I plop down on the bed-couch and pull out my private artbook from my school bag. Under the gas lantern light, the sketch chocolate-orange hues. I smile at the similarity of his skin tone. I’m sketching Blaze.
Don’t hate me, I know it’s weird. But since I first had that crush on him years ago, he became my favorite person to sketch—just because of how difficult it is to truly capture him. Every look he gives is different, but the differences are subtle. Minor. He smirks, but he has dozens of those. He glances, but his eyes burn in a hundred different ways. Drake, too.
They’re my favorites to draw, but I wouldn’t admit that even on my deathbed.
Tonight, I add a smile to Blaze’s lips. Swollen lips, twisted in a lively smile—the look he gave me before I ran off.
My lips still tingle from the secrets he kissed me with and the poison snaking through me.
I hated myself for liking it.
As I slam the book shut, I think back to the first year I attended Stonewall. It was with the rest of them, all as juniors, but not being a noble gave me a strong, new-girl vibe. Outsider. A peasant trying to mingle with the wealthy.
Drake started it all.
It wasn’t on my first, second, or even third day at Stonewall. His hatred of me took time to build. And then, months into the year, he caught me after a sweaty lesson in combat class.
WHEN I REACHED THE second corridor and turned onto it, Drake stepped out of an alcove and blocked my path.
Looming like an old tower untouched by war, Drake cruelly stared down at me with those pitiless eyes that seemed to empty, yet so full of poison. The grey-blue of his eyes swirled with dangerous intent, I swallowed and stepped back.
“What do you want?” I asked, and even as I heard the question spit from my tongue, I realized that I was tired of asking the same old questions on repeat.
Like that broken CD walkman I had in my bedroom, always skipping and ruining my favorite songs, playing the same line over and over again.
Drake’s lips parted, still forming a whisper of a sneer, and he went to reply.
I held my hand up to stop him and said, “You know what?” I said exasperatedly. “I don’t care.”
I shoved by him, slamming my shoulder into his.
Before I could take my next step, I gasped as I was slammed, hard, against the wall, chest-first.
My face was turned to the side against the cool, rough stone and I winced from the impact against my tender breasts. Drake’s hand held my head in place and he came up behind me, slowly, and pressed his body against mine.
My hair rustled as his lips brushed against the shell of my ear. He whispered, “Do you know what exceeds foolish, little kittens?”
His silky whisper was so quiet that I almost didn’t hear it over my own loud breaths. He chuckled darkly and answered his own question—
“Venomous snakes.”
I didn’t reply, my voice had caught in my throat.
I couldn’t reach my keys or cry for help, my lungs were being crushed.
“What, no words of bravery to chew out?” he mocked darkly, barely a whisper. “Yet you’re brave enough to step foot in these halls.”
I choked out hoarsely, “I have as much right to be here—”
He hissed – literally hissed – a warning against my ear. The hairs on the back of my neck rose and a shudder ran down my spine.
My eyes widened, and my heart thudded loudly – I was sure he could hear it.
Suddenly, he stepped away from me and I whipped around to face him, wild-eyed.
Drake was staring down the corridor at nothing – or what appeared to be nothing. “You might want to be a little more careful, dreg. As filthy as you are, a pretty thing like you will be devoured in these corridors ... so many snakes slithering around.”
I trembled against the wall.
“And,” he added with a dark look, “where there is one snake, there are more.”
Just like that, another noble stepped into the corridor.
Blaze emerged from a shadowy alcove. The same Blaze I stared at in class, watched on the garden rooftop at school, dreamt about—the same Blaze whose skin reminded me of caramel and hot cocoa, just as he smelled like.
The same Blaze who gave me a flower on my first day and I threw it in the trash. I always wondered how different everything would be if I’d kept those flowers they’d given me.
“Until next time,” Drake sneered, his handsome face contorted by the change in expression.
He turned and strolled down the corridor. Blaze followed him – after he threw a wink my way.
And that was the beginning of years of torment.
8
The corridors are quiet midday.
Senior students have study hall, but I’m avoiding it now.
As I turn the corner, I see two shadows looming ahead. At first, my heart jumps into my throat, and I think of the privileged prats. But they don’t notice me, and as I get closer, I see who the shadows are. Drake and his father.
Looks like a heated argument. I stand halfway down the hall, uneasily, and watch them.
Edward has Drake against the wall by the collar of his sweater.
Edward hisses through taut teeth. “You think you can just keep one? I don’t allow rats for pets, and you fool yourself into hoping I will see it any other way.”
I’ve never seen Drake like this before—vulnerable.
Though, his face is as stony as always as his father hisses silent words into his face. Drake doesn’t look fazed at all. I would be. Edward’s power matches my own dad’s. They’re both secretaries. And they’re both up for election.
If Edward wins ...
I shudder to think what will happen to us, the Blancs. We’ll be barricaded in the slums, gassed, or lined up and shot.
No one hates us more than Minister Edward.
Drake mutters quiet words before he slowly turns to face me.
Cold runs down my veins, like paint down a canvas.
I freeze on the spot.
Edward follows Drake’s gaze to me and his noble features twist into something beyond ugly. Something savage.
Edward releases Drake and steps away. They both stare me down. I swallow and clutch my books closer to my chest.
Their icy gazes stab into me like jagged icicles.
I reel back around the corner and take the long way to the cozy library. No way am I risking walking right past them.
As I go, I can feel their eyes burning into my back.
Nothing wrong with the long way to the library, not if it means saving myself from the hateful Minister and his son.
AT THE LIBRARY, I SHOULD have gone for the study books, no matter how lousy the collection is. Instead I snag a copy of this morning’s news-leaflet from a table and bury myself deep in the mostly-empty bookshelves and sit at a snug table by the window.
For the better part of an hour, I read and read and read the same articles. The upcoming debate between the two Supreme nominees, Minister Louis Claude versus Minister Edward Obéron.
I wonder that, if Louis is elected and becomes Supreme Minister, and the remains of our world stop hating us Blancs so much, would I take a surname?
I don’t have one. Mother said her family name used to be Macintyre, a name that can be traced back to our old country, but as second-class citizens, surnames aren’t important.
Octavia Claude does sound nice, though. And I wouldn’t mind a surname. It might make me feel whole—like a real person. I might like to keep my mum’s family name alive.
Lost in these daydreams, I get ahead of myself and I’m jolted into the dismal truth of reality when Blaze finds me deep in the bookshelves.
His smooth tanned hand moves in front of me like a blur—and he snatches the news-leaflet right out of my grip. Perching himself on the edge of the desk, he skims the articles.
He hums and tosses it back onto the table. “Should have heard what Edward was saying the other night. If he’s elected, he swears he’l
l march every Blanc out of the walls and give them to the mercy of the beasts.”
Blaze could be just teasing me. But there is a serious hardness to his eyes that made them look like marbles, and an icy feeling creeps up my spine. All the little hairs on my body prickle.
Marched out to the hunger of the beasts, more like it.
And I don’t doubt that will be our fate if Edward wins.
Problem is, I don’t doubt he will win. Life is no fairy tale, and not enough voters in the government (the only ones who can vote) pity us.
They just want us gone—once that second stone wall is built around the city, days away from being finished, we’re useless to the nobles.
Blaze watches me. “Do you believe in the monsters beyond the walls?”
The question isn’t sincere. He’s toying with me, savoring the fear that slackens my face and makes my eyes flicker.
“You could always go out there and check,” he says. “And if you don’t come back, well, mystery solved.”
“Who would you fancy then?” I challenge.
He makes a sour face at me. I notice he doesn’t deny it and I laugh. Getting to my feet, I pack my bag and match his dangerous stare.
I make to leave, but before I can even lift my bag from the table, Blaze says something that has me frozen and I can’t breathe.
“Say hi to your dad for me. Hope he does well the debate, not that it’ll make a difference. We both know he’ll lose and then what will become of you? Better start thinking about your future, Blanc,” he says, his voice low and dangerous, and he advances on me, cornering me between him and shelves. “How will you spend your last few days of life?”
“Less monsters out there,” I spit. “And I choose outside of the walls over the horror of this place.”
It isn’t true. At least, I don’t think it is. Out there, I would have a chance. More than I can say for Stonewall if Edward is made Supreme.
After a few moments Blaze says, “Sometimes one can’t control which webs they are tangled in. And rarely can they free themselves. Perhaps,” he adds, inching so close to me that I can smell the hot cocoa on his warm breath, “they don’t even know they’re trapped until it’s too late.”
I stare up at him, reading the brown flecks in his coal-black eyes, flickers of secrets I wonder.
“I’ll be trapped in your web the day I’m dead,” I promise with more courage than what floods my icy veins.
“That can be arranged.”
I whip out my keys, each one snug between my fingers, and aim it at him. “Try it,” I goad him. I might like to leave a scar on him too.
He smiles darkly and his charming façade disappears completely and it’s like I am staring into the eyes of a Drake double. A shiver runs down me as I see what Blaze really is... a monster, just like Drake.
As if to mock me, he turns his gaze down the aisle. “Another time.”
I trace his stare to the shadow looming at the mouth of the aisle, watching us with ice-cold eyes.
How long Drake’s been there, I don’t know, but my stomach churns with dread. His steely eyes pin me in place.
Wearing a wicked smirk, Blaze draws away from me and leans against the opposite shelf.
Drake advances on us.
I immediately slip my hand into my pocket, where my keys are bunched up. Makes for a good weapon, mum told me.
“Making friends with nobles,” Drake says coldly. “A risky move, dreg.”
“Like I’d ever sully myself with halfwits,” I bite back. And I hate myself for it instantly. My bristled pride just gives him more ammo.
Blaze’s smile is small, and I know he’s relishing my fight. He always does. More of a watcher, he likes to sit back and observe Drake and me go at it. But Drake is more hands on. He likes to be the one to make me suffer.
Drake comes to a stop in front of me, blocking most of Blaze from my line of sight. I don’t like that. Uneasy ropes of dread unravel through my body. I need to have them both in my sights clearly.
Drake towers over me.
Then, he’s snatched my wrist and slammed it against the bookshelf. Pain snaps through my bones and I wince—the keys slip from my fingers. The ledges of the shelf dig into my back. Aches blossom fast.
Slowly, he pushes his hard body against mine and, with a dangerous look down at me, I’m trapped between him and the bookshelf.
“Let me go,” I hiss with more courage than I feel.
“So you can stab me with your mangy house key?” He says it like it’s funny, but there’s no hint of humor on his stone-cold face.
It takes all my self-control not to shudder. “You could do with a new scar,” I spit at him and, pointedly, glance at the scar on the side of his neck. My mark on him from last year when he locked me in a closet over the weekend. I’d gotten in a good few scratches then, and one was deep enough to never go away entirely.
His answer surprises me. It’s a smile. A cold, belly-freezing smile that has me pushing further back into the shelf, as if I can somehow melt into the books and vanish.
“This is not last year, Tavs,” he whispers, a husky roughness to his voice. “Things are different now, and you know it. That fear in your eyes proves it.”
He’s not wrong.
Things are different. things like in the news-leaflet, the surge in executions, and Blaze catching me with my dad. Things have gone from terrible to doomed.
Drake’s face lowers and inches closer to mine.
I cut my stare to Blaze, leaning against the shelves, wearing a smirk fit for a cat who found a sweet sun-spot at a window.
He’s not going to help. He never does. He just watches.
That’s how he gets his kicks.
And this is how Drake gets his.
The smirk on Drake’s face slips away with all pretense, and I have a horrible feeling we’re not playing his game anymore.
His sinister eyes send a shiver down my spine.
“And it’s so very tempting.”
It takes me a second to understand. Then, with a chill reaching down my spine, I realize he means I am—my fearful eyes are tempting.
He steps away, drawing a choppy breath of relief from me. I sink against the bookshelf, tensions unravelling from my body like ribbons.
Still, I can’t fight the trickles of fear falling down my spine.
Luckily, Drake leaves without another word. Blaze winks at me before he follows Drake, and they go off to torture animals or whatever it is those sick fucks do.
But Drake was right. This isn’t last year, he’s not a boy anymore, and things are different.
For the first time since I came to Stonewall almost six years ago, I’m more than frightened of Drake and Blaze.
I’m scared for my life.
9
Milo sleeps through most of art class.
I think I’m the only true lover of the lost arts at Stonewall. I hang on every piece of history the teacher gives us, and I wonder—with the restrictions on what we can learn—if any of it is true.
I make a mental note to rummage the ruins by the Trim for more books—preferably on art history.
Today, we learn about the Mona Lisa. We only have small postcards of what the painting looked like, but the original is somewhere under the rubble in the heart of the old city, swallowed up by the ground decades ago.
It’s hard to concentrate with two nobles burning their stares into the back of my head all class-long. I don’t give them the satisfaction of looking back at them, and try my hardest to keep focus.
I stay behind to hand in my early assignment. An essay on the differences between nineteenth and twentieth century art with comparisons of the primary artists of those times. Van Gogh verses Picasso.
I’m a fan of Frida Kahlo myself, but not enough of evidence of her work still exists. Almost everything was lost during the war.
We are just lucky to live in the remains of a country—once called France—where so many of the greatest arts ever created were on
ce vaulted safely underground.
Though, much of it was lost when the main city collapsed into the catacombs. It was after then that we came here before I was born—my family and the rest of the Blancs, from an island gone to the sea.
As I leave the empty art-room, I take the corridor leading to the front of the school. The sun is out today, warming the usual chill this time of year, and I fancy eating my lunch on the steps.
But before I can reach the end of the hall, a tall figure moves out of the shadows and slams me hard against the wall.
I wince, artbooks slamming into my chest. I hold them close, careful not to drop them. If they open at the wrong pages—like my sketches of the prats—I will die of humiliation.
I know who my attacker is the second he whispers cold, icy words into my ear like he’s speaking to a lover. “Currying a teacher’s favor, dreg? If you want to be someone’s pet, I’m sure a beast will have you.”
The coarse surface of the stone wall tears at my head. I can see Blaze, lounging against the other wall, picking at his cardigan as if to remove any lint that he might find.
Drake’s heavy body keeps me in place.
His lips linger by my ear, whispering soft breaths against the sensitive skin.
A cruel laugh barks from him as he unexpectedly pulls away. My wild eyes drink in his evil grin as his laughter fades.
Rubbing the back of my head, I snap, “Can you stop shoving me against walls for once? At least try to be original.”
The grin remains smeared across his pale face as he says, lowly, “I can always drown you in a toilet bowl. Or, what about forcing you to eat those fruits you’re so allergic to.”
As if he was prepared for it, Blaze tosses up an apple before he swipes it out of the air, a gleaming grin on his face. I eye the apple warily.
“I’d rather watch you choke on it,” I mutter, clutching my books close to my chest.
The grin drops from Drake’s lips, and I feel that familiar fear deadbolt to my stomach. Instinctively, I step back against the wall and keep my wary eyes on his stony expression.
Slowly, he moves closer, each step taunting me. “Why don’t you eat lunch in the hall?” he asks, surprising me.
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