DISCLAIMER: as always, all characters depicted in this story are adults over the age of 18.
Chapter One: Red In Tooth And Claw
Fiona
To finish second really just means you're the first of the losers.
If I didn't already embrace this belief wholeheartedly, the first semester at Ragnaring finishing school would have drilled this into me. This place is more than just a girls' finishing school, it is a grooming place for the elites of the future.
The elites I yearn to be a part of, one day.
My booted footsteps ring across the empty, vast spaces of the main hall. It's late at night, and most are asleep, getting ready for the day ahead, but not me. I worry at my fingers, clear evidence that I'm nervous and jittery. I stare up at the vaulted ceiling, and as always, it makes me feel like I'm inside of a cathedral.
A very bizarre kind of cathedral, anyway. Nothing in this school exists in isolation: not our grades, not our performance, not our achievements. Everything is competitive, which is why this main hall is dominated by a singular feature.
A truly colossal screen hangs from the wall opposite the entrance, something like the sort of information screen you might find at an airport terminal, but supersized. The message is loud and clear: what's on the screen is the only thing that matters here at Ragnaring, the only thing worth fighting for.
The rankings of all students at the school.
I knew this place was cutthroat before I got in, but Ragnaring is secretive, and I had no idea just how much. Nothing here is focused on education per se, not really. We're not here to accrue knowledge, we're here to build a generational ethos.
We are told to do everything we can--indeed, everything we must to get ahead. Cut every corner we deem necessary, because Ragnaring isn't about developing your integrity, or your ability to be a team player... it's about teaching you to be an overlord. How to rule over those very same people who think integrity and team-playing are what actually matters, hence why their fates are sealed: corporate drones for the rest of their lives.
But not us. We are meant to rule, and this is our last big test, before we are thrown out into the open world, ready to go claim our spots at the top of the social pyramid.
And this is why I can't tear my eyes away from the screen, even though just looking at it makes my heart tighten, my breath quicken, and my hands ball into fists.
Because after all is said and done, after all the mind games and the cutting of corners, the music stops and all that remains is what's displayed on the screen. My name, clear for all to see, Fiona Engel, next to an absurdly high score, near the top of the screen.
The devil is in the details. That's the wrinkle here, near the top. Because I'm in second place, and the first of the losers.
Now, in a way, technically that isn't true. Being in the overall top three counts for a lot here, or so we have been told: the school administration is fuzzy on the details, but it's clear that the top three play by different rules... somehow. It is an important cushion, at least I don't have to worry about the myriad humiliations that await those nearer the bottom... but it still smarts.
Even more so because of my direct competition.
The girl in third place, Elizabeth Jaeger, is clearly smart and capable, but also reserved. Her, I'm pretty sure I can handle. What really grinds my gears is Margaret Hogen, the redhead with a trust fund, darling of high society, haughty queen bee to a fault. The girl in first place... and my arch-nemesis.
She is especially cruel to girls like me, who didn't get here because our parents are filthy rich, but through merit alone. I busted my ass to get the improbable and difficult grading you need to even qualify for a Ragnaring scholarship, not to mention the various certificates you need to bolster your application, the NDAs you need to sign, and the multiple interviews required to pass.
Margaret can insult me all she wants. She only got in because of her pedigree, but I'm here because I've earned it.
Maybe that betrays insecurity, and that's why she has to constantly mock my purple hair, baggy jeans and flat-heeled boots, saying I look like a trucker rather than the high-society ladies Ragnaring is supposed to churn out like an assembly line.
God, she riles me on so fucking much.
I shake my head, sitting down on the marble floor, reflecting. Midterms are just behind the corner. With most of the actual academic work done for the semester, I will have no opportunity to overtake her before the midterm ceremony.
What that ceremony consists of exactly is kept from us students for now, but whatever it is, I certainly don't want the rich bitch to bask in the glory of her first place.
Unfortunately, that leads me with only one option: the Wheel.
I lift my head to look at it, a bright beacon of inviting purples and blue neons. It's a... storefront, almost. Conveniently located right beneath the giant screen--which I'm sure it's no coincidence. Dwarfed by it, but never forgotten, because it's at the Wheel that many girls' paths here are made, or broken.
Only students and staff are allowed in. No outsider knows what the Wheel is about, or what it sells. Even if you were to break in, all you'd see on its illuminated shelves is envelopes. It's only once you open them that the truth is revealed... as is the reason for its peculiar name.
The wheel always turns, or so it has been said, and that is certainly true here. This is where the real competition between students takes place: the selection on offer on the shelves is unconventional, to say the least. You can buy better grades, academic shortcuts, access to tests from previous years, and many other privileges... and you can also buy services intended to sabotage your competitors.
To make their own tests harder, deny them access to privileged material, and so on. To absolutely bury them until they are no threat to you. Of course, such weapons are very expensive, but the mere fact that they exist sets the tone for every facet of life here.
At the Wheel, you really can buy most anything... for a price.
Typically, every service purchased carries a forfeit and a cost. The forfeit will usually be humiliating and degrading, although not fully sexual. It's a way to counterbalance the boost you're acquiring, I'm sure.
It's also hypnotically enforced. Weaselling out of a forfeit is just... unthinkable. I shudder at the memory of the way the school hypnotist carefully, surgically removed my very ability to say no to a forfeit.
It's been done to all of us, and that makes it okay. No one has an advantage, the playing field is leveled.
The cost, on the other hand... that's accounted as a form of debt to the school. No one knows how it will be repaid, exactly, and that makes a lot of people uneasy. Myself included, which is why I've bought things quite sparingly here.
My working class upbringing has made me naturally wary of credit systems. And, to be honest, I've gotten quite far here on my skills alone, barely having to use the Wheel at all to secure second place. Ideally, I really would prefer for that streak to continue...
But I have no better option, not if I want to one-up Margaret, and put her in her place. So, with a heavy sigh, I stand up. I need to stop dilly-dallying, it's time to go big or go home... and I do not intend to go home.
Forcing myself to feel fierce and determined, I march down to the Wheel, the thud caused by my boots against the marbled floors echoing across the empty hall.
The Wheel works on triple shifts: there's always one person behind the counter, 24/7, and never more than one. I wonder, for a second, who this store clerk used to be before she was hired. Was she a student here? I find it hard to believe.
All of the Wheel's employees are women, of course, but they don't look like the sort of competitive beasts I see in class every single day. They don't even do much in the way of promoting the wares on offer. They all look quiet, meek, and unassuming.
This particular clerk, Cindy, awkwardly averts her eyes when I approach her counter with an envelope in hand: my benefit of choice, a 10% boost to overall score that should be high enough to propel me to first place... but low enough to not indebt me too much towards the school. Whatever that means, exactly.
She rings in my transaction, but I'm already gone by the time she's done. I stare at the screen with trepidation, and it's only when I see my name shoot to the very top that I allow myself a tiny squeal of glee.
God, to witness Margaret's face when she sees this tomorrow morning!
Now, however, it's time to open the envelope. Inside, I will find information about the forfeit. The debt itself may remain a mystery until the end of the year, but forfeits must be performed immediately upon reading them.
I pull out a strip of paper with trembling fingers, angling it towards the light as I begin to read the words.
I blink in confusion at first, staring at the paper uncomprehendingly. Then, realisation dawns, my mouth goes dry, and my heart begins to beat faster.
And my eyes widen in horror.
* * *
Margaret
I play for keeps.
That's what grubby upstarts like Fiona Engel never get about the people like me. Oh, I'm sure the dream of social mobility must be very nice, but... well, let's just say you can take the girl out of the gutter, but can you take the gutter out of the girl?
Years of inescapable street rat upbringing have left their mark on poor Fiona's psyche, I reflect, reclining in the chair, crossing one leg over the other. She avoids the Wheel in a bizarre academic equivalent of storing your money under the mattress rather than in a bank... and she'd never think to come here, in the Headmistress' own office, to ask a direct question.
Only someone used to the way us sophisticated folk rub elbows together would be comfortable with the idea of just waltzing in here and making inquiries. But that's exactly how you get ahead in life, even if Fiona doesn't quite realise it yet.
