by Sonya Jesus
“Corbin? Why would he follow me?”
“Just get a vibe from him. Like, something’s off.”
“It’s not the people on campus I’m worried about, Kai.”
“Then who?” During my surveillance, I catch Thorn’s reflection in one of the windows.
No dress on. But scars. Or is that just the reflection from the glass?
I lightly tread inside toward her.
“We just have to be careful where we talk about our past,” she continues, thinking I can’t see her. “I don’t want to put you in danger.”
So many scars on her torso and on the curves of her hips. Who did this to her? My breath hitches in my lungs. “Thorn…”
“Kai!” she squeals as she fumbles to cover up with the material in her hand.
With a shake of the head, I step forward, removing the dress from her hands. She doesn’t fight me, but she looks terrified.
I wait for an explanation. Not just for the scars—for everything. Questions poke through the clearing cloud of relief. Confirming she was my Thorn had fogged up my thought process and all I felt was sadness for missing out on her life and relief for having her back in my world.
Prayers, wishes, dreams—all had manifested into reality, so why was I suddenly so pissed off? At the world, at her, at whatever or whoever did this to her. My fingers run along the jagged edges of her skin. At a loss for words, I stumble over the one-worded questions that come to mind. “How… when…”
She wraps her trembling fingers around my hand, removing my touch. “They’re ugly, I know.”
They are awful, but the bubbling rage inside me is so much uglier. I breathe it out, holding back and pleading for it to pass. Blowing up right now isn’t going to help, but—What. The. Fuck. Happened?
“Don’t look at me like that, Kai.” Her words are sharp, much like my tone.
“Why didn’t I know you were alive, Thorn?” Once a full question escapes my lips, I can’t stop. “Where have you been? Why is there a grave with your name on it? What are you doing here after all this time? And who are you so afraid of?”
“It’s such a long story.” She reaches for her regular dress, almost dismissing my questions as nonsense, when I’m owed an explanation.
I throw the one in my hand over a table and step into her space. Where I belong. “A story that you owe me!” My voice packs a lot of power—a lot of residual anger I didn’t even know I had. “Why didn’t you tell me who you were from the beginning?”
“Kai, there are things I can’t tell you.”
“Like hell you can’t. Is it Del Rio?”
“Yes, and not only.” She slides the dress on and heads back to the stage, scanning the area as she swallows whatever words she is going to say.
Before they dissolve in her body, I urge them back to the surface. “What happened to the birthmark on your chin, Thorn?”
With a long, deep sigh, she summons the courage to start, “It got scraped off on the pavement ... After I crashed through the windshield, slicing parts of skin and organs on the way.”
Her words hooked my guts and yanked them out. “Not the waterfall?” I spit out as I imagine her soaring through the air amidst the wreckage and broken glass. Not much better than picturing her plummeting to her death in Niagara Falls. Answers don’t always soothe the hurt.
“That was someone meant to look like me. Del Rio spared me, but the men he sent me with spun out, crashed, blew a tire—I don’t know what happened. We were speeding, and I didn’t have my seat belt on. Del Rio thinks La Expansión had something to do with it.”
“La-what?” I growl as I roll my head. The tightness spreads over my muscles, and I can’t shake the edge that we are being watched now. Being on a stage may be the reason.
“A cartel he worked for.” Mom was right. He was bad news. “They found out Del Rio wanted out and was gathering info on their trade routes, so they put a hit on him.”
“So, he killed his family? And himself?” Who the hell does that? “That makes no sense.”
“He spared Meryl and himself from the torture. Death by his hand was more merciful than them.”
“He shot Meryl in the head. Doesn’t seem very kind to me.”
“She died before she even fell.”
“So, he saved you?”
Her eyes veer toward the floor. She’s not going to find the answers there. “He said children should never be involved in the brutal wars of men. And that he had spent his whole life wishing for a child, and though he wished we had more time, he would rather die knowing I lived.”
“He told you all this before shooting Meryl?”
“No…” She glances up at me. “He told me the other night when he found me on the beach. We talked for a while—”
“Whoa… wait. He’s alive? He survived the fall?” Immediately, my body kicks into high alert. Rage and sadness mix with fear and protection, and I’m drudging through a swamp of emotions. “He’s the one you’re afraid of?”
She shakes her head. “There’s so much more. I don’t even know where to start.” She rubs her forehead and looks at me, her gaze lingering before she finds her pivot point. “Maybe I do know. Let’s start with why I was sent here…”
Sent here? It kind of hurts that she didn’t come back for me.
“Do you still have the fairy-tale book?”
“Why?” I growl it out through clenched teeth.
“Because everyone is looking for it, and I’m supposed to get it from you without telling you who I am. Obviously, that didn’t go according to plan.”
“What do you mean everyone?”
“The cartel, the DEA, Del Rio.” She spits things out so fast, I barely have time to process the truth. “You’re not here because of me?” It’s not the time to talk about it, but the matter presses against my chest, making it hard to breathe. Selfishly, because it’s nearly as bad as hearing she had died, I accuse her, “You’re using me because you think I have some book?”
She reaches for me, and I step just out of her reach.
“No!” I don’t want to be touched by a memory, not when anger fuels me.
She resigns to the distance. “I’m not, Kai. Not really.” She tucks her hands into her pockets. “Yes, I need the book, but you’re in danger.”
“I figured as much.” I swallow and lean the back of my head against one of the mirrors. It moves, alerting me to the very ample room.
“It’s not bolted down,” she informs me. Again, nearing me, tempting me with her touch.
With both my hands in the air, I still her advance. “You need to explain what you’re doing here.” My tone comes out harsher than it should, but it stings to know I’m not the reason for our reunion. “Now!”
“After the crash—it was really bad. I was in a coma for a long time and had trouble with my brain, but not my heart. I always thought of you—always. I watched every single one of your videos, including the one where you wanted to move on from me. I kind of stalked you.”
I’m not in the mood for jokes. “Keep going.”
“You had a picture on one of them, in a collage: you flipping off the camera guy with the fairy-tale book on your lap.”
I know exactly which one she’s talking about. “At your graveside.”
“Yeah.” Her voice cracks. “But I had no idea that was important until a few months ago.”
“But that’s why you came? That’s why you’re here!”
“No!” The word comes from her gut and pulses with pain. “It’s why I was allowed to come.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve been working with the DEA, helping them with their RICO case against the cartel.”
“How long?”
“Awhile. They helped me become Rose Kingston, Canadian girl. I went through a lot of surgery—reconstructive to make me look like this.”
That explains it all. Except… “You could have called me, Thorn.” I pound my chest with a fist, for her to hear how hollow it sou
nds. “You left me, mourning a girl I loved and feeling guilty for surviving. You lied to me for years while I suffered.” The words pour out of me, relief transforming to anger. I want to call her selfish, to lash out at this girl who moved on when I was stuck back in that firepit, letting tears dry with the heat.
But the look in her eyes mirrors her sorrow, and I remember every damn painful second of being without her.
“I’m sorry.” Her tears sting me, pricking my skin like thorns.
“I searched for you in every face. I heard you all around me. I couldn’t even hold a penny in my hand without breaking down.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, again.
“I’m sorry is not enough, Thorn. You fucking took my heart with you,” I roar. “Your death changed me.”
“I get it…” She nods and swallows repeatedly, swallowing her tears. Her hand emerges from her pocket, the penny I had given her on The Landing stuck between two fingers. “Your life changed me.”
Shock pins me in place. The tension I had just felt ripples off of me, leaving a weakness in its place. Having said too much already, I shut my mouth and listen to the sound of happiness—to a voice that just days ago I never thought I’d hear again.
“You’re the only good thing I ever had in my life, and you’re right. God, you’re so right, and I was so selfish for not telling you. I thought about reaching out to you so many times, but I was so scared.”
“Scared of what? Del Rio?”
“You…”
Me? I’m shaken by her words. I hook on them and on those glistening eyes, long lashes damp with tears I caused.
“Of being unwanted by the only person who has ever wanted me.”
Well, shit. I roll my head back and breathe heavily. “This is so messed up.” I’m happy, then I’m angry, and now I’m feeling like a complete and utter asshole.
When did I become another person in her life who hurt her?
“I had a lot of scars, and by the time I recovered enough cognitively… I just… What you saw was nothing compared to what I looked like. And I saw that you were moving on, and I didn’t want to open wounds when I couldn’t come back. One call wouldn’t have been enough, and…”
“You don’t ever have to be scared that I don’t want you, Thorn.” My arms are around her, silencing her as she nestles her face in the crook of my neck. “Since I met you, I’ve only ever wanted to be with you.” My therapist didn’t think it was healthy, that it caused anger issues, but he was old and in his fifties with four failed marriages under his belt. He didn’t know shit about love.
“You understand why I couldn’t tell you?” The words come out mumbled, so I ease my grip on her. She glances up at me. “Del Rio said if you knew I was Thorn, then he’d kill you to keep me safe from the cartel.”
“That’s strangely comforting.” My smirk turns into a grimace. “He cares about you? It’s not just about the book?”
“He knew exactly where to find me and that you have the book.” She breathes heavily. “He’s known you have it all this time.”
I watch the rise and fall of her chest while she takes a seat on the floor, in the middle of all the glitter. I join her, and we sit side by side in the ice palace.
“I do have it,” I confess. “But are you going to give it to the DEA or to Del Rio?”
She bites down on her bottom lip, eyeing me and asking forgiveness at the same time.
“It’s your book, but these are bad people, Thorn. I think you should give it to the DEA.”
“The DEA won’t kill you,” she surmises and draws her knees to her chest. “Or Ledger.”
Damn it. I tap on the floor with my fisted hand, hating that a mobster even knows Ledger’s name. I’m putting my best friend in danger just by being with me. “I’m guessing the DEA still thinks Del Rio is dead?”
“It’s not my job to tell them.”
“And the cartel?”
“The DEA said Society Hill was secure with no connections to them. Well, not direct ones anyway.” She pauses, and I get the feeling she’s holding back. “I don’t think they know about Del Rio either. He said if I give him the book, he’d take care of everything.”
“And you trust him.”
“He could have used me as leverage, or you, or Ledger. But he waited until I was alone.”
“To ambush you in the dark.”
“To talk to me.” She slides her hands over her shins. “He never had a weapon out.”
Threats are weapons too. Sometimes the most effective ones. “So, your plan is to give Del Rio the book, and we can pick up where we left off?”
“We just have to be Kai and Rose. I need to maintain the Rose Kingston thing until official charges are taken and the case is over.”
“Okay, Thorn. So, when do you give Del Rio the book?”
“At the ball. He said for me to climb the staircase and leave it on the shelf.”
It sounds like a trap.
“He’s not going to hurt me.” The confidence in her affirmation is hard to question.
“There’s a reading nook there. A lot of students use it to study.”
“I’m guessing there’s a shelf?”
“I don’t know, Thorn. I don’t really study there.”
She giggles and nudges my thigh with her leg. “What time is it?” She reaches over for my phone, the skirt riding up in the process. This time a lot farther up to show the scars at the beginning of her thigh.
“We should get going.” My finger slides a strand of her hair out the way. It’s still soft, but I miss the wild curls.
“Will you walk me back to the dorm?” No way in hell is she staying alone.
“How does Rose feel about sleeping over?”
She shakes her head, but I’m not letting her go. Not with Del Rio hanging around and a cartel somewhere on the sidelines, and the DEA ready to take her back to maple leaf country.
“Let me make it easier for you: Tonight, I’m staying with you and nothing you can say is going to make that change. I’d really wish you could come back with me to the Rugger Loft.” Ledger would help me keep her safe if it came down to it, as would the other guys. “But if you want to torture me some more, I can sleep on the floor in your single in The Dungeon, or go to Corbin’s with you, or camp out on The Landing, or knock on Vanessa’s door and stir shit up.”
“I don’t know about spending the night, Kai.” She’s nervous, and I know why.
“I’ve already seen you naked, Thorn. And I’m still here. If Del Rio and the threat of a cartel coming down on my head didn’t scare me, trust me, scars aren’t going to make me run. If anything, I find them beautiful.”
“They’re anything but,” she insists.
That’s where she’s wrong. “I’ve always loved the imperfect you.”
14
Kiss Me Naked
Thorn
Stuck within the confines of his room, I’m intoxicated by everything him. Not once had we been so alone in a place so completely his. The open air of the firepit had never overwhelmed me quite like this. He’s more intense here. Masculinity mixed with the smell of freshly laundered linen, cotton, and amber. His guitar case propped against the wall near his bed, sheet music covering the crate acting as a nightstand. Inside, an array of books neatly stacked on top of one another by size. Below his bed, between the floor and the edge of his duvet, are boxes of equipment, just like under Ledger’s.
A soft smile caresses my lips when I find the microphone he always used in his videos. Circular and often hung from somewhere or propped up on a stand. “You don’t film here,” I note, my fingers tracing the circumference of the mic. The one object that had swallowed his words and been so close to his lips. I used to long to be this microphone.
“No, we usually do it in the Play Room or at the studio on campus. Music majors have access to it, and well, Ledger has access to everything.”
I remember. Pictures of him and Ledger are taped to the back of the second door, like a
shrine to their friendship. Some girls pepper the photos, but mostly it’s of them alone, or together, doing normal things. At the center, a schedule for their uploads and the word Wednesdays. The name of their band. An homage to me.
My throat tightens around the thought, so I refocus my attention toward the crate. His anger had been warranted. As much as I remembered him and thought of him, he had done the same as well. “Are you working on something new?”
Kai nods his head, offering nothing more, and points toward Leger’s bed, located on the opposite side of the large room. These beds are slightly wider and longer than the one’s in The Dungeon. A black comforter, neatly spread over the bed, covers gray sheets and matches the pillow cases, save for one white, square pillow in the center.
Simple, I think. The one thing Ledger is not.
“Ledger’s almost never here, at night,” he announces as I teeter closer to his bed. On this side of the large room, I’m completely submerged in him. “You can sleep on mine, and I’ll take his bed.”
I swoon at the idea of tucking myself between his sheets, laying my head where he has, staring at the same ceiling and being completely confined in the space he calls his. “Thanks,” I answer cooly, although intimidated by so much him within four walls.
“The sheets are fresh.” He treads over to me, hesitantly, and stops at the foot of the bed, keeping a distance from me. At least five feet.
Maybe my invasion of his space is far more intimidating to him. “Do you want a T-shirt or something?” His eyes dislodge from mine and roam south, breaking at the curves and carefully swerving around them. He’s driven through my heart with his eyes closed, but my body is the unknown road he’s never traveled.
And hell, if I don’t crash into him when those eyes shoot up to mine.
Heavy, laden with desire, unwilling to blink me away.
“Pants,” he rushes out, “and a T-shirt.” He shakes his head and cups his mouth with his palm, grunting into it before flying down to the waistband of his jeans and adjusting himself as he holds back.