Tryst Six Venom by Penelope Douglas

Light sprinkles hit my shoulders and legs, and I lick the water off my lips as I
jog around the empty track. Normally, I hate running in the rain. My earbuds
aren’t waterproof, and music is the only motivation I have to stay in shape—
that and the fact that more exercise means I can eat more guac—but today, I
don’t mind it. I need to think. I need silence.
Digging in my heels, I pick up the pace, an energy filling my legs that I’m
not used to.
I have six months. Six months until I leave for Dartmouth and three
months until I leave Marymount for good. I can figure this out. Macon
doesn’t have a plan B to keep our land, because he also doesn’t have access
to the developers on a daily basis.
I do. The developer—Garrett Ames—and the law firm—Jefferson Collins
—in charge of the resort enterprise, are kicking eight, possibly nine families
off their land in Blue Rock.
Collins and Ames.
I’m within arm’s reach of their daughter and son every day right at this
school. And I’m sick of these people never paying for what they take.
I’m tired of their kids doing the same.
I squeeze the copper key in my fist as I charge down the rust-colored clay
track, the green field at the center glistening with rain as the wheels in my
head spin and spin.
It’s a key to Fox Hill.
It’s a key to a private party.
It’s a key to a lot of private parties, I’m sure, and not all of them hosted
by Garrett Ames’s idiot, teenage son who doesn’t have the good sense to sin
with people who don’t have a motive to hurt him.
Think, Liv. Think. How do I use this?
The sharp key cuts into my palm, but I just squeeze it tighter, seeing them
in my mind. Seeing them lose and seeing us win.
Seeing Clay watch me walk away from her.
The rain picks up again, a little harder, and I feel drops pour down my
legs and inside my white tank top, my black sports bra underneath seeping
through my wet shirt.
There are usually a few cars in Marymount’s parking lot on Saturday.
Maintenance crews come to fix things when the students aren’t here, teachers
show up to get work done undisturbed, or the team sports need the extra time
to practice. But the whole place is abandoned today, the heavy clouds