Aria had spent her entire life trying not to stand out. Fate seemed determined to ignore her wishes.

~ Rebel Beast

______________

The heat of the morning sun was the first thing that hit Aria’s face and warned her that what she had feared had actually happened.

"Oh shit!"

Aria jerked upright immediately, like someone waking from a terrible nightmare.

For one blissful second, she hoped she was wrong, until she looked toward the window. The sun was already blazing in all its glory. Her heart sank.

Slowly, Aria picked up her phone and checked the time.

8:03 a.m.

"No!"

What happened to five in the morning?

What happened to their genius plan of waking up early and taking over the kitchen before everyone else?

Aria whipped her head toward her roommates’ beds, desperately hoping that by some miracle they had decided to cook without her. But she should have known better than to place her faith in a bunch of aristocratic teenagers.

Brittney was still asleep. Her mouth hung open while a thin trail of drool had escaped onto her pillow at some point during the night. One of her arms dangled off the side of the bed while her blanket was twisted around her legs like she had spent the entire night fighting an invisible enemy.

In that split second, Aria made a mental note never to touch that pillow. Ever. Then her gaze drifted toward Aleksandra and Trisha’s side of the room.

Alek had somehow managed to sleep diagonally across her bed. One leg hung halfway off the mattress while her blanket was bunched beneath her skin.

Meanwhile, Trisha still had her sleeping mask firmly in place despite the fact that they had gone to bed with the lights off.

"Guys!!!!!" Aria screamed at the top of her lungs.

Brittney was the first to wake.

"What..." she mumbled groggily. Her eyes slowly drifted toward the sunlight pouring through the windows.

"Huh?"

Then she looked at Aria as though trying to determine whether this was reality or some particularly cruel dream.

"What’s the time?" she asked.

Aria was not in the mood. She simply glared at the girl.

Brittney immediately sat up. "Oh no."

"What’s with the ruckus this early in the morning?" Trisha complained, pulling the sleep mask from her face.

At almost the exact same moment, Aleksandra stretched lazily on the bed. Then her eyes landed on the sunlight and the sleep vanished from her face instantly.

"Shit!" She grabbed her phone and checked the time.

"Oh yeah," Aria thought darkly. She knew that feeling.

"What happened?" Brittney looked genuinely baffled. "I did turn on the alarm."

She immediately grabbed her phone and shoved it toward them. Aria looked down and true to Brittney’s words, there wasn’t just one alarm. There were eight.

One had been set for five in the morning. Another for fifteen minutes later. Then twenty past five. Half past five. Twenty to six. Quarter to six. Ten to six, and finally, one last desperate alarm for six o’clock.

The alarms stretched down the screen like the schedule of a particularly paranoid person.

Aria’s jaw nearly dropped to the floor. To think all those alarms had gone off one after another and not a single one of them had heard a thing.

That wasn’t oversleeping anymore, it was a group talent.

But Aria knew deep down that if she hadn’t stayed up late reading the contract, she would have been awake long before the others. Unlike her pampered roommates, she was used to waking up early.

"It must have been the stress of the trip. I’m so sorry," Alek said, looking genuinely guilty as though it had somehow been her responsibility to wake all of them. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

"Why are you sorry?" Aria asked. "This is all our fault. Unfortunately, we can’t dwell on it forever. What matters now is getting downstairs and hoping to God there’s something left for us."

Without wasting another second, Aria rushed into the bathroom. She rinsed her mouth, splashed cold water across her face, and ran wet fingers through her hair. It wasn’t perfect, but it would have to do.

She didn’t even wait for the others. Aria practically flew out of the room and down the staircase. Perhaps by some twist of fate, the others had overslept too.

Except that wasn’t the case.

The moment she stepped into the living room, her hopes died.

Liv’s group was already there. They occupied the couches and looked half asleep. The tired, resigned look on their faces was all the warning Aria needed.

She immediately headed for the kitchen.

The smell hit her before she even reached the doorway.

Burnt.

It was not the pleasant smell of slightly overcooked toast. No, this was the thick, bitter stench of food that had been left too long on the fire.

Aria’s brows furrowed as she quickened her pace. Please tell her nobody was wasting food.

Getting to the kitchen area, there was no sign of Karen. However, Charlotte, Philippa, and Debbie had completely taken over the space. All three girls wore aprons tied neatly around their waists like professional chefs running a high-end restaurant.

If only their cooking matched the image.

Charlotte stood by the stove, frowning in concentration as she tried to scrape a blackened egg off a frying pan. Beside her, Philippa and Debbie stared at the egg with the strained expressions of people watching a disaster unfold in slow motion.

"Hey!" Charlotte spotted her immediately and pointed the spatula at Aria as though it were a weapon. "We are the ones in charge of the kitchen for now!"

Aria barely acknowledged her.

Her attention remained fixed on the egg Charlotte dumped onto a growing pile of barely edible fried eggs. Some were burnt around the edges while the others looked half raw in the middle.

Then her nose twitched, the smell was far too strong for a few ruined eggs. That was when her gaze shifted to the trash bin.

Aria walked over and froze. The bin was overflowing with burnt eggs.

She saw the blackened shells, half-cooked yolks, and entire eggs that looked as if someone had cracked them into a pan only to immediately destroy them. Mixed among the mess were clumps of scorched rice, slices of bread burnt so badly they resembled charcoal, and what looked suspiciously like an entire pot of porridge scraped directly into the garbage.

Aria’s eyes widened. How did anyone fail this many times?

"Hey, Trip! I’m still talking to you!"

Charlotte had apparently decided to switch to insults after realizing she wasn’t getting Aria’s attention.

Aria ignored her. Instead, she marched to the refrigerator and yanked the door open.

Her stomach dropped.

The crate of eggs that should have fed all sixteen girls was almost empty. There were only ten eggs left. The loaf of bread had been reduced to a few lonely slices. Even the carton of milk, fruits and vegetables were nearly gone.

Aria gripped the refrigerator door. At this rate there wouldn’t be enough food left for her group to make breakfast, let alone the other poor girls.

Her jaw clenched. This had to be deliberate. Nobody could be this incompetent. The only reasonable explanation was that Karen’s group were wasting supplies on purpose so everyone else would suffer.

The refrigerator door suddenly slammed shut. The loud bang nearly caught her fingers. Aria jerked back and when she lifted her head, Karen was standing in front of her.