by Eva Chase
“Not because of anything you say,” I said.
“Trix, if I could, I—” He shut his mouth and exhaled in a rush. Then he met my eyes, more serious and intent than I’d ever seen him before. “Your shirt is white.”
I glanced down at my very dark navy top. “What?”
He went on, each sentence coming a little faster than the last. “It’s the middle of the day. We’re in the library. I have three arms. Two plus two is five. I could walk out the front gate right now if I wanted to.”
Where the hell was he going with all this? “Jenson,” I started, bewildered, and he leaned forward to hold my gaze even more urgently.
“I can tell the truth,” he said, each word like a punch.
I stared at him for several seconds as my mind whirled—and gradually connected the dots. Everything he’d said in that random string of sentences was a lie. Including that last statement?
A chill pooled in my gut. “That’s your punishment?” I said quietly. “You can’t say anything true? But—”
Surely I’d have noticed if everything he’d ever said in my presence was a lie? I searched back through my memories, trying to pinpoint a moment that would make this a lie, and the certainty only settled deeper and heavier in my belly.
“You’re always saying things like questions,” I said, studying his expression. “Questions can’t be true or false. Or you’d tell me to do something. That’s an order, not a fact. But you did sometimes just state things…”
Things like that Cade didn’t want me around. That Jenson didn’t want me around. Which had been lies too. Convenient lies when he’d wanted to push me to accept the dean’s offer.
“And the song?” I went on. “You can be honest if you’re technically just performing?”
He shrugged, which might have been as close to a direct answer as he could give me. Then he said, even softer than before, “Don’t think I ever wanted to hurt you, Trix.”
A lump rose in my throat. I scooted closer to him along the edge of the cot, not knowing what to say. He raised his hand to rest his fingers against the side of my face, a strange mix of trepidation and affection coloring his expression, as if he still wasn’t sure whether to welcome me or shove me away.
So much emotion had reverberated from his voice when he’d sung that song to me. A song about his sorrow at seeing me go, about being willing to give up everything for me. I couldn’t assume that it’d fit exactly what he’d have wanted to say if he could have used his own words plainly, but… If he even felt half as much for me as it’d sounded like he did, I didn’t know why. How much did he even know me?
Still, the memory resonated through my chest, as if some part of me recognized that emotion, understood it, accepted it. Maybe even longed to return it.
Nothing made sense here, and Jenson really couldn’t give me straight answers, even if he wanted to. He stroked his thumb over my cheek so gently, his mouth opening and then closing around things he couldn’t say. I closed my eyes for a second in the midst of the feelings rushing through me. Then I eased up on the cot to brush my lips against his.
Jenson’s breath stuttered at the kiss. His fingers slid to cup my jaw, easing me in just a little more as he kissed me back—asking rather than demanding.
When I pulled back, his hand dropped, but only to settle on my knee. Something in his eyes had brightened, even if he still looked serious.
“What are you going to do?” he asked, plain and simple.
“I’m not totally sure,” I said. It was hard to even think straight through the turmoil that had risen up inside me. “I guess I’ll figure it out as I go.”
As confused as I might be about everything else, I was more certain than ever of one thing now. I wasn’t leaving Roseborne College without a fight.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Trix
I headed into the woods at ten past midnight, not wanting to risk missing the time Elias had given me. I didn’t remember the exact path Ryo had taken me on earlier in the evening, but my instincts led me onward to where the trees grew closer together and their leaves shut out all but a few scraps of moonlight. Even with the light from my phone, I stubbed my toe on a jutting root and caught a spiderweb across my cheek.
No breeze rustled the leaves tonight. Crickets chirped distantly through the stillness. The cool air seeped under my jacket to trace a chill over my skin. My pulse stuttered at every snap of a twig where some small animal was making its way through the brush.
I wasn’t sure what I was going to say or how this would go, but not reaching out simply wasn’t an option.
The minutes slipped by on my phone. When the time flipped over to twelve thirty, I stopped and glanced around. This might have been close to the spot where I’d encountered the monster earlier. I didn’t think Ryo and I had walked much longer than twenty minutes. What now?
“Cade?” I called out, and flinched at how loud my voice sounded against the quiet. Well, he’d definitely hear me if he was anywhere nearby. I swiveled on my feet, scanning the darkness beyond the light of my phone, and pitched my voice a little lower. “Cade, it’s me.”
Another minute passed, and another. My throat started to tighten. Maybe I’d ended up in the wrong part of the woods altogether—maybe I’d miss him and never get this chance again. I shifted my weight, debating whether I should walk farther or call out even louder than before—and the rasp of human footsteps reached my ears.
I turned toward the sound just as a well-built figure with a head of cropped blond hair came into view at the edge of the light, so familiar my heart flipped over. Cade stopped there, still partly cloaked by shadow, and gave me his usual crooked grin, though tonight it was tight around the edges. His hands were slung in the pockets of his jeans, and the wiry muscles in his arms flexed beneath the sleeves of his T-shirt. I’d have thought he’d be freezing in that outfit, but he didn’t give any sign of noticing the night’s chill.
“Hey, Baby Bea,” he said, like it was just another day, like nothing had ever gone wrong.
I choked up even more. I took a step toward him automatically and then balked, torn between wanting to yank him close to confirm he was really there and the uncertainty of whether he’d actually welcome that gesture. Because things had gone wrong, and it’d been a year since I’d seen him. Whether he knew how much I was to blame for that or not, I hadn’t been everything he’d wanted for a long time before that too.
He lifted his arms, and that was answer enough. I threw myself into them, embracing him with all the strength in my body. Cade squeezed me back, ducking his head next to mine, the coppery smell of him, exactly as it’d always been, washing over me.
“Of course you’d come,” he said with a rough laugh. “Of course you would. You don’t let anyone tell you no. This isn’t how I wanted you to see me, Trix.”
“I couldn’t just let you disappear,” I mumbled against his shirt. “What they’ve done to you—it isn’t your fault. It doesn’t change anything.”
“It changes how long we can hold a conversation. There isn’t a whole lot of time.” He eased back, his hands coming up to frame my face. The pale gray eyes that had stared at me from within that monstrous face just hours ago gazed down at me again in their proper form. “You should fucking despise me and what this place has turned me into.”
Every particle in my body resisted that statement. “I know you so much better than they do. You don’t belong here at all.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I am. You only ever got angry at people you had every reason to believe deserved it. You wouldn’t have laid into that guy if you hadn’t been sure—if it hadn’t been for what happened to Sylvie—”
I couldn’t bring myself to say more than that. A cold light flashed through Cade’s eyes. He wet his lips. “Maybe you were all better off without me.”
“No,” I said, both of my hands clenching where I’d set them against his chest. “Don’t you dare believe that. I wouldn’t be
here if I didn’t need you.”
“I suppose that could be true.” He cocked his head at me. “What are you going to do now that you’ve found me, Baby Bea? Whether I deserve it or not, I’m still stuck. Nobody can change that.”
“You don’t know that for sure. I’m still trying to find a way. You’ve always had my back, and now it’s my turn to have yours.”
Memories flitted through my mind: that first day at the Fricks when he’d offered me his unconditional friendship, the times he’d tugged me away to the secret spot behind the backyard shed, that careening sled ride when he’d shielded me with his own body from the splintering boards of the fort. The moments in school when he’d threatened classmates who’d ganged up on me, the hours spent lying on one of our beds planning out our joint future with sweeping gestures as if drawing those dreams into being in the air.
“You always said we’d stick together,” I added. “So I’m sticking with you. I’m going to take this as far as I can.”
“You know I’d never ask you to put yourself on the line for me.”
“You don’t even need to say that.” I gave him a light shove with my hands, not enough to shift him backward, just to push away that thought.
Did he really think he somehow deserved to be here? All the truth, all the secrets I’d kept tamped down knotted through my chest. I had to say something so he’d understand if tonight didn’t work out in my favor. What did it matter if he hated me afterward, as long as he didn’t hate himself?
How could I really say I’d come all this way for him if I put my fear ahead of his conscience? I’d never really free him if I couldn’t admit my part.
I swallowed hard. “You don’t know everything about Sylvie. It wasn’t really— I should have told you before. I was just so scared of what you’d think of me if you knew. She cared about you just like you cared about her. I should have been happy that you were happy.”
“Hey, you don’t have to justify anything,” Cade said, tucking my hair back behind my ear. “Jealousy comes up. But she could never touch what we had. It was something totally different—a higher level. I’d always have been there for you too.”
My eyes went hot. “I believe you. That’s why I shouldn’t have—” I couldn’t stop my head from drooping as I forced the words out. But I had to say it. I had to. The night, the forest, the school—as I dragged in my breath, it all seemed to revolve around this moment, this confession.
“I was the one who called her out there to the courtyard that night. The whole idea with the dog and everything was mine. I don’t even know—I was going to scare her, and maybe in some weird way I thought she’d go running to you and you’d think she was just silly, that you didn’t need her anymore. But mostly I just wanted her to feel like shit for a little while. I never wanted her to get really hurt, let alone— It was so stupid.”
“Trix,” Cade said in a tone I couldn’t read. Was he horrified or angry or simply shocked?
I barreled onward before my terror could close my throat. “I didn’t know she’d be that scared. I let the dog run at her, and she threw herself out of the way so blindly she crashed right into that store—the window—all the glass. By the time I got to her, she was already bleeding so badly… I should have told you. Especially after you figured it was Richie who set up the prank. I should have said something—I should have stopped you—”
“Trix,” Cade said again, my name turning thick in his throat. He took a step back, and I glanced up at him, braced for the worst.
He didn’t look horrified or angry or shocked—at least, not as much as he was in the grips of something larger. The transformation was coming over him.
Before my eyes, his back had started to hunch, his arms twisting with unnatural joints, his jaw popping forward. Coarse hair sprouted up over his skin. With a hissed curse, the only human speech he seemed capable of in that moment, he swung around and staggered away from me into the shelter of the shadows.
“Cade!” I shouted after him, my voice raw. A shudder ran through me. I wanted to dash after him, but maybe he wouldn’t want me near him after what I’d just admitted. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to trust himself. He’d pounced on me in his monstrous form before, barely seemed to know who I was. He might be furious now.
And even if he was, he was shielding me like he always had, except this time from himself. Or what the school had twisted him into.
A couple of tears slipped from my eyes to trail cool lines down my cheeks. Had he even had a chance to think through the full implications of what I’d told him? Had he even heard the entire story and understood it if the change had been rippling through him before I’d finished?
I couldn’t know. He’d warned me there wouldn’t be much time. But I’d hesitated too long because I hadn’t really wanted to tell him anything, just like I’d let myself swallow down the truth those few weeks right afterward, before Roseborne had claimed him…
I raised my chin, my jaw clenching. I could prove how sorry I was, how much I realized I owed him. God, I owed so many people who’d cared enough to try to help me since I’d arrived here.
Somehow I’d tricked them all into believing I was better than them. There was only one way I could think of to make that true. I’d been brave enough to finally tell Cade the truth—I could be brave enough to do this too.
That mournful moan of a howl rose up from farther away than I’d have expected. I spun and hurried back toward the school, faster now that I wasn’t searching the shadows for my brother.
I only slowed when I’d crossed most of the lawn. Coming up the steps to the college building’s front door, I set my feet carefully to provoke as little sound as possible. Not that I was kidding myself that the staff relied only on regular senses. But it seemed better to avoid adding to the things that might catch their attention.
The door murmured open at my push. I slipped into the foyer. My gaze shot straight to the dean’s office.
I’d break in like I had before, grab the puzzle box and anything else on the shelves that might contain a key, and if none of them did—well, I’d worry about the rest later.
Except I never got that far.
I’d just turned toward the office, fishing the handy reward card from my pocket, when the door opened for me. Dean Wainhouse stepped out, his expression even more imposing than usual.
I backed up, my heart lurching, and more figures emerged into the other hall from the staff’s rooms. Three, then four, then five of the professors moved toward me through the dim space. My gaze jerked from them to the dean and back again from where I’d halted beside one of the suits of armor, my stance gone rigid with tension.
Despite the lack of light, all their faces shone with that silvery sheen I’d noticed on the dean’s skin my first day here. They weren’t quite human, were they? Maybe not human at all. As they converged around me, I clutched the reward card as if it could offer me any kind of protection.
“It seems you’ve overstayed your welcome to an even greater extent than we first believed, Miss Corbyn,” Dean Wainhouse said. “We’ve all agreed that it’s best if you leave immediately.”
I blinked at him. “You want me to take off right now—in the middle of the night.”
“Arrangements can still be made. We must do what is best for the school as a whole.” He extended his arm and plucked my packed knapsack seemingly straight out of the shadows beside the stairs. “Let’s sort this problem out as quickly and efficiently as possible.”
My skin crawled as the professors surrounded me. “And if I’d rather wait until the morning like we agreed?”
“Then we’ll enforce our decision by whatever means necessary. It’ll be much easier for you if you simply accept how this has to be.”
It doesn’t have to be like this, I snapped at him in my head. But what could I do with the bunch of them closing in around me? I groped for an answer, for some kind of sign—
And it came with the last of the professors, coming to join the crowd
late, the hinges on his door shifting with a creak.
The dry groan echoed through my memory back to the boards of the haphazard fort giving way as my and Cade’s sled had slammed into it. With enough speed and enough force, you could break almost anything. The hinges in the secret basement opened inward. Old hinges on an old door. And the huge glinting oval of the empty knight’s shield hung right in front of me.
It was a crazy idea. I knew that even as it hit me. But it was an idea, and it was all I had. So I ran with it in the most literal possible way.
I yanked the shield from its place with one hand. With the other, I was already swiveling the card I’d been clutching into the right angle. The heavy slab of metal dragged at my arm with enough weight to make my muscles ache in just a few seconds, but I didn’t need much more than that.
One of the staff had already let out a shout of warning. I charged between two of the professors, shoved past the one who was just joining them, and hurtled down the hallway toward the mysterious door at the end.
I’d practiced my trick with the regular locks enough in the last few days that, miraculously, the latch snapped with the first jam of the card against it. The Bushfell door flew open. I tossed the shield down on the floor at the top of the stairs and leapt onto it with the full force of my forward momentum.
The shield whipped over the stairs with a clattering that was nearly deafening. I barely managed to keep my balance on it with the heave of it passing each step, my fingers gripping the hand holds. But it sped faster and faster as it raced downward. My target, the padlocked door at the bottom, seemed to rush toward me more quickly than I’d been prepared for. I clenched my fingers tighter and squeezed my eyes shut.
The shield slammed into the door so hard my bones rattled against each other. The padlock held—but the hinges on the other side popped. The wrong end of the door jolted open just far enough for me to scramble off the shield and stumble through the gap, ignoring a growing throbbing in my head and the smack of my shoulder against the frame.