by S. Massery
My gut instinct is to slow down. To make him feel secure. But then I remember his hands around my throat, ignoring my need for air.
I jerk the wheel, flying around another turn. I cut someone off, and they honk and scream in a way that is familiar and foreign all at once. That’s Boston for you. You can love the city, the atmosphere, the landscape, but you’ve got to take the driving as the dose of realism. No place is perfect.
We are careening away from campus, away from Theo’s apartment, and onto the highway. I’ll stop when I get bored, or when he relaxes.
Or when he tells me the truth.
“Just spit it out,” I demand. “That you’re so messed up on the inside you can’t stand the idea of letting me control anything.”
“I—” He stops.
I glance at him again and shove his arm. His jaw tics, but he doesn’t even react.
“Theo!” I yell.
“Fucking hell, Lux, slow down.”
He reaches over and shifts the car into neutral. He keeps his hand on the gear stick, and I don’t try to fight it. It takes a while for the car to slow, and I navigate it to the side of the road. Other cars whip past us, honking, and belatedly I flip on my hazard lights.
We roll to a stop, the gravel crunching under the tires.
The only sound between us is the ticking of the lights. I stare at the endless road ahead of us. We’re on I-90, before the tolls start at the edge of the city limits, and even at eight-thirty, a steady flow of traffic screams by us.
“Happy?” I squeeze the steering wheel.
“Not particularly.” His fingers wrap around my wrist, tugging until I release the wheel. “Sebastian started taking steroids for an old knee injury last year, toward the end of our season. Coach has that documented.”
“So, what, he liked the advantages it gave him? Or his knee is still shit?” I only know the basics about steroids: that they can cause rage, and strength…
I shiver.
“No, he stopped.” Theo’s smug expression is back. “Well, until someone started injecting it intravenously while he slept.”
I stare at him. “You’ve been dosing him with steroids while he slept?”
He shrugs. “Yeah.”
“Where did you get that?”
“A kid with an autoimmune disorder. Just so happens he took a history class that Sebastian’s in this semester.”
And Sebastian had threatened Theo with framing him for cheating.
“You didn’t just get him on athletic cheating… You wanted to nail him in academia, too.” I’m pretty sure my jaw is on the floor, and I race to understand all the facets of his plan. “But no one’s called him out on that, right?”
He flips my hand, tracing the lines of my palm. “Not until the society starts digging into one of their star recruits… and the origins of the steroids are discovered.”
But… “Sebastian didn’t really cheat, though, did he?”
“No.” He closes his eyes, and I have to wonder if Sebastian didn’t kick him harder than he let on. “I got the needles from one of the pre-med students. She’s a TA in Sebastian’s history class.”
Well, damn.
“Will they talk?”
“No. They don’t particularly care for Sebastian…”
I don’t want to ask about why they don’t care for him, but something else occurs to me. “He has the Devereux family’s support. Even if his own family can’t just wave a hand and make it disappear, why wouldn’t Hale smooth things over?” That boy has more power at this school than I’d care to admit.
“Oh, right.” He opens his eyes and leans forward, releasing me to hunt for his phone.
He flashes me a picture—one of Sebastian and Ruby in the movie theater, their heads bent together. I’m not in the seat beside Sebastian, which means he caught them after I left.
“You followed me?”
“How do you know I didn’t follow Sebastian?”
I glare at him. The damn ticking of the hazard lights will drive me nuts. I hit the button and twist to face him fully, just trying to get an accurate read on him. It’s impossible—I have no more idea what he’s thinking than I could squeeze blood from a stone.
Sometime between them escorting him off the field and when Liam hauled me into the locker room, he had removed his uniform and padding, replacing it with jeans and a black long-sleeve t-shirt. Another thing that escaped my notice until now.
“I followed you,” he says eventually. “Your—”
“Phone,” I finish. “Tracking me is a bad habit.”
He smirks. “One day it’ll come in handy, and you won’t be able to say shit.”
“Fine. So, you had the boy with the steroids and the paper, and then the history TA replaced it. And she stole syringes…”
“Yep.”
“You turned yourself into a drug dealer to take down one guy?” I clarify. “Why?” I understand on some level why I might be tempted to do it. But Theo…?
“You can’t see why I would want to destroy him?”
My hand is still between us, and he snatches it up again. Any touch feels… off limits. We’ve gone years just glancing off each other, meteors moving too fast. All that stood between us venturing closer was destruction.
That’s still our final destination—just look at what happened at Amelie’s engagement party.
But at the same time, I can’t pull away.
“Lux, he didn’t just threaten me…” Theo laces his fingers with mine. “He threatened us.”
“There isn’t an us. There never has been.” I refuse to meet his gaze. “You and I hurt each other over and over again. If you wanted us to be a thing, then that would stop. But you can’t stop any more than I can.”
I yank my hand free now and put the car back in drive.
He doesn’t have an answer for me. No solution to our puzzle. Trauma tied us together. Our darkness, our possessiveness. All of that floats between us like butterfly wings. That dead motorcyclist, the car crash, the blood.
He can’t kiss me without being reminded of that day. That nightmare.
“Where are you going?” he asks.
“I’m taking you home, then I’m going home.” Well, as close to home as I can get. If I’m lucky, I can get into bed and pretend to be asleep long before Ruby returns from the game.
23
Theo
Two Years Ago — Theo’s Senior Year of High School
I take a deep breath and turn my car off. Caleb has tasked me with getting information out of Amelie—and I’m almost positive that will be a dead end. She’s been on a wild streak for over a year now. Something happened to Margo. He’s been talking about her for years, and her appearance in school… she’s caused waves.
And now she’s gone, apparently.
Still, it isn’t like Caleb to ask for favors like this, even if he puts it in the form of doing me a favor. Like I need a reason to approach the Pages.
I climb out of the car and cast a glance up at the house. It would only be a stroke of luck that Lux is here—she’s still living with her grandparents in Beacon Hill. Still serving time for terrible luck and a bad temper.
The door opens before I can even get to the porch, and Amelie steps out. It’s midday, and the sun is high. She raises her hand to block it from her vision.
“What are you doing here?” she snaps.
I stuff my hands into my pockets. “I was told to interrogate you about Margo.”
She scoffs and looks away. “Why the fuck? Caleb?”
“You’ve got a soft spot for the girl, don’t you? Maybe she’s upstairs in your bedroom, hiding from the big bad—”
“Don’t say wolf,” she drolls. “Isn’t Margo supposed to be the wolf? Although, I didn’t expect you to be part of the pack. If we’re continuing the dog metaphors, I’d go so far as to say you reek of rotten loyalty.”
See, this is why I didn’t want to come here. She doesn’t make sense sometimes—and yet, for once, she we
ars a similar expression to the one often seen in Lux’s eyes: hunger for someone else to hurt.
“Maybe your sister will help me,” I say, taking a step back.
“I’d help if I could,” she says faintly. “Tell Caleb he was a great distraction while it lasted.”
I pause. “What?”
To my surprise, she sinks down on the front step and sighs. “Nothing is as it seems, Theodore. Especially my family.”
I grunt. This has been just as I suspected: fruitless. I turn to head back to my car, sick of wasting time. I’m exhausted by the way Amelie acts. Tired of being angry all the damn time. Sometimes it’s a lot to be tormented, and I vaguely register the worry laced in my chest.
“She’s out back,” she calls.
I freeze.
“Lucy’s in the backyard, staring up at the sky like a lunatic,” she continues. The step creaks. “She doesn’t know anything, but obviously that’s why you’re here. To see her.”
It’s not, I almost say. But isn’t that the reason Caleb set me on this task?
I find myself following the path around their house, to the fence gate. Amelie just watches me go, unmoving from her new position in the doorway. I slip through and skirt the in-ground pool, heading for the grassy area beyond. There used to be a big tree in the corner, planks nailed into the trunk as a sort of ladder to the sturdy branches just out of reach.
It’s still there, but half the planks are missing, and the rest are cockeyed or hanging at an angle. It just goes to show how much it’s grown since the Pages first put them there… ten years ago. Maybe more.
Lux is still flat on her back, as her sister said, her gaze fixated straight up. If her chest wasn’t moving, I’d assume she was dead. My shadow seems to race ahead of me, and it touches her face before I can.
She flinches, and her eyes snap to mine. “Ah.”
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Contemplating the next way to make you suffer,” she replies, grinning. “Here to kick me while I’m down?”
“Are you down?”
She sniffs. “I don’t know what a girl has to do to get a guy to ask her to prom, Theo, but apparently I missed that ship.”
“Boat,” I correct. “Pretty sure you missed the boat.”
“That ship sailed,” she mutters. “I would’ve liked to go. To prom, I mean.”
“And that’s why you’re out here?”
She sits up. “My grandparents have been talking about sending me back here, and all I can picture is that argument Grandma had with my parents after the car accident that almost killed us. They screamed so much. And then I thought about Dad’s reaction to me stealing his car.”
“Did you steal something else?” I ask before I can stop myself. “Margo Wolfe, maybe?”
She rolls her eyes and pulls her light hair back off her neck. “And where would I put her?”
I glance around. “If you know something…”
“Ooh, will you threaten me?” Lux reaches out and tugs on the leg of my pants. “Kick me and get it over with.”
“Don’t tempt me.”
She gets under my skin. Could I have invited her to prom? Absolutely not. She would’ve been a wrecking ball unleashed on Emery-Rose. I blink and see blood running down the side of her face, then blink again and its gone. To think of her in a dress, with a mask…
Something dark shifts in my chest.
“You wouldn’t have liked the outcome,” I say. “Any guy who looked at you would be dead.”
She rolls up onto her knees, and I’m reminded of the way I cornered her at the game the year prior. Shoved her face into my groin and dared her to do something. And she would’ve—that’s the part that drives me crazy.
“Any guy who looks at me would be dead?” She laughs and stands, poking my chest. She’s tiny, coming up to my chin, but fierce. Like she’d take on anyone without flinching. Even me.
“I believe that’s what I said.” I grab her hand to stop her from touching me again.
She curls her fingers into a fist and leans in. “Then how about the assholes at school who call me your slut? Who look at me like I’m just a piece of ass for Theo Alistair?”
I’d heard whispers, but I had ignored them. Her expression turns my ignorance to rage, like a spark against gasoline. I tighten my grip on her fist.
“Who?”
She laughs. “Everyone. And I doubt you can stop them any more than you can stop a storm.” Lucy gives me a hard glare. “You had to know.”
“I didn’t.”
“Liar.” She hooks her foot around my ankle and jerks, yanking her fist from my grip at the same time.
It’s so surprising, I don’t have time to stop it. She shoves my shoulder, completing the move, and my back hits the ground. In an instant, she straddles my hips and leans forward, resting her forearms on my chest.
Every muscle is strung tight, but I don’t buck her off.
I’m curious.
Her long blonde hair falls over her shoulder, and her blue eyes bore into mine. Her face is close to mine, and it opens up for once. I get to see all those thoughts she keeps locked away—fear and curiosity and lust.
She traces my jaw. “Were the girls all over you?”
I narrow my eyes. “When?”
“That masquerade ball. When you were all dressed up. Or whenever…?” She covers the top half of my face, parting her fingers so I can see through. “I’m trying to picture you in a mask, but all I can see is the one you wear every day.”
“Lucy.”
She shakes her head, and her hands drift lower, wrapping around my throat.
“Squeeze hard, little monster.” I cover her hands with mine, keeping them there. “That’s what you want, right? The power?”
“Stop talking.”
“I won’t give you fear.” I’m dealing with my own anger, but she’s a force of nature. She almost blows mine clear away, and it takes me too long to register her full-body tremble. “This isn’t about that stupid dance.”
“It’s about you and me, you idiot.” Her fingers dig into my neck. “And why we can’t do whatever this is.”
White spots dance at the corners of my vision, but I don’t stop her. Not yet. Part of me likes this version of Lux, where she’s strong enough to fight me. Where we don’t resort to petty pranks and dancing around each other.
“You’re broken,” I spit out. My voice is hoarse. “A broken toy no one wants to play with.”
“No one except you.”
We can’t do whatever this is, she said.
Enough, a voice deep inside me roars.
I tear her hands away from me and bend my knees, rolling us sideways. I trap her beneath me, her knees still pinched around my hips, her wrists under my hands level with her eyes.
“What are you asking? For me to let you go?” I can’t believe I’m even saying the words out loud, but I need to understand her.
Our push-and-pull is constant, even across two towns, two schools. I don’t know when it started—maybe with the death we both witnessed. Maybe only later, with how we dealt with trauma. Or the way our minds work.
She didn’t react how she should’ve.
She didn’t break, as much as I might try to convince her otherwise. Her whole mind hides behind steel walls, but sometimes bad thoughts slip out. Sometimes her need to hurt something is too much for her to bear.
Her dad’s stolen car, crashed into his garage.
Vandalizing some football players’ houses.
“How many times has your daddy had to collect you from the police station?” I ask suddenly, wanting to unnerve her.
She flinches.
“How much more do you think you can hurt people before they let you go?”
Her hard gaze meets mine. “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
I laugh. It’s outrageous—that she thinks she can push me away. I don’t talk much in school, barely to my friends. My sense of humor is almost nonexistent. But th
is strikes me as hilarious. We’ve managed to tie ourselves together—she can’t isolate through pain.
“Stop laughing,” she grits out.
“You know, you should keep trying to force people out of your life. It’ll work with everyone else. Not me, though. And then it’ll just be me and you.”
“My own personal hell.” She suddenly struggles, yanking at her wrists, trying to get my weight off from her. She throws her head forward, catching my nose.
A burst of pain radiates through my face, and I release one of her wrists to touch my nose. Tears fill my eyes automatically, and blood stains my fingertips.
I choke on my laugh and show her the damage. “Is this what you wanted?”
She eyes me warily, inching backward.
I reach out before she can get too far, smearing my blood over her bottom lip. “This is why I won’t touch you any more than I have to. Because when I think of you, this taste fills my mouth. And all I feel is…”
“Everything dark inside you,” she finishes. She sits up, and her tongue pokes out, catching the blood on her lip. She closes her eyes, and her head tips back. “I know.”
I stand. There isn’t really anything left to say.
24
Theo
My head must be muddled from that hit, because Lux parks in front of my apartment and I don’t get out. She tries to turn off the engine, and I stop her with my hand on her arm.
“Just take it,” I find myself saying. My brain feels rattled, an echo of Sebastian’s foot connecting with my helmet.
It wasn’t even that bad.
The bad part was the subsequent pile of bodies on top of us, both teams vying for the ball. The truly awful part was when I snapped Sebastian’s leg myself. Grabbed his ankle and leveraged it against my body, pulling it until the crack of bone and cartilage in his knee was audible. And then his scream.
But there was chaos, too many bodies. All the crowd would’ve seen was his shoe hitting my helmet, our fall. The pile. And I… I was just a victim of my own making.