by Lucy Auburn
They gnaw on me, these thoughts, memories without explanation, a life I still have without knowing the reasons why. It's hard to concentrate on the work in front of me—even though doing the work is the only way I'll get my revenge.
So when it comes time for me to join Blake in the library for his so-called tutoring, a little part of me is desperately hopeful that it actually will involve some learning and studying. Because I'm not sure I can do this alone, and that scares me.
"You're late," he says as I join him at a table in the middle of the study section, glancing down at his watch. "It's three fifty-nine."
"And we're supposed to meet at four," I point out. "Also, who even wears a watch anymore? What are you, my grandpa?"
"I have all my teeth, so I doubt it."
I snort at his little joke—Papa Edwin was an asshole, and I never knew my mother's father, so I can't say that I mind Blake's shit-talking. Still, as I point out, "Making fun of me for being country trailer trash is a little old now, don't you think? And I was early."
"Except it's four now, and your study materials aren't out in front of you."
"That'll take no time."
"Then do it."
As he watches, I pull Silas's laptop, my notebook, some pencils, and printed study worksheets out of my bag. Despite Coleridge's general love of online class material, teachers still print things—there's something about working a problem out with a pencil in your hand that just feels different. Opening the laptop, I pull up my online textbook account and click to the first page of The Fundamentals of Calculus. Then I arrange my notebook, papers, and pencils in front of me, just for good measure.
Blake says, "It's four-oh-one now. You're late."
"I wouldn't have been if you'd kept your opinion on my late grandfather's dental hygiene to yourself."
"Or maybe you would be late regardless. Guess we'll never know." There's something about the way he looks at me that goes right to the center of my body. "You sure you want to do this?"
"What—study? I kind of have to one way or another. Unless you're thinking that you'll get rid of me faster by encouraging me to fail out."
"I don't think it'd take much encouragement for that to happen."
"Hey!" I frown at him indignantly. "I've been getting my grades up."
"It'll take more than slightly better grades for you to pass. But that's not what I was talking about. Are you sure you want to go after Hass like this?"
His words stir nothing but confusion in me. "Are you... worried? No way."
The frown that turns down the corners of his mouth is so much like his famous father's infamous blue steel gaze that my stomach does a flip flop. I was never a Jake Garrison fangirl, but sitting across from Blake like this, I'm starting to understand the appeal of an intense stare combined with a steepled brow.
"It's not you I'm worried about as much as the mission. Messing up your grades is one thing. This is so much bigger than you know."
"Then tell me." Frustration wells up inside me. "Whatever it is that I don't know, just tell me already, and then I won't be in the dark anymore."
"And give you satisfaction? Never." His coy, sadistic eyebrow arch ends the resemblance to his movie star father completely. "I'm just wondering if you have what it takes to get this done. Because someone like Hass can't be taken down unless you're truly committed."
"It's everything I want. Also, I have to point out that I did a pretty damn good job exposing you publicly for your temper."
"Didn't someone send that to you unprompted?"
I flush, wondering how he knows that. "I did my research. I put out feelers on all the right Korean news sites to get information. Just because the source came to me doesn't mean it took no effort."
"This is different, though. You can't get Hass arrested from behind a laptop screen."
"I'll do it anyway. What do I have to lose?"
Looking at me like he's really seeing me for the first time, Blake says, "Apparently nothing."
Then he flips open his study materials and starts to drill me on equations and formulas without even missing a beat. Flustered from our conversation, it takes me a few missteps before I get on track and manage to answer him, but after a while I get into a roll. I start to answer questions correctly, come up with ways to solve problems on my own, and manage to memorize a few things just in the minutes it takes Blake to quiz me on them.
By the end of the tutoring session, he almost looks impressed. As I gather up my things to go, I'm more than a little proud of myself for managing to get through an entire hour alone with Blake Lee without completely making a fool of myself. Maybe I will manage to pass my finals—or even better, ace them.
As I'm starting for the door, though, Blake stops me, a slightly irritated expression on his face. "Wait. It's getting dark out."
"So?"
"I'm supposed to escort you around campus after dark if we're out together." I stare at him, jaw slack; he looks just as unhappy about this as I feel. "Lukas insisted."
"I didn't think you did what other people say."
"Like I said, he insisted. And I promised."
"So?"
"I don't break my promises. Especially to friends. Even more especially to Lukas."
I blink at him, wondering if I'm seeing a side of Blake Woo Bin Lee no one else has seen except maybe his closest friends and family. Here I thought that the angry, out of control version of him from that video I received was the deepest revelation of him I'd ever get, but now I'm finding out that he keeps his promises.
Still, I chafe at the thought of being nannied around campus, especially by the Elites. "You don't have to. The entire campus is under security. And just because it's dark doesn't mean it's dangerous."
Blake's jaw flexes, and I get the sense that he's grinding his teeth in frustration. Pushing an errant strand of hair out of his eyes, he stares me down the way someone normally stares down a vexing problem. "I'm going with you. That's final."
"Fine," I snap. "See if you can keep up."
"With those short legs of yours? I'll be fine. Where to, Miss Daisy?"
Shaking my head, I wonder how it ever happened that we kissed in the haunted house. It seemed inevitable at the time, like two flames meeting each other and doubling, our rage mirroring and joining together to grow. Now, though, even though he's still impossibly handsome, like a statue more than anything, all he does is frustrate and irritate me—especially when he takes the stairs with me and goes just fast enough that I can't keep up, until I'm following him instead of him following me.
"You know," I call out as he puts enough space between us for an entire sedan, "I'm pretty sure this isn't what Lukas had in mind when he asked you to escort me around campus. If someone stabbed me, would you even turn around and notice?"
Looking over his shoulder, he pierces me with his brown eyes. "I would notice, Brenna."
It's like lightning has struck again, coating my skin in a thin layer of energy. My name—something happens to me when these boys say my name, as if they've summoned me and are pulling gently on my strings. I find myself walking towards Blake, who stands still for me to catch up, drawn towards him even as I wonder why.
There are so many boys who are better.
None of them look at me like they know the dark secret deep inside my heart, and not only understand it, but share it. No one—not even wild, angry, larger-than-life Cole Masterson himself—has that same level of darkness. That desire not just to watch the world burn, but be the one who set it on fire.
"Well?" He arches a brow again. "Where to?"
"I don't know," I say, blushing a moment later as I realize what an idiot I sound like. "I guess I should probably work on my final art project, but it's already so dark out. I kind of just want a mug of hot cocoa and to curl up by a fire."
If I felt like an idiot before, the feeling intensifies right now as I realize what I've just said and who I've said it to. Blake Lee doesn't care about my feelings. He's not interest
ed in finding out what I want or if I'm craving something. Like a little boy with a magnifying glass, aiming it at ants, he just wants to see me burn.
"Let's go get you a cup of cocoa, then."
Shock ricochets through me. Staring at Blake, I feel my lips part and my mouth open. He said it so casually, so easily, like we weren't just screaming at each other in the rain two nights ago, as if I never tried to destroy him—or him me.
"You can't be serious."
Raising a brow, he looks at me. "Do I look like Tanner?"
"I—no. What does that have to do with anything?"
"I don't joke." Clearing his throat, he says, "We're stuck together. Until January at least. So if it makes my life easier, let's get you some hot chocolate. Maybe then you'll stop trying to stab me in the back every time it's turned in your direction."
"I didn't—you have to be friends with someone to stab them in the back. If you don't trust them it doesn't count. So technically I stabbed you in the front."
"That's splitting hairs. Come on."
He holds out his elbow towards me, and the only thing more shocking than the gesture is the fact that I loop my hand around his arm, the wool of his jacket warm against my bare skin. We stroll down the sidewalk together, and with each step I feel like I must be having some kind of a stroke, because there's no way this could be real.
Blake Lee is a scorpion, not a prince.
Casually, he says, "Girls normally ask me for more expensive things, you know. Jewelry. Concert tickets. Backstage passes are a big one for those who know my mother's industry. Autographs for all the rest, who at least are familiar with my father's blockbusters. Hot chocolate is the cheapest thing any girl has ever asked of me."
I stiffen. "Are you saying that I'm cheap?"
"And implying that you're easy?" He chuckles, the sound low and dark, melting like the chocolate I'm craving. "Nothing about you is easy, Brenna Wilder. There are scorpions with less sting."
It hits me that he's been thinking of me the same way I think of him: as untrustworthy, dangerous even. All this time I thought of myself as the underdog and the Elites as the enemies I had to take down. Maybe they saw themselves as performing acts of self-defense when they did things like steal my tests and get Georgia to humiliate me in public. After all, I'm the one who poked the hornets' nest, and the reason why they stung me.
Looking at things this way is like hanging upside down and discovering a whole new way to see the world. It makes me uncomfortable, so I change the subject.
"Let's go get this hot chocolate, then," I tell Blake, wondering if this is some kind of game he's playing—or if we're playing it together. "Maybe while we drink it you can quiz me some more on calculus."
Chapter 11
As I take each of my finals, I can feel it, deep in my gut. This instinct that tells me the questions are coming easy. I know how to solve every equation in Calculus I, thanks to Blake, whose strangely gentlemanly behavior continued all week. English Language and Literature is a breeze, especially after Lukas and I absolutely aced our shared project. And though I'm bad at World History, Tanner showed me a few absolutely obnoxious mnemonic devices to use to memorize dates and names, which stuck in my head out of irritation as much as anything—an irritation that carries me through most of the multiple choice questions and makes writing an essay filled with facts far easier than I thought possible.
The last thing I have to do is turn in my final piece for Visual Art, and it's the only final I'm nervous about. Not because I don't think I'll pass it—I've got an A in this class for a reason—but because showing the class my final piece feels like opening up a vein in public.
Our teacher said to do something close to the heart, that showed off our favorite media and what we most want to depict. Art is memory, she said, and anything we put to canvas or paper will live forever.
There's only one thing I can think of that I want to have eternal life.
My hands tremble as I set my finished watercolor on my easel, its paper cover still intact. The hardboard backing is covered with little pencil scribbles I noted that are smudged here and there. Sometimes, as I worked on it, I worried that I'd forgotten so much—too much.
I don't know what caused me to choose this as my final assignment, before everything had been revealed. Maybe it was too big of a risk. But I couldn't resist the allure of doing something close to my heart.
Out of the corner of my eye I spot Cole taking a seat at an easel just to the right of me and setting a pencil drawing in place. The work on it is the best he's done, showing almost as much improvement as I've pulled off in Calculus. He's taken what could've been a simple drawing of the campus and made it complex and almost sinister. Oak trees cast sharp shadows on the buildings, the darkness filled in with dark pencil gradients, and empty doors and windows seem to suggest an absence of life. Even the way the tree branches bend in the wind feels more ominous than anything.
He's shown Coleridge for what it really is: a haunted place cast in dark shadows.
Turning towards me, Cole raises an eyebrow in my direction. "Admiring my work?"
"I didn't realize you were drawing the campus."
"This place is so near and dear to my heart." He throws me a mocking smirk. "After all, where else would I meet a girl like you?" Motioning towards my hardboard, he points out, "Yours is very modern and avant garde."
I roll my eyes at his joke. "The watercolor is underneath. I'm protecting it."
"From what?"
"Shitty boys with buckets of dirty water."
"You wound me. Here I thought our little feud was over the moment our illicit tryst began."
I stiffen. "There's no tryst. Or you and me."
"Aww. And here I was brainstorming names for our firstborn child."
He has to quiet down, thankfully, when the teacher appears at the front of the class, practically beaming. She doesn't waste any time, wanting to get right to our projects, her enthusiasm clear. I have the feeling no one here is going to fail this class—which is probably why a rich, sullen boy like Cole took it instead of something a little harder. Somehow I doubt he has a passion for art. The only thing he seems interested in is teasing people and pulling the wings off butterflies.
So it baffles me why my heart flutters every time those boy eyes flick my way. He's watching my easel, waiting for me to reveal my art. If I didn't know better I'd say he was a fan, but clearly he's just hungry for something acerbic and insulting to say.
One by one, Rainbow—our teacher's accurate name—goes down the line and selects students to stand up, face the class, and present our art. My heart does a little flip as the student right before me is called, and I count down the seconds until it's my turn, barely able to hear anything going on around me."
"Brenna." Unlike the other teachers, Rainbow hasn't treated me any differently since discovering I'm Silas Wilder's twin sister, a fact that I appreciate more than anything. "Why don't you show the class your piece."
It's now or never. There's nothing Cole can say that will ruin this moment for me—I promise myself that if nothing else. Taking a deep breath, I stand up, turn my easel to face the rest of the class, and tear the thin piece of paper covering up my watercolor to reveal what's beneath to everyone.
"This piece is called Fireflies." I blush at how literal the name is, even though there's nothing else I could have possibly called it. "It's a memory that's dear to me, and I wanted to capture it somewhere it would last."
My large watercolor canvas is covered in tones of grey and blue with a wash of gold and yellow light in the middle. The piece depicts two children in profile, facing the middle of the composition, their hands cupped between them and spilling light. Fireflies dance in the night and set their profiles on fire.
On the left—a little girl with dark wisps of hair lit by golden fireflies. She stares at the fireflies with rapt wonder on her face. On the right, a boy with a mischievous smile, looking not at the glowing bugs but at the girl.
> My throat aches at the memory of Silas, when we were both young and at least a little innocent, before the yelling and throwing turned into hitting him, before things like dealing drugs and keeping secrets on his laptop ever occurred to my brother. At that age we looked so similar that only our haircut and clothing made it clear we were fraternal twins, but sometimes I would throw on his baseball jerseys and tie my hair up in a cap, so that people would think we were two little identical boys.
It didn't take long for that age to pass, and our halcyon days to end for good. There are no good photos of our late night summer hunts for lightning bugs in the tall grass, but I remember it so clearly that the painting felt more like the memory of something I observed instead of experienced.
Maybe it wasn't as perfect as the watercolors make it seem. There was yelling even then, and my brother and I fought sometimes, throwing mud and pushing each other down in the grass. We were little tyrants who made our mother swear she wouldn't have another kid. But we loved each other, and I couldn't imagine my life without him—then and now.
He deserved eternal life, even if only through my art.
"Beautiful," Rainbow declares, softly clasping her hands together. "If I have your permission, Brenna, I'd like to put it on display in Coleridge Center near the entrance for visiting parents to see."
"I—I'd love that," I tell her, shocked despite myself. "Thank you."
Glancing into Cole's blue eyes, I wait for him to say something, mouth some terrible words, or even just smirk in my direction. But he's not looking at me, and he doesn't even glance up after I've stared at him for what feels like a whole minute.
He's staring at my painting, something strange and sorrowful on his face, almost like regret.