very anti-abortion, and lying about being pregnant seemed a believable thing for her to do to people who didn't know her. But she was never pregnant."

"How did she react?" I manage to whisper.

She flinches. Just for a second, when her grey irises flash with ire like lightning against storm clouds. Then her signature stoicness burns it away, revealing all glacial stares and razor-sharp glares behind.

"We don't know. She didn't get to say goodbye to anybody," Delaney replies stonily. "She was just here one day, gone next. The whole family moved away. The Monarchy planned it very well. Madison planted abortion brochures in her bag. And apparently they hacked into the Planned Parenthood database and put her name there. She was forced to move, and I heard her parents put her in a school for special people."

At this point, I can't figure out which incident is the worst, or which Monarch tops the cake. It's personal for every single person sitting around me. The Monarchy has interfered with extracurriculars, schoolwork, friendships and even families.

My breath catches when I realise one name hasn't been mentioned. I shouldn't even be looking to excuse him, let alone traitorously stealing glances at him across the cafeteria. "Has Terrence ever... done anything like this?"

Leah regards me stiffly. "Who do you think did the hacking?"

I swallow, feeling like an idiot. Of course Terrence is no different. It doesn't matter that he treated me warmly when I first arrived at Carsonville. He helped drive a poor girl out of town. He stood by while Benjamin and Derek were injured by his friends. Last Friday was not the first time he has someone else's suffering on his hands, and I doubt it will be the least.

My mouth opens, almost afraid to ask. "Anything else?"

Delaney laughs mordantly, a sharp bark that sounds like a gunshot. "Of course there's something else. Four years of it, girl. You should take our word for it, not that it matters much."

"Oh?" My brows furrow. "Why not?"

Her peach-coloured lips stretch into a humourless smile. "You'll find out first-hand. I'm sure you will."