by Jayla Kane
And then she kissed me.
I am not anything close to virginal. I don’t really remember the first time I was kissed, or even the first couple; it all happened in the dark with strangers, with women who wanted to use me to forget something.
But I never felt like that before.
And when we were kissing, I felt my body do other things it never had—I felt myself kissing her back until we were both panting, until her hands weren’t guiding mine but clinging to me, touching me, feeling me, and my own hands were digging in to her soft ass and I was half a second away from ripping those goddamn red panties peeking up at me in half—
And then she slapped me. Hard.
She started to do it again, but I caught her wrist in my hand. It hurt. Not like it should’ve—she was just a little thing, really. Just a tiny ball of pure fire, red hot and blazing in my lap. I stared down at her in the low light of the cabin and saw hatred staring back at me.
Her lips were swollen from our kisses, her nipples hard. I could smell the damp heat of her body down below.
But that look in her eyes… That wasn’t desire.
“Hunter Black,” she hissed, twisting her arm in my grip. I didn’t let her go, and when she went to slap me with her other hand and I caught it, she spat in my face. “Fuck you,” she snarled. I just sat still and waited.
This was the woman I’d seen—the woman who drew me into the cab of the truck. Not the girl. This was the creature of beauty and darkness I’d been powerless to resist, venom pouring out of her. “Are you going to finish the job?”
“What job?” That did throw me off.
“Seems like you might be the type,” she growled, glaring at me. “You’re a piece of shit, anyway.”
“The type to what?”
Something behind her eyes clicked as she watched me, her teeth bared, and I felt her relax a little bit even as she dug her nails into my arms, scratching me deep. “My name is Artemis Keller,” she spat. “You know my sister, Raven?”
Fuck.
Yes. I knew Raven.
I only have one friend, if you want to call him that; I think of him more as a brother. Jake Warfield is a prick, in a lot of ways, but I knew something about him that made me feel loyal to him, and he knew some things about me. We lost some of the same things, and that will create a bond. But his vendetta against Raven Keller mystified me until he cleared everything up while we were drunk one night, and I’d taken his side without question. When Raven got some tribunal put together to throw him out of school, I’d barred her from entering the library to testify—at least, I think that was why she was there. The whole thing was supposed to be hush-hush, even though her complaints initiated the process. But I hated Raven for what she’d done to Jake—a betrayal so stunning it was hard to process, hard to believe—and now I knew why this girl hated me.
Baby Keller ground her pussy against me one more time and both of us were seized with a shockwave of desire so intense she moaned out loud and I almost kissed her again… But then she bit my hand, and I had to swallow all of it. The whole thing—the way she made me feel when she smiled, the way she’d tricked me, the way she was. What she did to me.
“If I hear one word about you fucking with her again, I’ll tell everyone you raped me,” Baby hissed in my ear. She was covered in streaks of black grease from where my desperate hands had devoured the smallest taste of her skin; her hair was wild with tangles, her lips swollen. “I’ll do it. I’m taking pictures as soon as I get home.”
I said nothing.
“One fucking word, Hunter Black. Just one.”
She climbed off of me and strutted over to her car, slamming the door and peeling out of the driveway before my heart even slowed down.
She didn’t need to work hard to accuse me of bad things; people didn’t like me, and they shouldn’t. They’d believe her.
That didn’t bother me as much as it should’ve.
What bothered me was that I understood a little more about Jake. He couldn’t leave Raven alone. I’d told him time and again to just fucking drop it, that we could find out what happened a million other ways, but he just… He couldn’t.
He hated her in a way that told me exactly how much he loved her.
And I was suddenly aware of how that might feel.
I wasn’t in love. Not even close.
But I was a hell of a lot closer than I’d ever been before.
I started up the truck. I only had twenty minutes to go get Molly. I rolled down the windows and looked at myself in the rearview, smeared the lipstick off of my chin. Stared at myself until my heartbeat went back to normal.
And went on with my life.
Chapter One
Raven
I got myself dressed.
It is hard to describe the sheer amount of pride I swallowed while I did it—the way I had to look down at my rumpled clothes and pull them back over my sweaty legs, over my hips, and feel the damp center of my body dirty the underwear I put on that morning. To feel the bruises on the backs of my thighs, the throb inside of me where I’d been opened and full, my swollen bottom lip.
The way I wanted it all again. Right now.
Jacob Warfield hadn’t even gotten undressed, so he casually pulled his pants back up and that was that; he didn’t look rumpled. The asshole.
The asshole I adored. The one I’d just eaten all of that pride for—the one I had offered myself to, the most basic and poignant symbol of peace I could find.
But now he wouldn’t even look me in the eye.
Snow whirled in the air around us; I was trying to process it, to wrap my mind around what had just happened—the deafening phrases I heard echoing inside of my brain as he finished deep in my body still wracked my soul, and my skin was lit up with the imprint of snowflakes as they landed on my hot torso… As I stood up and yanked my shirt over my head, I watched the snow flakes and heard the words, all over again, the snarl in his voice raging as he said in my mind: I want to punch something, I want to scream, I want to tell her I love her…
I thought I was imagining things when he growled at me to shut up. I thought we were both going fucking crazy.
But now I knew: I could hear him, and he could hear me—not out loud. But inside of my brain, my most private, personal thoughts, spilling out into his without a single sound spoken aloud.
Or at least, I could when he was already inside of me.
And then… There was the snow.
“Jake,” I said, and he stopped moving, his eyes still on the carpet; his face was gaunt. I wondered what the hell he’d been eating for the past week. “Can we talk about this? About—”
“What is there to talk about?” At least he let me call him Jake, I thought. That part of our game was over.
I thought about reaching out to him and shook the impulse off; he didn’t want that from me. It was pretty clear that his feelings were ambivalent at best, and I didn’t blame him at all. We’d just discovered his brother--the brother I believed I murdered--was still alive and standing at the train station.
And that we made it snow when we fucked.
“Jake, seriously—this is—”
“You know,” he said slowly, and now he did turn to look at me, his eyes green embers, the pit of a flame, “whatever the end of that sentence is, I’m just not interested.” I blinked, and he shrugged. “Raven, I wouldn’t have joined the fucking Ashwood Society if not for you—if not for our little duet all through high school, and the fact that I knew you wanted to join. I wouldn’t have—”
“Are you blaming me for this?” I stared at him, my mouth agape. He shrugged again, breaking my gaze with a long, lingering look out of the office’s window towards the horizon.
“I figure, this is just more bullshit for me to deal with,” he said slowly. Before we had sex, he seemed… Crazed. Rabid. And I guess I should’ve been grateful some of that manic energy was gone—he called me Raven, for Christ’s sake—but this… This emptiness…
&nbs
p; “Jake,” I said, and this time I couldn’t stop myself from reaching out to him. He immediately took a step away and stopped staring at the distant trees, their leaves like fire against the blue sky. His eyes flickered over my face for the barest second before darting towards the door, his hands shoved in his pockets.
“Let’s go,” he said, utterly devoid of emotion. And I had never, in all our confrontations, in all the moments he spent sending minions to torture me in high school, in all the bizarre, painful, emotional eruptions between us in the last week… I had never felt so dismissed. So painfully small and used.
And maybe I thought it would help him—maybe I thought it would help me. Because I did feel guilty, still, even with Zella’s confession. Maybe the fact that I had to leave him alone, that I couldn’t face him day after day when I knew I was lying to him made me a coward, and selfish, and cruel. But I had apologized; I wanted to make it right. That’s why I wanted to join the goddamn Ashwood Society—because of him.
Well. Because of my conscience, which was on active duty over-time since the moment I shook Tristan and couldn’t get his eyes to open.
But that cost me Jake.
My heart.
I stood there and stared at him as he strolled out of the room as if he was returning to work after a particularly filling lunch, a sort of satisfied set to his shoulders in spite of the grim expression on his handsome face.
And I have hated Jacob Warfield in the past…
I hated him when he found a way to get a sheet of ice into my locker, so that it melted overnight and ruined all of the work I kept there. I hated him when my clothes disappeared during gym so often that I just stopped changing and stank for the rest of the day. I hated him when no one would talk to me or agree to be my partner for class-room projects, when unseen feet would jet out and trip me in the aisle, when my tires were flat. I hated him all those times, but I always felt a seed of pain because I knew he was just begging for me to tell him where his brother was. And I wouldn’t.
But now… Tristan was alive.
I apologized for that lie.
And he’d fucked me—taken my virginity, made me love it, called me Rae and baby and forced me to remember that I had a heart—he’d fucked me on that desk and now he couldn’t even be bothered to talk about the fucking snow whirling down from the goddamn ceiling? Or the fact that I could read his mind?
And he could read mine?
He couldn’t be bothered to say anything after I know—I know—he heard how much I still love him?
Rage boiled inside of me--anger so strong it brought the stolen flush back to my cheeks as it raged through my body, as I ripped the last of my clothes on, grabbed my backpack, and stormed after him.
I thought I knew what hate was.
But I didn’t.
Not until he really got his revenge. Not until now.
I slammed the door of the office hard enough to rattle the walls and raced down the stairs after him, swearing that this was the last time he ever made me feel like this—like one of the girls he forgot about, and left behind.
One of the girls he used.
Chapter Two
Jake
I’m pretty sure I was in shock.
In fact, I thought, listening to Raven’s footfalls echoing all around me, so incredibly loud for such a small person as she raced down the stairs—I think I’d been in shock since Zelle told me Tristan was alive.
Raven shook me out of it for a minute; the rage and pain and mutinous love I felt for her all combined together into this fucked up tidal wave and if I hadn’t slept with her, I’m pretty sure I would’ve lost my goddamn mind. I kind of already had; Hunter was shadowing me even during class, at least yesterday and today, and that told me all I needed to know about how I’d been acting. I hadn’t eaten since… I don’t know. And I was finally able to sleep last night, but I don’t know that it was real rest, so much as my body just collapsing on the mattress.
But being inside of her… It restored me.
Is that fucked up? Ha. Just kidding.
I still have a sense of humor, I reassured myself, and I knew at that moment there was a smile on my face that probably would convince Hunter I was completely insane if he saw it. But I did feel… Better, I guess. If that’s the right word.
I felt like my leash had gone taut and snapped me back from the edge.
So. Better.
But Raven was behind me now, and I could practically feel the anger dripping off of her—the rage I’d just left behind was swollen in her brain. I almost called her a fucking girl, then realized I’d deserve it if she shoved me down the stairs, so I shut my mouth; I was only joking, anyway. Raven was acting a lot like the other girls I slept with when they’d been fooling themselves about whether or not I meant what I said when I told them I didn’t do relationships. But in her case… I mean, we don’t have that kind of relationship. We have a disaster, a mutually assured order of mass destruction, a nuclear blast that was slowly carving me inside out. If that’s a relationship, okay, then I guess we have one. So the truth was that I was acting like just as much of a fucking girl, pardon the dick.
See? Sense of humor.
“Where are we going?” A minute ago I was Jake. Now I was Enemy Number One, which, fair enough. I could hear the hatred crackling in her voice.
“The train station,” I said, and she barreled past me on the bottom step and stomped ahead. “I’m taller,” I called out, and she spun around to give me the finger, walking backwards, before turning and marching on. I was right, though, and we stayed about ten feet apart, my long legs able to keep up with her increased pace as we crossed campus.
I felt… Disconnected.
I did feel insane, actually. And for damn good reason.
I was fucking the person I hated most in the world, and I couldn’t stop, because I also loved her more than anything else in the world.
My brother abandoned me. He wasn’t dead; he just left me behind.
We made it snow.
I could hear her voice in my head.
I almost started to laugh, but caught myself; if she heard me, Raven would know something was really wrong. I couldn’t do that whole heart-to-heart thing with her. It’s true that I also apparently couldn’t live without touching her, without smelling her and seeing her skin and hearing her say my name; I still didn’t trust her.
But it was harder not to believe the apology she’d given me right before when I remembered her voice echoing around in my mind. I didn’t know why it snowed; she didn’t know she was telling me she loved me.
But she did. Clear and true, the words unignorably simple.
I’m sorry. I love you.
I was sorry too, in this moment; I was sorry I’d ever fucking seen her face. Sorry about high school, weirdly enough—sorry about all the things I told people to do, and all the things I didn’t have to to make them do them anyway. I was sorry I stayed in Ashwood when I could’ve fucked off to Coachella and then Dubai, at least for a year or two. I was sorry I joined the Ashwood Society and that I saw snow, white and crisp and clear, whirling through the air of a closed room as it poured down from a dry, solid ceiling. Sorry I was buried so far inside of Raven that first night, my mouth drinking in her breath as she panted beneath me and I felt my whole chest open up, like a tomb, or a rose—take your pick. Sorry she knew me. Sorry she didn’t.
My whole life felt like it was burning. The entire horizon was flames.
Actually, the last time I felt this way… Was when she stopped speaking to me.
It didn’t happen suddenly. It was slow, maybe a month or so. It was just the timing that made it so fucking weird—why did she drop me then? When she knew I was utterly alone, trapped in that house with Lucas? Why did she leave me?
She stopped talking to me, bit by bit. She couldn’t stay on the phone; her sister needed her, or her mom was headed out and she had to watch the counter. She couldn’t come over; no one was home and Baby couldn’t be alone. She was
sorry, but she couldn’t let me come upstairs and do my homework. Zelle was there, and she was going through that teen-age thing where she wanted to be alone all the time.
It just fell apart. A lifetime of friendship, chipped away by little tiny lies, evasions, dismissals.
I figured out after a week that she wasn’t telling me the whole truth about what happened with Tristan; I was still jealous, as pathetic as that is, that she’d been holding his hand when I saw them together. I never believed he was dead. Logically, I knew by the time I was sixteen that he must be—shows you what logic is worth. I thought something must have happened, something so awful that she just wouldn’t tell me. To protect me.
Ha.
Sense of humor. Still intact. We were getting closer to the train station now.
I remembered the way Zelle looked at me when I asked them. We were in the coffee shop; the search was now in full effect, the entire world had been alerted to the fact that Tristan Warfield, eldest son of the recently deceased Timothy Warfield, heir apparent and golden boy, was gone. But I was sure he wasn’t dead. It just didn’t work for me, my entire heart rebelled. So I told the girls to tell me what happened again.
“He’s gone, Jake,” Zelle said, and something about it was so final that it… It unsettled me.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, he’s gone.” And she bit her lip, her eyes full of tears, and Raven started sobbing. Now, of course, I know—I know what all these little signs signify, what they really meant, the lie they carved out of the air. But at the time… I was just gut-punched. I knew they were lying. I could feel it. But… Something about it was also painfully real, excruciatingly true. And I was a kid, so I held in my own tears and stroked Raven’s cheek and went home.
