by Eva Chase
He was waiting, watching me with that hurt in his eyes. Part of me screamed to stop being an idiot and go to him, give him whatever he needed. Stop being so selfish.
I might have, if the breeze hadn’t lifted then, teasing through my hair and over my skin like the other guys’ fingers had just hours ago. My resolve steadied in the midst of the gale inside me. I clenched my hands and forced myself to say the words.
“I’m sorry. I don’t want that right now.”
Cade dragged in a breath as if to say something else, and his shoulders stiffened. We’d had enough of these late-night meetings for me to recognize the coming shift. His silvery gaze turned into a glower as a tremor ran through his body. “You threw away our time together for this. I hope it was worth it to make your point. But I forgive you. I’ll always forgive you, Trix. I bet no one out there could say that and mean it.”
His limbs shuddered. His back hunched. Before I had to see any more of the transformation, he hurtled away from me into the darkness where the forest grew thickest.
I stayed where I was for several minutes longer, hugging myself and gulping for air. Trying to convince myself that I hadn’t just trashed the only thing in my life that had ever made it worth living.
Chapter Eighteen
Trix
I’d been starting to think that Elias was avoiding me on purpose, reverting to the same tactics he’d used at the beginning of my last cycle here. But when I went over to the pool to check on my attempt at a garden after breakfast, just a couple of minutes later he came walking across the lawn to join me. The purposefulness of his stride left no doubt that I was his destination.
I watched him come through the bleariness in my head. Several late nights in a row had already been taking their toll, and after my argument with Cade last night, it’d taken me longer than usual to fall asleep once I’d made it back to the dorms. I had no idea how Elias managed with all his nighttime walks. Maybe he took lots of naps?
Despite my tiredness, I managed a smile. I’d been hoping to talk to him. The thought of how long it’d taken to make that happen sent a wriggle of nervous tension through my gut.
“Hey,” I said when he reached me. “You’ve been a difficult man to find lately.”
He winced, his head dipping with an apology that made me feel like a jerk for bringing it up.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “There hasn’t been much chance—I think it’s better that we don’t interact outside of class in the school. If the staff realize we’ve gotten friendly, they’ll be a lot more suspicious of both our motives in digging for information.”
Of course they would. I should have thought of that. But I hadn’t—I hadn’t even considered that the other professors noticing him being friendly with me might get him into trouble. I was a jerk.
“Good point,” I said, the words spilling out more glibly than I’d meant them to. “We obviously need to come up with a secret signal to alert each other when we have something to discuss.”
The joke didn’t totally flop. One corner of Elias’s mouth curved upward. He nodded to the stretch of bare earth. “How’s this project coming along?”
That wasn’t the most uplifting subject either. I held back a grimace. “No sign of anything sprouting yet. It is still early, but the seeds were awfully old. I’ll probably need to resort to whatever I can retrieve from the kitchen scraps.”
“The difference between those who succeed and those who fail is the former keep tackling the obstacles in their way and the latter give up,” Elias said with a quoting air. I wondered who’d passed that advice on to him. I couldn’t say it didn’t make sense.
“I’ll keep that in mind while I’m picking through the compost bin,” I said, and brightened. “I have succeeded a little in another area, though.” My gaze slid toward the school building, only thirty or so feet distant. I’d talked with the guys out here before, but my nerves had gotten jumpier. Being within sight of the building no longer felt all that safe.
Elias appeared to guess at my worries. He motioned for me to follow him. “Then naturally I need to hear all about that,” he said.
We circled the pool and continued on to the west end of campus, where the grass grew taller and wilder until it hissed past my knees. When we’d left the school farther behind, Elias reached out and took my hand. His thumb skimmed over my knuckles in a gentle caress, and my mind tripped back to our recent kiss at the edge of the woods, to all the passion he’d let loose from beneath his disciplined demeanor in that moment.
What was wrong with me that I wanted to experience that all over again after everything I’d done with Jenson and Ryo in the gazebo just yesterday—and after shoving away Cade last night? How could I want all three of them and not give my foster brother the one thing he was asking me for? I still didn’t even know how much of this sense of closeness I should trust. I barely remembered the more intimate times Elias and I had shared.
The ground rose slightly and dipped, and the school building disappeared behind that low rise. I turned to Elias and bobbed up on my toes, bringing my hand to his jaw. Selfish or not, wrong or right, I needed some kind of confirmation of what I did remember feeling.
Elias’s face brightened in the instant before he lowered his head to meet my kiss. His mouth melded to mine with all the giddying heat I’d been looking for. I had the same sense that he was holding himself back a little, that there were more layers of hunger and passion beneath I might have the chance to open up later, but what he did offer was more than enough.
He cupped my face as one kiss bled into another, tipping his head to bring our lips together at an even more blissful angle. The tenderness of his touch woke up a flutter and a pang in my chest. I liked that gentleness, and I wasn’t sure I deserved it. It wasn’t as if I knew how to offer much of the same in return.
The pang expanded into a sharp ache. I pulled back, my lips still tingling, and for whatever reason the first words that spilled out were, “I’ve been with Ryo and Jenson too. This time around. I don’t know where any of this is going, and we did kind of talk about it that first day, but I thought you should know.”
From the twitch of Elias’s mouth, I suspected the admission had hurt him, even if he’d already known or suspected as much. “It’s hard to ask for the regular rules to apply when it’s not as if I can offer you any kind of future right now,” he said. “You should—you should be able to take the time to sort out your feelings without us pushing you one way or another. And if it turns out one of them can give you more than I can, well, then that’s how it is.”
The strain in his voice suggested he didn’t say those words easily. The ache rose to the base of my throat.
“It’s not about who can give more,” I said, gripping his arm. “You’ve all been here for me, with me, in different ways, and all of those ways feel important.” I swiped my other hand over my face. “It’s complicated, and I’m a disaster, so it’s not really a surprise I’m not sure what I’m doing.”
“You’re not a disaster for being confused,” Elias said, more vehemently than I’d have expected. He set his hands on my shoulders, gazing down at me. His teacherly air of authority combined with the desire in his eyes made something funny but delightful happen in my stomach. “Anyone who tells you that doesn’t deserve the time of day from you.”
What made him think I’d gotten that idea from anyone other than myself? Or that being confused was my only reason for thinking it? Imagining how he’d respond if I told him all the things I’d done with Cade, all the ways I’d hurt people or gotten people hurt, made my throat close up completely.
I hadn’t wanted to talk to him to hash out my romantic feelings anyway. He didn’t know what I’d learned about the staff from the yearbook or from Professor Hubert yesterday.
I dropped my gaze and reached for my phone. “I’ve found out some things. Maybe you’ll be able to make more of them than the rest of us could, since you’ve been here the longest.”
After I�
�d explained about the yearbook and my conversation with Hubert, I handed him the phone to look through the student photos. Elias studied them with a thoughtful frown. “It’s been a while since I saw these—the last time I participated in the portrait contest was almost two years ago. When you mention it, I see what you mean about those three… And this one.” He pointed to one of the senior boys, a guy with a boxy face topped with messy black hair, deep-set eyes on either side of a prominent Roman nose. Oscar Frederickson, the name beneath said.
That guy hadn’t sparked any sense of recognition in me. “Who does he make you think of?” I asked.
“Maybe I’m wrong. But there was this one time a while back when Dean Wainhouse was lecturing me about something to do with the math class… He got a little more worked up than usual, and I caught this glimpse of something in his face… I’m not explaining it very well, but as soon as I looked at that photo, it made me think of that moment.”
“They’ve got to all be connected then. Somehow this Oscar and Mildred and the others became Roseborne’s staff—and whatever else they are.” I took the phone back from him and flipped to the juniors. “Do you have any idea about this guy?”
I hovered my thumb over an almost sickly looking boy whose pale hair stuck up in tufts across his head. Winston Baker. He was the only one from the photographs in the art room who didn’t appear in the portraits. The school had just the seven regular staff members that I’d seen. What had happened to this one? He’d obviously once been a part of their group. But then, maybe he was still around in some capacity and I just hadn’t stumbled on the full story.
Elias eyed him for a long moment and shook his head. “I think I may have gained at least a little good will with the dean. I might be able to ask him about that and get—maybe not a straight answer, but something that would help us put the pieces together.”
My earlier guilt over not considering how our covert activities might affect Elias’s standing surged back up. “Only give that a shot if you think you can get away with it without him becoming suspicious of you. I don’t want you suddenly disappearing.”
He gave me a smile that looked slightly pained. “I spent most of my life before I came here learning how to negotiate to get what I wanted. I won’t tip him off.”
The fact that my investigation was pushing him into old behaviors he clearly wasn’t so keen on anymore intensified my guilt. “Then I guess you’re the best man for the job,” I said.
He chuckled and then glanced at the time on my phone. “Speaking of jobs, I’d better get back to the school or today’s math class is going to be even more futile than usual.”
I let him walk ahead of me as we came back into the college, falling farther back when I stopped to look over my supposed garden again. By the time I made it into the foyer, an impatient itch had tickled up inside me.
We were only going to get so many answers from the staff. The full truth lay below us in the source of their power.
Laundry duty happened just a few times a week, and the students had just done the rounds yesterday. When I slipped downstairs, the machines were empty and silent, no one around. There wouldn’t be more activity down here for at least another day. I could speed up my progress if I got a little more work in now.
I eased out the dryer as short a distance as I could get away with while still fitting behind it, retrieved my tools, and set to work chipping away at my hole. In some ways it looked pretty impressive now, so deep it encompassed my extended hand past my wrist, but I hadn’t taken into account the fact that I’d need to expand the outer edge in order to carve the deeper parts wide enough all the way through. That had added at least one night’s work to the task. If I could manage a couple of hours today, maybe I could balance out that loss.
The chips of concrete fell at my feet with a steady tap-tap-tap of the hammer and the crackle of a chunk giving way beneath the head of the chisel. In my tired state, the rhythmic pattern of it lulled me into a daze. I didn’t hear anyone approaching until footsteps sounded right at the bottom of the stairs, just a few feet from the laundry room doorway.
“Did you hear that?” a girl said.
Shit. I wrenched myself out of the tight space behind the dryer, banging my knee on the side of the hole in the progress, and shoved the tools underneath the machine with a swipe of my boot. With as quick a heave as I could manage, I shoved the machine back toward the wall. It still jutted a few inches farther than the one next to it, but there was no time to push it all the way back into place or do anything else other than take a few steps away from it while brushing the dust from my clothes before the four girls from my previous dorm bedroom walked in.
They were all carrying small baskets of clothes. The girl at the front—Katrina, I thought—pursed her lips as soon as she saw me. “What are you doing down here?”
“I couldn’t find one of my socks,” I said quickly, thankful that I’d thought up excuses to have on hand. “I thought maybe it got lost down here. What are you all doing?”
She sniffed as if she didn’t think it was any of my business. One of the girls flanking her made a face and said, “We missed getting our room’s laundry out in time, so Professor Marsden told us to get it done now.”
“So, why don’t you get going?” the first girl added. “Whatever stupid things you’re doing, I don’t want you getting us in trouble because we happened to be in the same place.”
I was trying to help them with the things I was doing, but I bit my tongue against pointing that out, or the fact that them being here at all meant they were obviously capable of getting themselves into trouble all on their own. “Next time make a reservation,” I retorted, and brushed past them.
I couldn’t go far, because I needed to fix that dryer. Leaving it even a little out of place was too big a risk. I puttered around in the storage room down the hall until I heard the girls’ voices traveling away from me. When they faded away at the top of the stairs, I ventured out—and found Violet had hung back by the laundry room doorway.
“What are you doing?” she asked, her tone more baffled than it was accusing.
“I don’t think you really want to know,” I said, folding my arms over my chest. “Apparently most people here can’t be bothered to try to make things any better.”
Violet rolled her eyes. “I’m not great friends with the bunch of them either, but it’s not that they’re so happy here. It’s easy for you to talk about changing things when you haven’t seen how much worse the backlash can be.”
I fixed her with my firmest stare. “Or maybe I do know, and I figure it’s worth the possible consequences. But don’t worry, I’m doing my best to make sure the blame doesn’t fall on anyone who cares more about not rocking the boat.” If I could, I’d make sure it didn’t even fall on the guys who’d been willing to help me.
Violet looked back at me for a long moment. Her jaw worked. Then she turned and strode toward the stairs with a fierceness in her posture.
Great. A little while ago we’d been almost friendly, and now I might have made myself an outright enemy.
Chapter Nineteen
Jenson
I almost missed Archery class because I wasn’t supposed to have Archery in the first place. It was only by chance that I glanced at my schedule to confirm when my next kitchen duty was and saw the new addition, starting in less than half an hour. That was on top of my usual weekly arrow torture session scheduled just a few days from now.
Wonderful. Whose idea had that been? I hustled downstairs and found Professor Roth checking over the targets in the broad room.
“Mr. Wynter,” he said when I came in. “I’m glad to see you’re mended.”
The scrape on my arm still stung a little when I took my shirt on or off, but otherwise I couldn’t complain. That wasn’t the point, though.
I waved my schedule at him. “Is it possible there’s been a mistake? Shouldn’t I only have one Archery class this week?” Not being able to state outright how I felt ab
out the extra class time forced a certain amount of politeness.
Roth didn’t even ask to see my schedule to know what I was talking about. He meandered on to the next target without any sign of concern.
“You left your last class rather early on,” he said. “We felt it was only reasonable that you attend another to make up for that time.”
“We,” huh? All seven of the assholes together? Had they made that decision at the same time they’d come up with the idea to lock me up in the counseling room for three hours straight?
The memory of that extended session was part of what kept my mouth shut. It hadn’t just been long—they’d picked the most wrenching images they could. Girls I’d screwed around with sobbing to their friends, trying to figure out what they’d done wrong. Guys I’d conned out of money or work or whatever the hell else I’d set my sights on at the time facing eviction notices, getting kicked out by parents or partners, or patching themselves up after a fight I’d left in my wake.
And that didn’t even get into the repeated reminder of the one guy who’d stepped right off a bridge after I’d weaseled my way into his life just long enough to steal his savings out from under him. Mom and Dad would have been real proud of that play. If I let myself, I could still hear the bloody smack of his body hitting the ground below.
I hadn’t even known about any of the devastation I’d left in my wake, not in concrete terms, until Roseborne had hit me with it. Never look backward—you didn’t last long in the game if you let yourself worry about a mark after you were done with them. It wasn’t as if they wouldn’t have all screwed me over themselves if they’d realized they had the chance. That was what Mom had always said; that was what I’d always told myself.
Maybe it wasn’t even true? Maybe the college had exaggerated the consequences to browbeat me with them? But that hadn’t made it any more pleasant to see it all in vivid detail, made even worse by Professor Carmichael looming over me, questioning me about how and why I’d done what I had to every one of them.