by Jordan Grant
“Are you going to be okay?” I ask her.
My heart splinters, and no amount of superglue and duct tape will ever fix it. I’m convinced some things remain broken no matter what you do. Hearts and souls are two of those things.
She drags in a deep breath through her nose and nods solemnly. “I’ll be okay, Harlow. Go to class.” She smirks and adds, “It’s not like you can afford to miss it.”
I laugh, partly because she’s right. I am hovering with my head just barely above water. Before Voclain, I thought I was relatively intelligent. Now, I know I’m lacking. It feels like I have to study twice as much as everyone else just to keep up. Mostly though, I laugh because she still has bite, and I like it.
I give Molly a quick hug, wrapping my arms around her and squeezing tight. She always smells like laundry, freshly dry, and I breathe in deeply before stepping back.
“Text me if you need anything,” I say.
She snorts loudly. “You can’t afford any more demerits either.”
Now, I am full-on chortling because we both have the same number: one. Though mine is thanks to Beckett and the gym incident when he stole my clothes and swapped them for edible undergarments.
If I’m being honest, it’s a miracle I only have one because last week, Beckett made me late again when he locked me out of the building. Not the classroom, mind you. The. Building. I know Molly’s had something to do with Finn, but she has never offered and I’ve never asked.
Grinning at her, I turn and begin down the hall, only to find Berkshire staring at me.
As I pass his locker, he steps in line with me, and I am sort of happy to see him. Because seeing him means he isn’t tormenting Molly.
“You know,” he sneers—God, he sounds exceptionally whiny today—“if I didn’t know any better, I would say that Beckett chose you because he wants to fuck you.”
He practically shouts it so that everyone hears it, including Ian at the end of the hall who stops talking to Archie, and glares at Finn like he wants to throttle him with his bare hands.
I get the urge though. I too feel weirdly defensive about Finn’s remark, though that’s crazy because I have nothing to be defensive about. Ian’s only ever said that sexy stuff to get under my skin because he enjoys playing head games…right? That’s why he kissed me too…right?
“Finn,” I say, so everyone can hear, “please stop. Every time you speak, my brain cells try to commit mass suicide. It’s like your IQ is no higher than your GPA.”
It takes him a moment, but he stops walking as I continue ahead, a stupidly proud grin plastered on my face. He is such an asshole.
“What the fuck did you say to me?” he roars.
Students are still laughing as he slams me into a row of lockers. He is in my face, and I swear, his mouth must be a portal straight to his soul, because they are both disgusting. He smells like he ate pickled eggs for lunch, and I want to vomit. I have bigger problems though because his hands are on my throat, cinching tight.
“I don’t give a shit what anyone says,” Finn growls, and his voice sounds so, so far away, “if you talk to me like that again, then we will have a problem that doesn’t involve the Thing.”
Blackness bleeds across my vision, but it’s not the cold, scary darkness that I am used to. This is warm and inviting, like drifting off to sleep beneath a heavy comforter on a cold, winter night.
My lungs squeeze for air that is not there. My fingers claw against his arms, locked rods of steel against my throat. He doesn’t even flinch when my nails rake over his skin and make him bleed.
Then Finn is thrown. There’s no other word for it. His fingers are ripped from my throat, and he lands hard, skidding across the marble floor before coming to a stop in the middle of the hall. Students rush into their classrooms like cockroaches scattering at the glare of an overhead light.
I crumble, my knees melting into puddles of pudding. I stare at Ian’s profile, only I see something there I have never seen before—rage. His shoulders heave with his breath. He is not wearing his suit jacket, and I can see the hard line of his back beneath his shirt. I stare up at him, a little dizzy.
“You touch her,” Ian growls, “and I’ll fucking end you, Berkshire. You know the goddamn Rules.”
Finn runs a hand over his now bleeding nose and glares at me. He stumbles to his feet, grabbing onto a locker to steady himself.
“I’m not the one who needs to worry about the Rules,” Finn sneers, his upper lip curling over his straight, white teeth. Wiping the blood away with his hand, he smiles. “Word is there will be a vote.” He laughs, an ugly cackle. “You remember the deal, right? I wonder if you’ll be man enough to honor it or if I’ll have to help you along.”
Ian snarls, and it is the most visceral, frightening sound I have ever heard. He lunges for Berkshire, only Archie jumps in between them, and he and Everett pull Ian back.
I can do nothing but sit and watch the chaos. Headmistress DuMonte is there, shouting and waving her hands wildly as Berkshire continues to cackle. Aurora, Arabella, and Lilith huddle together at the end of the hall, watching the spectacle like they are recording it frame by frame to their memories. Everett and Archie hold Ian, but it seems to take everything they have to do so, and I sit there, my legs splayed across the cold, hard tile, still a little dizzy.
What vote? What is Finn trying to do to Ian? And why do I care?
Ian is a bully. Whatever his motives may be, he is a bully, and you don’t stop calling a tiger a tiger just because it eats when it’s hungry.
Two campus security guards arrive, one taking the still cackling Finn away and the other leading Ian in the opposite direction.
Ian looks at me, and I don’t know what I see there. Confusion? Longing? Archie kneels and takes my hand, pulling me up to stand as though I weigh nothing at all.
“Aren’t you breaking the Rules by helping me?” I croak.
Archie shakes his head, his beautiful blue eyes meeting mine. His smile is kind, and I know there’s no bite to the words, but he says, “Please don’t remind me about the damn Rules right now, Harlow. I can’t decide whether to feel sorry for Ian, sorry for you, or sorry for myself.”
“Why would you feel sorry for yourself?” I manage with a cough.
Archie gifts me with a hint of a smile as he leads me toward lab. “It kills me when I watch you two. It tears me up, the way you look at him.”
What the actual fudge? I must have some temporary brain damage, or at least I hope it’s temporary, because I swear to God Archie just said, in his own way, that he likes me. Archie, the human hybrid between Norse god and angel.
He looks over at me as I gape at him and lifts a finger to my lips.
“Please,” he begs, “no more questions today, all right? I swear every time you open your mouth, you take a piece of my soul with your words.”
His words are brutal, edged with pain, and I am stunned into silence. He leads me into class, appearing to not give a shit when Blythe glares at us from across the room.
14
Ian
Chase burps loudly, slamming his fist into his chest as he does it. Everett and Archie erupt in a fit of giggles. Chase gives a little bow as the girls at the table wrinkle their noses.
I haven’t talked to Harlow in four days. I was sure she’d say something—some smartass comment that my cock would take as a hand-written invitation—when I pulled the chair out from under her when she tried to sit three days prior. I thought she’d scream at me when I took her book bag this morning and promptly dumped it in the trash as Aurora watched. But she didn’t flinch, didn’t blink, didn’t react in the slightest.
She has turned to stone, and as if she’s Medusa, and I have turned to stone right along with her. I don’t eat. I don’t sleep. I don’t feel. I just am. I only...exist.
I haven’t even see her smile at Archie this week, and that gives me a brief respite. If I am miserable, I at least want fucking company. On second thought, I don’t give
a shit whether or not I have company, but I don’t want to have to watch Harlow give Archie any of her delectable smiles. Those are mine.
All. Fucking. Mine.
My mind carries forward like a piece of driftwood caught in the current. That kiss, her lips. Her warmth and scent of homemade apple pie. I can’t even bring myself to jack off to the memory of it. The best and worst moment of my life rolled into one, and I can’t figure it out. It’s like a fuse has shorted somewhere between my brain and my dick.
I’m a hot-blooded teenage boy. I should barely be able to keep it in my pants. But I find it hard to get remotely interested in anything besides her. Even practice has become a chore. Coach notices my attitude change—hell, the entire team does—but no one gives me shit as long as I make the right moves, call the right plays, and give them what they expect.
Archie and Everett have been talking about something, but I missed it. My gaze lifts from my untouched plate, and I find Everett staring at me. He purses his lips in a frown, his brows furrowing together until they are nearly one long, brown caterpillar. I know he knows what’s gnawing away at me from the inside like a mouse devouring a block of cheese.
This is what I get for not listening to him all those years ago. He always was the sensible one of our bunch. He knew, even as a kid, that the Rules would have adult consequences, but peer pressure is a bitch, and he got outvoted. Now, I am in purgatory, and he is my gatekeeper.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see her enter the cafeteria. She looks disheveled—her white-blonde hair pulled into some bun-like thing atop her head that resembles a bird’s nest, her skirt wrinkled—but she’s still beautiful. Light spills onto her like golden water from the glass oculus overhead as though she’s an angel arriving to earth in a shower of starlight. I sit outside of the glow. How appropriate.
She is a ray of sunshine, even though she looks miserable, but my misery craves her misery like a true fucking sadist.
I want to slam her into a table, dishes and silverware clattering everywhere, and fuck her until neither of us can walk straight. Then again, we would have an audience, and I don’t want to share. She. Is. Mine.
Mine. The monster in my chest purrs in approval.
That night flashes in my mind with the ferocity of a series of bombs going off. Each explosion fractures my control, which is mostly just the internal version of duct tape and a prayer at this point.
She tasted like a cherry lollipop, saccharine sweet and syrupy.
It’s killing me.
She felt so delicate, so fragile, against me, my hips pressed against hers as I pinned her to the locker and consumed her.
It’s killing me.
Her sounds as I traced the freckles scattered across her throat, something between a purr and a moan.
It’s killing me!
She sees me and freezes. This isn’t her norm. She never comes to the cafeteria for lunch, probably attempting to avoid a repeat of the food fight I instigated to her chagrin weeks ago.
I stand, and I don’t give a fuck that they can all see, that it’s raising questions for which I have no answers—at least not acceptable ones—or that I am instigating a fucking bloodbath.
“Stormy,” I say, the word somewhere between a growl and a yell. It echoes in the cavernous banquet hall. Everyone stops talking, and they all stare. The collective room holds its breath. Even the staff just stop and stand there, frozen mid-clearing of plates.
I would give anything to be ignored at this moment, to be able to disappear into the throngs of students, but everyone is watching, their wide-eyed gazes darting back and forth between Stormy and me. They can’t wait to gossip about this later. But there’s safety in numbers, right? I can’t throttle each one of their throats. Or, if I did, at least it would take a while.
Stormy’s steps become jumpy, erratic, as she snakes around the tables to the pre-made snack bar on the opposite side of the room, grabbing an apple and—I’m glad to see—a chocolate chip cookie.
Keep up your strength, sweetness. You’re going to need it when I finally get you in my bed.
She reaches for a water bottle but drops it, sending it bounding across the floor and disappearing under the edges of a starched tablecloth. I stalk forward, the heels of my loafers a steady tik-tok on the veined marble floor. By the time I’m in her space, looming over her, my breath warming her ear, she is trembling.
She’s not afraid of me. I know that. No matter what befalls her, like when Finn tried to murder her in the hallway, she is never afraid, so what the fuck is this? Because my presence has bleached the color from her face, leaving it so pale-white, it nearly matches her hair.
I lean in close. I say the words just loud enough for her to hear.
“Talk to me,” I beg. For a moment, she goes completely still before she spins around.
Then she is in my face, standing on her toes and sneering at me. Her nose does this cute wrinkly thing when she’s mad. I want to pinch it between my thumb and forefinger and hear her squeal of surprise.
“Tell me,” she snarls, her tone suggesting she is contemplating all the ways to end me and it’s down to the final two, probably trial by combat or a knife straight to the heart, “do you ask Molly to talk to you? Or do you and your sick club—”
She doesn’t get the rest of the words out because I grab her forearm and jerk her away from the mother-fuckers staring at us. She barely keeps up, but my grip on her is tight. It’ll probably bruise her, but I can’t—I won’t—give her a chance to pull away.
I slam the door to the cafeteria open. It swings and hits the wall with a thud as I pull her forward, further down the hall and past mingling freshmen. We continue out of the building and into the cold air. I should probably offer her my jacket, but I’ve left it in the cafeteria.
I stride forward. She tries to wiggle free of me, but I yank her along. It’s only because I refuse to stop moving that she doesn’t fall.
I want to take her to my dorm and lock her in my bedroom until she lets me worship her body. I want to lick every inch of her and see how many ways I can make her come. I want...
We enter the arts building. It’s a miracle we aren’t in the woods surrounding campus or on a rooftop given how little thought I’ve put into this. I tug her into the music hall. It’s empty. Thank God.
As the door shuts behind her, I spin toward her and hiss, “You have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about, Stormy.”
She jerks free of me and crosses both arms over her chest. Like that will keep her safe from me. All it does is bring my attention to her breasts, which are the perfect size for my hands.
“Then why don’t you tell me.” The words rush at me like she’s on the front lines during the Invasion of Poland, but she doesn’t raise her voice.
“Because it’s against the Rules,” I say, and the moment the words tumble from my mouth, I know I’ve said too much.
Revulsion, disgust—perhaps some mixture between them—churns in her gaze.
“You have a rule against talking about the Rules?” She snorts, shaking her head and sending her blonde hair swaying. “I swear to God I don’t know which is worse,” she glares at me, rage sparking like a live wire in her gaze, “that you are insufferably obtuse and stubborn and mean or maybe it’s that you are all of those things and beautiful?” She throws her hands in the air. “It’s like God looked around and wondered, what would really cause Harlow Weathersby to have a mental break? Option A: Have her family win the lottery but make sure she loses her best friend because of it.” Her voice cracks, but she doesn’t cry. “Or Option B: Let’s make sure she can’t function without fucking pills.” She cackles, and although she certainly is being a smartass, I see it for what it is—a defense mechanism. “Or maybe it’s Option C: Let’s throw the quarterback at her and make him say the naughtiest, most beautiful things ever while also being a complete and total asshat to her friend.”
Tears spring to her eyes and threaten to tumble down her cheeks. She loo
ks up at the ceiling, drawing her face taut. “Looks like he couldn’t decide though. He went with all three.”
I reach out, brushing away a tear that escapes and rolls down her ghostly pale cheek. “What are you talking about, Stormy? What happened to you, beautiful?”
I really want to hear her talk about how hot she thinks I am, and all those naughty feelings I ignite in her belly, but she needs to talk about what’s bothering her.
She laughs, tears spilling down her remarkable face, and reaches into her book bag. With a trembling hand, she undoes a prescription bottle and shakes two white pills into her palm before swallowing them dry.
She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. She’s probably been standing there like that for over a minute before she opens them, the churning tide of cerulean rolling in her gaze.
“Have you been friends with Finn for long?” she says, her words snapping at me hard, despite her tears, which she refuses to acknowledge. “Because I seriously think he has a case of dumbass flu, and by the looks of it, it appears to be contagious. Stay away from me, Ian. We aren’t friends until you accept mine.”
With that, she flings the door to the music hall open, and I let her go, wondering what I’m going to do about this girl who poisons my dreams and threatens my very existence.
She has filleted my heart open and just poured salt on the bleeding wound.
15
Ian
There’s a special place in my brain devoted to Harlow Weathersby and our kiss last Friday. That place is warm and cozy, like a cottage with a fire in the hearth as rain chimes on the metal roof. That place is safe and secluded from everyone and everything. No parents, no Aurora or her minions, no monsters waiting in the dark. That place is mine and hers alone.
Deeper still is a place, cold and dark and lifeless. In that place, Harlow stands in front of me, crying wordlessly, just like she did after our duet. I plead with her to stop this torture for us both, but she just stands there, unmoving as she stares forward, past me, and sobs.
