by Eva Chase
“No one forced you to buy into the big romantic picture I was painting,” I went on with a lot more candor than I’d been willing to show back then, waving my hand at her. “You never questioned how I was keeping it just between us, or that you’ve never seen me get serious about any girl, or any of that. As soon as you were getting what you liked from me, none of the rest mattered to you. That part’s on you.”
Her chin came up defiantly. “You knew what you were doing. You tricked me and lied to me on purpose. You can’t pretend that wasn’t a shitty thing to do.”
“Well, maybe I’m just a shitty person. You obviously thought I was when you first met me, or you wouldn’t have given me the cold shoulder until I started buttering you up.” I took a step toward her, flicking my cigarette aside. “I don’t owe you anything. Just like no one’s ever owed me anything. That’s how the world works.”
“Most people manage to make it through life without outright screwing people over just for the hell of it.”
“Hey, you got your kicks too.” I forced myself to smile, but the rush of speaking the truth had faded almost as quickly as it had come, leaving a dull queasiness.
I had been a shitty person. Shitty and selfish but at least somewhat satisfied, most of the time. Nothing about this past felt satisfying now, though. This was the road that had led me to Roseborne. This was the guy who wouldn’t have recognized what was worthwhile in Trix.
I could barely believe Trix had given me a chance now—I sure as hell wouldn’t have gotten one from her back then. She’d have laughed in my face, and I’d have told myself she was a bitch. I already knew I didn’t want to fall into those patterns all over again.
But why should I have to justify myself to this mirage the school had created like a more vivid form of our counseling sessions?
“None of us mean anything to you, then?” Penny shot back at me. “We’re just puppets for your amusement? Don’t you care about anyone other than yourself?”
“I don’t care about anyone who’s so wrapped up in themselves that they can be strung along that easily. What makes you so special that you should get a free pass? If you want to be around people who actually care about you, make sure they’re really acting like they do.”
The last words had just fallen from my lips when I realized we were no longer alone in the space behind the equipment shed. My head jerked to the side.
Trix was poised on the sidewalk at the edge of the school field, her artificially orange hair swaying bright in the breeze and her brow knit. My throat constricted. How long had she been standing there listening? Although—was this just some new facet to the college’s tortures, nothing to do with the actual girl?
Any hope I might have had that this wasn’t really the girl I’d fallen for vanished a second later. “I managed to follow you in,” she said, her gaze flicking between me and Penny. “It seems like the ‘ghosts’ that are coming after us are bringing us back to past mistakes. She’s one of the people you lied to?”
“I didn’t exactly lie,” I said. I’d just said things that would sound like they meant a whole lot more than I actually intended. Maybe I’d exaggerated too. Fuck, I didn’t want Trix seeing the fallout firsthand. She’d already had more than enough experience with what a prick I could be.
“Who the hell is she?” Penny broke in, her face flushing red. Apparently this “memory” could adapt to even as drastic a change as an entirely new person in the mix.
“None of your business,” I told her. “You don’t matter. You’re not even real.”
She blinked harder as if she were on the verge of tears.
“I don’t think you’re going to get out of the vision talking like that,” Trix said quietly. “I couldn’t leave mine until I admitted how I’d screwed up.”
“It was four years ago,” I protested. “A month out of her life. She wanted it too. I didn’t force her to do anything.” But saying those words to Trix only intensified my nausea. “Okay. I was a selfish bastard. I wouldn’t do it again. But I can’t help what happened back then.”
That admission obviously wasn’t good enough for this version of Penny. Her hands balled at her sides, and for a second I thought she might punch me. “You broke my heart, you asshole.”
I never asked for your heart, I wanted to say, but I knew how much of a lie that was. I might not have requested that depth of affection in so many words, but I’d hinted and nudged and led her down the path.
“That wasn’t the point,” I said instead. “It was just a—a side effect. I wasn’t out to hurt you.”
“But you knew it probably would hurt me, and you cared more about getting laid whatever way you could.”
As if she ever would have looked twice at me if I really had opened up, shown her the guy underneath the front—father in jail, mom swallowed up by depression, not a cent between any of us that we’d gotten honestly, nothing to offer but some charm and quick wits. She wouldn’t have just brushed me off but run in the opposite direction.
“You acted like you were better than me,” I said.
“And that meant you had to bring me down?”
“No. Well. I just—”
I was only screwing this up more. I looked to Trix again, my shoulders tensed against a cringe. Her jaw was tight, the muscles in her slim arms taut. Like when she’d told us the story of her complicated relationship with Cade a few hours ago, forcing out the words like rough pebbles from her mouth.
The memory punched a hole through the center of me. I’d been silently raging at him with every admission she’d made. How dare he twist the love and loyalty that shone through her for him, manipulating her and making her dance to his tune no matter how it fucked her up?
But I’d treated Penny the same way, hadn’t I? Maybe it wasn’t as bad because there wasn’t the same history there, and I didn’t owe her as much… but I’d still preyed on her emotions in exactly the way I hated Cade for doing to Trix.
Whoever Penny was with now, he probably hated me exactly the same way, if she’d ever told him about me. In that moment, I hated me too.
“You just what?” Penny spat out.
I turned back toward her, and the words I hadn’t been able to find earlier seared up my throat. “I shouldn’t make any more excuses. I was an asshole to you, yeah, and you didn’t deserve that. I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to tell you. I can’t make it better—I can only say I regret ever messing with your emotions. No one deserves that.”
Penny faltered. Her posture slumped a little, and the anger fled her voice. “So where does that leave us?”
I groped for more truth—not satisfying at all this time, but possibly necessary. “It leaves me doing my best to figure out how to avoid being an asshole from here on, and you—hopefully you found someone to be with who means everything he says to you. I really am sorry.”
I was. The apology rasped in my throat. The fact that it was genuine must have been audible, because Penny paused and then nodded. She still looked upset, but she walked away with her head held a little higher. No sense of victory rose up inside me.
Trix came over to me, resting her hand on my arm tentatively. I had the impulse to jerk it away. How could she want to offer any affection after the shitshow she’d just watched?
“Now you know how I ended up at Roseborne,” I said, keeping my tone as flat as possible. “Just multiply that by a hundred or so.”
“Why?” Trix asked. A single syllable that held a massive weight.
“I don’t know. It was the only way I knew how to be. All I saw from my parents, growing up.”
“Your parents?”
“Yeah. My family life was… complicated.” I set my hand over hers, running my thumb over her knuckles, reveling in the fact that she was here at all, that she’d come for me, that I’d been enough of something other than an asshole for her to think I was worth the effort. I could tell her this, what I’d never laid out for anyone before. I owed her even more than I had that figment wi
th Penny’s face.
“My parents were con artists,” I said. “As far as I know, that’s all they ever were. They’d get by running whatever scams they could until a place got too hot, and then we’d move on again. They started teaching me how to play a role in the cons from before I can even remember. Then, when I was nine, my dad got caught and put away, and my mom fell apart… so I did what I could to get by, keep myself fed and clothed and get whatever else I wanted.”
The taut anxiety of those first several months before I’d gotten into a groove and built up more confidence echoed through me, knotting my innards. The pinch of hunger and the hollowness of our apartment where Mom had lain for days on end in the bedroom had driven me through my uncertainties. I’d survived it the best way I’d known how. That didn’t mean I’d had no choices, though, then or later. I’d known right from wrong. I’d decided by easy and familiar vs. hard and scary instead.
I swiped my hand over my mouth. “I can’t put all the blame on my childhood, though. I know at the end of the day the only person it comes down to is me. I’m still working on sorting myself out, as I’m sure you’ve been able to tell. But I do— Thank you, for coming and—”
Before I could finish that sentence, a spasm wrenched my body. Darkness washed through my mind, and then I was lying on my back on a wooden floor, three worried faces staring down at me.
Elias’s dorm bedroom. I was back. I dragged in a breath of rose-scented air and shoved myself into a sitting position.
Trix was watching me—the completely real Trix, crouched by my knees. Was her expression a little warier than it’d been before? The scene she witnessed had to still be sinking in.
“Do you feel okay?” she asked carefully.
No. Not at all. I felt like throwing myself out the goddamned window. Of course, all I could do now was lie.
“It wasn’t so bad,” I said, pushing my mouth into a wry smile. I wanted to get out of here, away from her, before she could think any more about the bastard I’d been. What could I do that a bastard wouldn’t when the whole campus was going to hell?
“This room obviously isn’t safe,” Ryo said. “We were coming up with another plan.”
There. That was perfect. I scrambled onto my feet. “How’s this for a plan? Stay here, rest up, and let Trix join forces with you against any more of those things that get in here. Let me go scout around campus and see which part is the most clear. Any objections?”
“Going off by yourself doesn’t seem like the smartest idea,” Elias said from where he was sitting on the edge of his bed. His hands were still braced against the mattress beside him as if it took some effort for him to keep his posture straight.
I fixed him with a pointed look. “Who’s the least affected if the roses are dying faster? Haven’t I been here by far the least time out of the three of us? Do you really think you’d help more than slow me down?”
“I can—” Trix started.
I was already shaking my head as I stepped toward the bed I’d shoved in front of the door. “Hold the fort. Who could protect those old-timers better than you? Give me a chance to see what news I can bring back.”
Here was hoping I could come up with something more concrete than charm and wits to get us out of this hellhole.
Chapter Four
Trix
“Jenson, hold on,” I started, but he waved me off as he hustled out the door. I guessed nothing alarming lurked on the other side right now, because the only sound that followed was the thump of him shutting the door firmly behind him. The attitude he’d had as he’d left the dorm bedroom— defiant to any argument but with an almost frantic vibe that gave the impression he was fleeing from us—left my stomach knotted.
Why would he think he needed to get away from us—from me? Was it something about the scene I’d witnessed, the one the ghostly girl had provoked in his mind? Imagining how he’d played with her emotions hadn’t been fun, but I’d seen enough in the present to know Jenson had grown beyond that selfishness. He’d put my safety and happiness ahead of his own more than once. Hell, he was doing that just now by leaving to try to find all of us better shelter.
Confronting her hadn’t been easy for him, though. The defensiveness had been written all through his posture from the moment I’d arrived, before he’d even noticed me. If I hadn’t been able to intervene… How would these spirits Roseborne had unleashed punish him—or any of us—if we failed to make up for our past sins as quickly and thoroughly as they’d like?
Jenson had only been at the school for a year, which made him less susceptible to the roses’ aging, sure, but also meant he hadn’t had as much time to come to terms with who he’d been. From what he’d said, conning people had been the only way of life he’d really known. Was he in a position to overcome all that at this exact instant? Ryo and Elias had been through far more of the confessions and brow-beating that the staff had used to force the students to confront their supposed sins. Jenson might actually be the most at risk out of all of us.
Ryo moved to the bed that had been blocking the door but stopped there with his lithe hand gripping the headboard. “I guess there isn’t much point in trying to block the entrance when those things can walk through walls, is there?”
“Better put it back by the wall where it’s supposed to be,” Elias said, shifting on his bed. He did look steadier, but not back to the authoritative strength that usually emanated from him. “We don’t want anything in the way of the door if we need to make a quick exit.”
“Do you figure we can outrun them?”
I thought about the ghostly figures I’d seen on the lawn outside. “They didn’t seem to move that fast… but maybe they can if their target is in sight.” My imagined view shifted across campus to the dark stretch of the southern woods. The tension in my stomach deepened.
Cade was prowling through those woods—in his cursed beast form, which he’d be stuck in until half past midnight. What ghosts would be chasing him? Would being encased in the body of a monster make him less or more susceptible to their pursuit?
The memory of him furious and denying in the mirage of the alley contrasted with so many other moments recently and across our history. He’d been so apologetic the last time I’d seen him, so concerned, so focused on showing he was there for me. But some of that concern had been directed at pushing me away from the three guys he’d known I was getting closer with. And before that, for all the times he’d stood by me, reassured me, protected me, there were also the times he’d cajoled and guilted me in ways I hadn’t fully recognized until I gave in to his desires…
I hadn’t talked to him since I’d started to acknowledge how he’d twisted our relationship into something more about control and domination than love. It was hard to convince myself of how thoroughly he’d gotten me wrapped around his finger—would he recognize how screwed-up things had become if I confronted him about it? We’d both been through a lot of crap together, but that just made it more difficult to admit that some of the crap had been of our own making.
I glanced at Elias. He’d shared a painful element of his past to help me see how my foster brother’s behavior had warped my reactions. I’d just admitted to both him and Ryo that I’d let Cade persuade me into shifting our bond from siblings to lovers despite my reluctance. Neither of them were likely to be enthusiastic about what I was going to say.
“I think I should check on Cade,” I said. “He’s on his own out there—no one else will even think to try to help him. I can’t just abandon him, no matter what else I need to hash out with him. But I don’t want—I’m not trying to abandon you.”
Elias’s expression softened. He reached to give my hand a quick squeeze. “Of course you’re thinking of him too. He’s your brother. I’m feeling a lot better than I was before. Why don’t you see if you can convince him to come back here so we can all defend ourselves together? I don’t think there’s anything preventing him from leaving the woods.”
My body balked insti
nctively at the idea of bringing together Cade and the guys he’d disparaged more than once, but I resisted that reaction. Whatever reasons he had for disliking them, surviving this fresh horror mattered more. We’d all be safer together.
If I was being honest with myself, I’d feel more secure around him if I had other people there to remind me he wasn’t the only person who cared about me. To keep me from the desperate spiraling sensation that gripped me when he made it seem I might lose even him. Nothing good happened when that panic came over me.
I just had to get him here in the first place. Easier said than done.
“We’ll be fine,” Ryo agreed. “You go see what you can do for him. Unless—we could come with you…”
I shook my head at the question in his voice. I wasn’t sure how Cade would react to seeing me with any other guy right now. Better to approach him on my own and work up to the trickier parts.
“I’ll be back as fast as I can. If any more of those ghost things come around—as far as I can tell, they shouldn’t hurt you, at least not right away. They just take you into a memory of something you did wrong. Your best bet if that happens is to focus on making amends however you can. That seems to be what they’re looking for.”
Ryo nodded, a shadow crossing his face as he must have pictured the scenarios he might face. I headed out before I had to feel any guiltier about taking off on them. The sooner I made it back, the better the chances that I’d be here before their past very literally caught up with them.
The hallway outside was dim and quiet other than muffled murmurs carrying from behind a couple of the other bedroom doors. A few of our fellow students had obviously hidden away up here, not that it was likely to do them any more good than it had us. I slipped past those rooms and down the stairs.
A few ghostly figures were drifting around on the second floor now, none of them people I recognized. As I dodged them, a girl dashed past me into one of the classrooms. A filmy presence glided along after her. I had the feeling she was going to have to face that figure sooner rather than later.