This one I wasn’t prepared for. I didn’t know how to handle something as simple as a bright semicolon. Even more were the words beneath it.
“You can choose not to end the sentence and go on.”
It was a poster for the Suicide Prevention Hotline and the phone number.
The next thing I knew Abbie had called Owen and he was carrying me back to my room. When we got there, he lay me on my bed and tucked me under the covers. To fight the emptiness inside me, I curled in on myself, wrapping my arms around my knees. I was crying uncontrollably, trying to stifle the whimpers and sobs trapped in my throat, my mind and body numb and disconnected from each another.
I just wanted to close off my thoughts and wait for the pain to subside.
I’ll just close my eyes for a second.
At the ping of my phone alerting me of a message, I snapped awake to find Abbie and Owen gone, and Honoré sitting up in bed, legs crossed at the ankles, watching me.
“So, I heard you literally broke down. Dramatic, much?” She quirked a smile, but nothing else on her face moved.
Other than Marshall, she was literally the last person I wanted to see. I was still nauseous and a bit dizzy when I sat up. I scrubbed a hand over my face and picked up my phone.
Xander: I need to see you. Sports closet. Back of the gym. 15 min.
“This isn’t life or death. It’s a party. A chance to break out some new lipstick. Any color you want.” Honoré laughed despite herself, and rolled her eyes, hefting herself off the bed. She padded over to her closet.
For a few seconds, she rummaged inside for something, and I took the opportunity to peel myself out of the covers and plant my feet on the floor. I was still in my uniform, but there was no way in hell I would change with Honoré scrutinizing every move I made.
She peeked out at me before stretching her arm to fling a hanger with a purple dress on it toward me. “I know it’s your favorite color.”
I eyed the dark eggplant dress and short hem. “Thanks, but I’m on my way out.”
Her brows arched, her piercing green eyes narrowed. “Meeting someone?”
“Just…meeting up with some friends.”
“As if you have any.”
I grabbed my jacket and a change of clothes, and didn’t look back at her. “Don’t wait up.” As the door clicked shut behind me, I heard her scoff at the suggestion.
On the way to the gym I followed the path down the east lawn at the edge of Hepburn Creek. It was the long way, but no one was ever around so I didn’t have to worry about The Crows.
I responded to the most recent of like ten group messages from Abbie and Owen, who were wondering what happened and if I was okay. They didn’t press, but they said they were open ears when I was ready to talk.
I loved them for it.
Izzy: Can’t talk now, but I’ll call you as soon as I’m able. Don’t worry. I’m okay.
Izzy: Thanks for worrying about me.
Abbie: That’s what friends are for. Seriously, I’m here if you want to talk. If you don’t feel comfortable talking in front of Raven Queen, you can always stay with me for the weekend.
Owen: She’s alive! Hit me up whenever.
Izzy: I’m good for now, but thanks for offering. It means a lot to have you two. Talk soon.
The second Xander pulled up to the east entrance of the gymnasium in a dark sports car, I felt a weight lift off me. I don’t when or how it happened, but in the past two days, he’d become the center of my world, my anchor to reality. I wanted him on the deepest level, and I knew it the moment I saw him. He was the only person I wanted to let in.
Chapter Ten
XANDER
The dark, winding, single-lane desert road was shrouded in mist, but it came alive under the high beams of my headlights. Almost like we were in a tunnel, surrounded on all sides by crisp air and faint shadows outside the windows. It was like that for miles until I turned off at the exit and slowed the car to a stop.
“Where are we?” Izabelle asked.
I cut the ignition, got out, and rounded the trunk to open the door for her. “You’ll see.”
“Uh, should I be scared? You’ve got me out here in the middle of nowhere, it’s pitch-black, and we’re going into the woods.”
“Just come on. I want to show you something.”
Her eyes darted from me to the moonlight streaming through the tree branches, and I could tell when she noticed the cicadas droning nearby. I could almost hear the wheels turning in her head as she sighed and followed me.
To ease her nerves, I found her hand and took it in mine as we walked the few yards down the hilly slope until we reached the creek where our two best friends awaited us.
“I thought it might be nice to hang out with some old friends. You remember Rustin and Jigsaw.” The horses shuffled toward Izabelle as she moved in wide strides toward them, her arms swinging, hair bouncing in the wind.
“I cannot believe you did this.” She scratched her horse’s mane and turned to me with a big grin beneath sparkling eyes. “Thank you. You don’t know how much I needed this.”
“I figured it might be nice to get away, take a night ride…and talk.”
She didn’t respond, but I took her silence as an accord while I inspected the horses’ tack. I waited for her get up into the stirrups and checked to make sure the harness and saddle were secure before mounting my own horse and positioning my spotlight out in front of us.
We started out down the creek where the path was free of the uneven rocks and undergrowth.
As the trail widened, I loosened my grip on the reins and hung back a little so Izabelle could ride up alongside me. For a few minutes, I absorbed the quiet. No traffic or sounds of the city, just trickling water and the easy gait of hooves beating the path. The smell of pine and earth blended in a mix of freshness. I leaned my head back, inhaling as I watched the star-studded sky.
“This afternoon in the hall, was it about Marshall and the party, the feeding?” I glanced over at her, but she stared straight ahead. I guessed she knew this was coming.
Her hips rolled with the rhythm of the horse’s movement. “No.”
All day, I’d been fuming, thinking it was something to do with The Crows. It was why arranging this night away felt even more urgent than my need to get her alone. In the brush, I heard movement and crickets. The rush of the water seemed louder, faster, and I realized my senses were overwhelmed with the possibilities of what Izabelle might say.
“So then, what? People were saying you fainted, you had a nervous breakdown, and Owen Branch carried you back to your dorm. I didn’t know what to think. Will you tell me?”
Suddenly, I was grateful for the cover of darkness. She couldn’t see the tide of panic washing over me.
“Turn here,” I said, nodding off to the right, where there was a clearing.
I was still waiting on edge for her answer as I tied the horses up to a tree and fished out a few things from my saddlebag. When we were stretched out on the blanket, our eyes trained on the stars, I found her hand and laced our fingers together. “You can tell me.”
She pulled our hands to rest on her chest and I could feel her heart racing. She took her time, like every word was more difficult to say than the last. “It was a poster. Suicide prevention line.”
I tightened my grip on her fingers and swallowed as her muscles tensed.
“When I was eight, my mom took her own life, and I really didn’t get it. All I could think about was what I’d done wrong or how I could have been a better daughter. But I was also mad at her for leaving me, at my dad for living, and again, at myself for not seeing the signs.”
“I’m sorry.” My voice sounded strained and foreign to my own ears, genuinely apologetic.
“It’s just…seeing that poster, it caught me off guard. I was humiliated…” She trailed off and breathed for a few seconds. “Have you ever felt like everyone could see right through you?”
“Yeah. All the time.�
�
“In that moment, it was like everyone knew I couldn’t save my mother.” I could hear the emotion thick in her throat. “Especially since I’d just watched Emily’s video. I read like a ton of articles about her and how her parents were so angry for all the same reasons I was—am—at my mom.
“When I saw the poster in the hall, I was right back there on the bathroom floor, scared to touch her icy skin and unmoving body, begging her to wake up. I read the words on the poster, line for line, and the next thing I knew I couldn’t breathe or stand upright.”
Izabelle shook her head.
“It’s okay.”
“I don’t want to end up like them, like Emily Sutton. I’m so scared that I’m destined to wind up like my mother.”
From the way her voice trembled, I recognized the toxic mix of fear and anger because I knew it well. I was two seconds away from telling her about Dad. How his actions and secrets changed me into this guarded, fucked-up monster. This dark person surrounded by an even darker circle of predators. I wanted to tell her, but when she turned on her side to face me and slowly grazed a finger over my lips, I knew I couldn’t. Wouldn’t. The same way Izabelle felt like her mother’s fate had a hand in hers, I knew that no matter what I did, Dad’s darkness would follow me.
I couldn’t trust what the secret would do to Izabelle, to us.
What is she going to think of me when she knows what my Dad is?
Instead of detouring down that dead-end road, I leaned in and softly brushed my lips over hers. “I won’t let them take you away from me,” I whispered.
In the light I could see the tears streaming down her cheeks, and I recognized the desperate expression on her face. Help me forget the pain, it said. I kissed her again. This time, it was urgent and steeped with all the emotions swirling between us, the alchemy of it electrifying me. I deepened the kiss, pulling her taut against me, my tongue hungry and searching as I tasted her.
Izabelle ripped her mouth from mine. “I’m so mad at myself. These are the signs, and I’m ignoring them because I want you. So bad.” She rolled over onto her back and scrubbed her hands over her face, pinching the bridge of her nose.
“What are you talking about?”
“Where is this going to go? I mean, how can you be two completely different people? At school we’re ducking around corners hiding from The Crows. You have to ignore me, be fucking rude to me, so they don’t know about us. And then there’s this version of you.” She sighed. “This sweet and tender guy who’s so careful with my feelings, who takes me on amazing starlit horseback rides out of the blue. You’re gentle when I need you to be, then so maddeningly rough I just want to hate-fuck your brains out and then crawl into a corner and cry. Why can’t it just be normal?”
“I know.”
I did.
I wanted it, too. The normalcy. The regular worries people our age overreacted to...grades, college, arguments with our parents about staying out late. I wanted that. Not checking my father’s desk to find his next target. Not humiliating girls in hotel rooms. I was just as bad as Dad and Marshall, no matter how much I didn’t want to be.
I propped up on my elbow so I could look into her eyes. “Promise me you won’t give up on me—you’ll let me prove I’m different.”
Izabelle climbed on top of me, thighs hugging my sides, then leaned down and laid a tender, sexy kiss on me. She was shivering while she ground herself on my dick.
I twisted and laid her on her back, positioning myself between her legs, then sweeping a curl out of her face and kissing away each of her tears. Every nerve ending in my body stirred and tingled as warmth flooded my chest. She stared up at me with glossy, half-lidded eyes, her arms akimbo and wild coils scattered around her head on the blanket as she slightly parted her legs.
“I want you,” I said, leaning in to nibble her bottom lip. I was drowning in need, but I held back against every raging, savage instinct embedded in my genes. I was of my father, but I didn’t have to be him.
Her chest rose and fell with shallow, hurried breaths, but her gaze was fixed on me.
“Then have me.”
I was mesmerized by the way she arched her back, writhing beneath me, torturing me. It was all I needed to hear. I scooted back, peeled off her panties one leg at a time, dipping my fingers inside her.
She hissed, and the sound only electrified my need.
“You’re already wet for me.”
Izabelle pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and squeezed her thighs together against my hand.
“I want to feel you moving inside me,” she whispered and moaned.
As she squirmed, I groaned and freed my dick from my pants, stroking it while I fished out a condom and glided it down my shaft. I was wholly consumed as I buried myself inside her and felt the walls of her pussy clench around me. A surge of heat coursed through me as she bucked and tied her legs around my waist, forcing me deeper.
“Fuck, you feel so good.”
Every move and every whimpering sound she made was so fucking hot.
I tugged her shirt up over her bra and yanked the cups down. The soft curves of her breasts and the small brown nipples teased me. I took one between my teeth and grazed the tender skin. I sucked it and licked, hungry but still unfulfilled.
It was like I couldn’t get enough. I couldn’t get close enough. She was this addictive high I couldn’t match with anyone or anything else. I was inside of her, but she invaded me in every way. She was on my mind and in my heart every second of the day, even though I never invited her in. When I wasn’t with her, I was thinking about her, texting her all hours of the day, wondering what she was doing and when I could see her again.
This was more than sex.
“Don’t let them hurt me,” I heard her whisper.
As much as I was enjoying this, my heart wouldn’t let me forget how my addiction made her a target. I hated who it made me. More than anything, I didn’t want to taint the person she made me want to be.
With both hands, I gripped her hips and slammed harder and deeper until her body quaked and quivered under me.
Then, I let go.
Chapter Eleven
IZZY
Saturday Xander and I were tucked away in a hotel a couple of towns away. We slept, had mind-blowing sex, ordered takeout, had sex again, watched two seasons of Paranormal Ghosthunters on his phone, and now we were just lying in bed breathing. I knew we were thinking about the same thing. The weekend was almost over. Come Monday, we’d be back at school, another day closer to Friday.
Doomsday.
“Next week is Valentine’s Day,” he said out of the blue, and a giggle bubbled up inside me.
We were thinking about the same day from opposite ends of the spectrum. I’d thought about it nonstop, the irony. How a day meant to celebrate love was going to be marked with so much hate.
“I know. It’s your birthday.”
“I’m serious. I want to buy you something special. Maybe something in your favorite color.” He nodded to the small amethyst pendant on a thin gold chain around my neck.
“It’s a gift from my Dad.”
“Is it your birthstone, too?”
I squinted at him, working my way around his thought process. “Yeah. It’s the twenty-seventh. But these”—I tilted my head to the side and combed my hair out of the way to show him my earrings— “they’re not amethyst. Topaz. I really just love the color purple. It’s me and my dad’s thing. He brings me back something purple from everywhere he’s stationed or visits.”
Xander turned on his side and propped himself up on his elbow. Affection glowed in his summery, blueish-green eyes. “What if I cancelled the party and took you somewhere, just the two of us?” I could hear the hope in his voice, and I hated to drown it out.
“Nothing will change but the date,” I said. “If Marshall is as malicious as I believe he is, cancelling the party will only make what he does to me that much worse. I just wish I could find a way to take his
sights off me. Either ruin him or…” I trailed off because even saying my thought aloud worried me about my own moral compass.
“Or what?” Xander pressed.
“What if someone was else took my place in the feeding?”
Even as I said it, I hated myself for wanting another girl to go through my worst nightmare. But, somehow, I felt like the answer was under the last stone I’d left unturned. I’d gotten distracted with the video of Emily and seeing the poster, then getting swept up in Xander this weekend, but I’d meant to keep digging.
“What are you thinking?” Relief suffused his features as he looked at me. At this point, I could tell we were both ready to latch onto any alternative.
I sighed and finally met his gaze. “Who’s Clementine Olivier?”
For the next several minutes Xander unloaded the whole scoop about her. She was a second-year who got pegged for a feeding last semester, but before Marshall could roll out his plan to defile her at a debutante party, she got her hands on Emily Sutton’s original video—the one taken from his phone, and flipped the script on him, thus saving herself. It didn’t remove her from The Feed, but until Marshall could figure out how he was going to get his revenge, he let her slide.
“So, he’s basically just lying low, waiting for her slip up?”
Xander nodded and shrugged.
“And what’s his deal with always doing it at a party? He just needs his cronies around to boost his ego, or is it to make everyone else accomplices by their presence alone? He’s so fucking wretched.”
“At least that’s what he tells you. If you’re there and you didn’t do anything to stop it, you’re culpable.”
I rolled my eyes and sighed. “I’m so over this guy. What a grade A douchebag. He thinks he’s some CSI detective, outsmarting his lowly peons, and everyone just falls at his feet, lets him do whatever and get away with whatever. I don’t know who she is, but I’m liking this Clementine girl more by the second.”
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