Whether they were eating or waiting in line for food, everyone in the dining hall turned at the sound of that piercing scream.
A girl stood there with noodles dumped on her head, broth and sauce dripping down her hair and face, leaving her utterly disheveled, her expression a mix of shock and outrage.
Mandy set down her bowl and turned on her heel, ready to leave.
"Mandy, you stop right there!" the drenched girl's friend snapped, her voice sharp with anger.
Mandy acted as if she hadn’t heard a thing, striding away without a backward glance.
The girl, ignored in front of the whole cafeteria, flushed with humiliation.
She shouted, "What’s wrong, Mandy, are you deaf? You humiliate my best friend and think you can just walk away?"
With that, she lunged forward, hand outstretched, aiming for Mandy’s hair.
But before she could touch her, Mandy spun around as if she had eyes in the back of her head. In one swift motion, she seized the girl’s wrist, twisted, and sent her crashing to the floor with a brutal over-the-shoulder throw.
Mandy stepped forward and pressed her foot down on the girl’s chest.
“Had enough of playing the victim?” Mandy’s voice was ice-cold, sending a chill through everyone nearby.
The girl gasped for breath, winded from the fall and Mandy’s heel pinning her down. Her face turned crimson as she struggled for air.
Mandy looked down at her, eyes sharp and detached, like some aloof deity gazing with disdain at a bothersome insect. The girl trembled under her gaze.
“I—I’m sorry…” she sobbed, pleading for mercy.
Mandy curled her lip into a mocking smile. “Pathetic. Maybe you like getting put in your place.”
The crowd stared in stunned silence, eyes wide with fear.
No one could have imagined that Mandy—the model student at Cresthaven Institute of Technology, always so well-behaved and quiet—could be so ruthless.
Someone finally found their voice and stepped forward. “That’s enough, Mandy! Everyone saw what you did. If the dean hears about this, you could be expelled!”
Mandy scoffed. “Go ahead. Report me.”
With that, she turned to leave.
But the girl who’d spoken up wasn’t done yet. “You assaulted people and act like you’re above it all. You don’t even deserve to call yourself human.”
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