Excerpt: Privileged

Stella rifled through her drawer in the shared bureau. “You’re always the last one to get going, Ally. Come on,” she said in a scolding tone.
“Yes, Mom,” Ally mocked. Ally jumped from her bed down to the linoleum floor. Before she could make her way to the door, Tabitha stepped in front of her. “Where’s my underwear?”
Allison’s eyes widened with surprise. “What?”
Tabitha had no problem repeating herself. “Where’s my underwear?” she enunciated. “Do you want me to stand here all day in a towel?” Tabitha placed her hands on her hips. “Do you like the idea of me going commando?”
At that moment, Stella began to viciously cough.
Tabitha narrowed her eyes and moved in on Allison. “Where’s… my… underwear?”
Allison shrugged nonchalantly. “I don’t have it.”
“Oh please. You’re the one who tortured the last girl. You expect me to believe that?”
Allison’s first smirk of the day appeared. “No. But I don’t have it.” Allison moved toward the door and Tabitha stepped in front of her again.
“And how about all my pants and skirts? What about my jewelry? And my shoes? By the way, thank you for leaving my socks so I don’t go barefoot. And my bras so I’m not bouncing everywhere.”
A smile played around Allison’s lips. Her eyes expressed sheer delight. “Search my stuff. I don’t have anything of yours.” she replied casually.
“Of course you don’t,” Tabitha retorted. “Because you get henchwomen to do your dirty work for you. I’m convinced you know where it is.”
Allison’s smirk returned and she cocked her head to the side. “Well, maybe I do. But you have to work for it.”
Tabitha’s fingers played with the edge of the towel near her armpit. “Do I need flash you every morning for starters?” Her tone was sarcastic.
Stella, who now had on underwear and sweatpants but still had the towel wrapped around her upper body, began guffawing. Allison glanced at Stella and smiled. Her smirk reappeared when her blue eyes locked with Tabitha’s green ones.
“That won’t be necessary.” Allison waved the suggestion away. “Besides, maybe what you’re looking for is right under your nose.” Allison flicked the bottom of Tabitha’s nose and walked around her to leave the room.
Tabitha stomped her foot and growled. “Argh! She makes me so mad. How can I be so annoyed with someone and not even know them for more than 24 hours?”
Stella gave a sympathetic smile. “Ally tends to have that effect on people.”
“Frustrating.” Tabitha turned to face her bed and suitcase and saw a solid red panty with a pink bow laid neatly on her pillowcase. “Stella, someone put my underwear here.”
Stella, now fully dressed, approached Tabitha and peered at her pillow. “Hmm. Someone’s messing with you.”
Tabitha opened her suitcase and found everything just as she had left it before she and Stella left for the bathroom. “Nothing more’s been taken.” Tabitha sighed. “I still don’t have shoes.”
“What size are you?” Stella asked.
“Seven.”
“Hmm.” Stella frowned. “I’m a six-and-a-half. But I’m sure one of the older girls will let you borrow their shoes. That is, if you don’t mind borrowing…”
Tabitha sighed again as she followed her underwear with her pajama pants. “That’s fine. I’m assuming Patricia had it worse...?”
Stella’s sympathetic look returned. “Way worse. You don’t have it nearly a quarter as bad.”
“Yet,” Tabitha added.
“I don’t know. I think Ally likes you,” Stella teased.
“Please don’t say that,” Tabitha remarked as she continued to get dressed. “She hasn’t been very quiet. And I don’t think she’s very smitten with me.”
Stella smiled and played with a lock of her damp hair. “Oh, I don’t know. You seem to make her smile a lot.”
“I think that’s just her being bitchy,” Tabitha said.
Stella shook her head. “I know her better than you. I think she likes you.”
Tabitha put a cashmere button-down sweater over her tank top. “Too early to tell.”
Stella grinned. “Nope.”
Tabitha glared at Stella. “I’m not interested. I don’t roll that way.”
Stella nodded. “Okay.”
Tabitha’s eyes widened. “You don’t believe me!”
“No, I believe you.” Stella’s face indicated seriousness and Tabitha took it at face value. Stella waited as Tabitha finished getting dressed. Tabitha rummaged through her suitcase to find her brush but realized that too had been taken. She gritted her teeth as she ran her hand through her damp, crimson hair.
“My brush is gone too. Let’s go.”