by Katie May
“Information?” I parroted meekly.
With another large, brilliant grin, Heath stepped out of my space and picked his bag up from the ground. Swinging it over his shoulder, he stared at me intently, searching for something. What he was searching for I couldn’t discern.
“Tonight. 8 p.m. Room 321.”
I was left dumbstruck as he walked away, singing softly beneath his breath.
What the hell was that?
And what the hell did the class president know that I didn’t?
I was surprised to see Kace, of all people, when I emerged from the shower dressed once more in my academy uniform. His garnet red hair was highlighted by strands of gold and brown, brushed away from his face. His hands were shoved casually into his pants’ pockets as he surveyed me, leaning against the doorway of my closed room.
“Move,” I snapped.
“We need to talk.”
“Are you going to patronize me some more?” Without waiting for him to respond, I pushed him aside and shoved my key into the door. I wasn’t at all surprised when he followed me inside, regarding my tiny dorm room with rapt interest.
Ignoring my question, he mused, “Single rooms are definitely bigger than double rooms.”
“Get out.” I pointed a finger at the door to emphasize those two words. Kace’s dark red eyebrows rose, meeting his hairline, but he didn’t respond. Instead, he began to finger the numerous pictures I had pinned around the room. There was one of me and Beau, our arms around each other and large smiles on our faces. I remembered when it was taken, only a few months ago. We had just arrived back from our senior field trip at the amusement park, and exhilaration still rode us both.
“He loves you, you know that, right?” Kace spun to face me suddenly, the picture all but forgotten. I narrowed my eyes at him.
“Who does?”
“Beau.” That single answer was said with such conviction, such sincerity, I wanted to believe him. I honestly did. But I knew love, and what Beau felt for me wasn’t it. At least, it wasn’t the love I wanted him to feel. There were numerous facets of love, all grafted from the same damn tree. There was the love between siblings, between child and parent. There was the love between best friends. And then there was the love between two people whose souls cried out for each other. Two people who couldn’t be whole without the other one present. I wanted to believe that was what Beau felt for me, but I would only be deluding myself. He had never loved me the way I had so desperately wanted him to. He stared at me as a friend, his best friend, and nothing more. He cared about me the way you would care about a little sister.
And it hurt. It fucking stung to know that your feelings weren’t reciprocated. Falling in love was scary in that respect. You gave yourself over to someone, surrendered a part of yourself so completely, that it was impossible to differentiate between you and them. Your feelings and their own. But those feelings became distorted, broken, when you realized they weren’t returned. Your heart was still beating, your lungs still took in air, but you were no longer alive. That was how you could die while still living. A painful, excruciating death I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.
“Let’s not talk about him,” I said flatly. Each word was sharp, succinct.
A large, luminescent smile took over Kace’s face. It made him seem younger, happier, as if the weight of the world wasn’t resting on his shoulders.
“Okay. Let’s do something else.”
I snorted at his eager tone. He sounded like a damn puppy, and the last thing I wanted to do was give in to one of the men who had bullied me since I had first arrived here. His enthusiasm, however, was contagious, and I found myself raising an eyebrow quizzically.
“What do you want to do?”
“I’ll show you.”
Without another word, he grabbed my hand in his and pulled me into the hall. A few students talked amongst themselves, and they all said hi to Kace as we passed. Apparently, he was popular, no surprise. He had that type of personality. Energetic, larger than life.
My confusion grew when he pulled me into the abandoned kitchen. The kitchen staff, all current students, were nowhere in sight, and the lights were off.
“Why are we here?” I asked softly as Kace expertly made his way through the dark kitchen, relying on the waning sunlight piercing through the window. The appliances were brand new, but Kace moved past all of them to stop in front of large cupboards. Without preamble, he wrenched open the cabinet doors and grabbed a large can of…pudding?
On closer inspection, I decided that it was, in fact, pudding.
“Kace?” I quirked a brow at the strange man.
“I want pudding.”
Only minutes later, I found myself sitting cross-legged across from him, the large can of pudding opened and two spoons speared into its chocolatey goodness. Of course, we had to have an in-depth argument over the various flavors of pudding. I wasn’t one to discriminate between any sweets, but Kace was insistent that chocolate pudding was the best kind of pudding.
“What are you going to do when you get out of here?” Kace asked now, dipping his finger into the can. Screw sanitary concerns. It shocked me that he was speaking of the escape so brazenly, so openly, but then again, everything about Kace was erratic.
“I don’t know. Figure out what the hell is going on. Get the cops involved. The FBI.”
He gave me an irritated look.
“I meant after that.”
I was shocked to find myself responding.
“Beau and I have always talked about getting away. He promised to take me with him once he turned eighteen and got enough money for his own place.”
“Because of your parents?”
I stiffened noticeably, and Kace rubbed my knee sympathetically. When had he become…kind? When had he started feeling like a friend instead of an enemy? He had never been as bad as Aiden and Tanner, at least on the surface, but he had destroyed my clothes. And how did he know about my parents?
“Don’t be pissed, but I read your file when you first arrived,” he admitted, ducking his head sheepishly. My body stilled as if thousands of currents of electricity were coursing through my veins. When I didn’t answer, too shocked to speak, he hurriedly explained, “I realize now how wrong it was. I’ll be the first to admit I’m an asshole. I’m so sorry, B. I just…I don’t know what I was thinking. But you never really talk about them much.”
“And you don’t talk about your family.”
He made an annoyed sound. “I have a younger sister and an older brother. They’re perfect, of course. They have to be perfect to compensate for the fuck-up that is me. My mother works twenty four hours, so I barely get to see her. And I haven’t met my dad.”
“That’s the icing on the cake,” I pointed out. “ Do you guys get along?”
“Maybe,” he said, leaning forward on his knees. “I’ll tell you about my family if you tell me about yours.”
I grabbed his untouched spoon and took a bite of the gooey pudding. It was marvelous, though I’ll never admit that to him. I was way too stubborn to allow our pudding-debate to end in a win for him.
“It’s simple. I had a mom and a dad. My dad was an ass, so he left. My stepdad is...um...but my stepbrother…well…my mom does like the assholes, apparently.” I quickly swallowed another mouthful, keenly aware of all I had shared. Kace sat back, reflecting this newfound information.
“Do you want to talk about what happened?” he asked at last.
“Not with you.”
We locked eyes, and I felt something I never thought I would feel with Kace. A kinship. We both had obviously shitty pasts that still affected us to this day. Maybe that was what drew me to him in the first place—he was a kindred spirit, like me, who had somehow found me in the dissonant chaos that made up our lives.
“It’s just kind of funny,” he said at last. Despite the emptiness of the kitchen, he still found the need to whisper. “How many scars did we have to cover up because we loved the
woman behind the knife? The man behind the fists?”
“The person behind the words,” I added almost absently, and Kace nodded, face uncharacteristically solemn.
“For me, it feels as if I can never be good enough. Like I’m always going to be a failure.” Kace wasn’t even looking at me as he spoke. His attention was diverted to the tops of his shoes, spread out before him. “It’s like constantly wanting to involve myself in the world yet feeling that I am not worthy enough to do so. There are points in my life, times that I can’t even begin to describe, where I wish that I had someone holding me up. You get to the point where you sink so low that you don’t believe light even exists anymore. I don’t want to fight the darkness alone.”
My throat closed-up. Instinctively, I reached my hand toward Kace. When did I start feeling sorry for him? We weren’t supposed to share our stories, weren’t supposed to develop this bond forged of shared trauma. That wasn’t us. Why the fuck did he have to ruin our mutual disdain for one another by being nice? By sharing a story I suspected he hadn’t shared with anyone else?
“You don’t have to fight it alone anymore. You know that you have me, right?” The words left my mouth before I could reel them in. Fucking hell.
“And I want to get better,” he said earnestly. “Because of you.”
“Don’t let that be your only reason,” I said hesitantly. “Do it for yourself.”
I didn’t understand where this conversation was going. It was no longer light and cheerful. We were treading water in unfamiliar oceans; one wrong word, one wrong move, and we’d be pulled under. It was like tumbling through a riptide, constantly searching for a pocket of fresh air. Once your head reached the surface, you would get pulled back under by forces beyond your control. There was no stopping it as you tumbled and turned through pits of nothingness.
We had to get out of the riptide.
“How about we have some more pudding?” I suggested coyly, pulling my hand out of his. I didn’t understand anything, especially not the strange pitter-patter my heart made when his eyes turned downcast, lashes like twigs against his cheeks.
Light-hearted conversations about pudding, I could deal with. But this? This bombshell being thrown on my lap? It was seconds from exploding, and I knew it would take us both with it.
“Yeah,” he muttered.
I reached for the pudding can and abruptly let out a string of curses.
Kace’s eyes flashed toward mine in surprise.
“What happened?”
“Cut myself on the damn can,” I said, holding my hand up to the diminishing sunlight flickering in through the open window. It cast enough light I could clearly make out a long cut slashing down my palm.
Kace stared at my hand with the oddest expression. I wondered if he was holding his breath; his body was shockingly still.
“I am so sorry,” he whispered. It was the barest breath of sound.
“Kace, it’s fine. It’s just a little cut.”
“I shouldn’t…I um…I have to go.” Kace jumped to his feet. His eyes moved around, but they didn’t stick on anything. Not me. Not the blood oozing from my hand. Not the discarded pudding spoon.
“Seriously,” I tried again, frightened by his behavior. I could see where this path was heading, and I was helpless to stop it.
He was falling back into the riptide.
“It’s fine. It’s actually kind of funny.”
“I need to leave.”
“Kace!” But he had already jumped to his feet and was running. Running. Running. I knew, then, that he wasn’t running away from me.
He was running away from himself.
23
Bianaca
I scoured the hallways, Kace’s name on the tip of my tongue. However, after an hour of futile searching, I conceded defeat. There were other things, more important things, for me to worry about
A monster lurking in the school, for one.
Evil, murdering professors, for another.
My feet found themselves in front of a familiar door, and my heart stopped. Plummeted.
What was I doing here? In front of Beau’s door, of all people?
Even as those thoughts flickered in my mind, I knew I needed to talk to him. I needed to set things straight with my best friend. Innately, I knew that he would never leave me. He had been there for me through it all—through the highs and lows. The elation and the consequential depression. Never once had he left my side, even when I pushed him away. It was illogical for me to believe he would leave me now.
I knew, in the deepest recesses of my mind, that his secrecy was some misguided attempt to protect me.
Hesitating, I lifted my hand to knock on the door. I was trembling, fear cementing my feet to the ground. The last thing I wanted to do was hear his excuses, his reasoning, when it still felt as if every action of his was a betrayal. Despite my tumultuous thoughts, I knocked on the door.
My hands were covered in a sticky sheen of sweat, and I wiped them inconspicuously on my pants. Kace’s words echoed back to me.
“He loves you.”
It was so easy to believe it was true, to believe what I had always wanted to hear. But I was a pessimist by nature, and something like this was too good to be true.
Beau opened the door a crack, his eyes widening slightly, almost imperceptibly, when he saw me. He moved a step closer, his large body nestled in the tiny door opening. I opened my mouth to yell at him, to fire accusation after accusation at my best friend, to demand why he had kept such life-altering secrets from me. However, none of that came out of my mouth.
“I love you,” I sputtered. My chest was as taut as the strings on a violin, but my stupid mouth forged ahead. “Oh my God. That just came…it just came out! I love you. See? I did it again. I just…I…I love you. And not like a sister loves a brother or a best friend loves a best friend. I love you, Beau. I’ve been trying not to say it. I’ve been swallowing the words because…why would I say them? What’s the point of saying something like that? You’re my best friend, and I don’t need your love that way. But I do. I love you. You’re a disease. From the first fucking look, you infected me. You’re inside me, Beau, and I don’t think I want you to leave.” Tears slid down my cheeks as I absently rubbed at my heart. The damn organ was still beating even as I felt like I was going to die. “I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I can’t even breathe because you contaminated my lungs with your…gah. I love you. I. Love. You.”
My confession settled in the air like a hundred pounds of cement being pooled over our heads. His eyes were wide in his face, practically saucers, and his hand was white from how tightly it gripped the doorframe. He blinked rapidly, attempting to gather some clarity I imagined, before he took a step closer.
I held my breath, my turbulent emotions running rampant within me.
I hadn’t intended to open myself up to him as I did, to make myself that vulnerable, but there was no denying the rightness of my words. Somehow, someway, Beau had crept into my poor, desolate heart.
And then the fairytale shattered, imploded.
“Beau!” a feminine voice cooed. “Who are you talking to?”
The breath I’d been holding sputtered out. Suddenly, it hurt to breathe. Everything hurt. The pain started in my chest, the tightest of clenchings, before moving downward. I trembled at the sheer intensity of my emotions.
Beau stared at me, horror-struck, as a familiar blond female danced to his side, hooking her arm with his. Her hair was disheveled, and the first few buttons of her white blouse were undone.
Maria glanced at me coldly.
“Hi, Bianaca. What are you doing here?”
Beau didn’t respond to her, focused on me.
But I couldn’t look at him. Not anymore. Not after I had spilled my entire heart to him, and he had so carelessly crushed it. In a matter of moments, he had killed me. Destroyed me.
Anger, hurt, and heartbreak all raged within me, my mind unable to settle on one emotion. After a lo
ng moment of tense silence, I made myself look up, meet Beau’s eyes, and whisper, “I see.”
And then I was running. I had never considered myself a coward before, but I couldn’t get away from him fast enough. My heart beat erratically in my chest, the tiny organ feeling like it weighed a thousand pounds. It threatened to break free of my ribcage and shatter into a thousand pieces. Still, I ran. Tears blurred my eyes, a hazy sheen obscuring my vision. Behind me, I heard Beau cry my name. His voice was raspy, hoarse, but the anguish was clear.
I found myself outside, sunlight high in the sky.
Spinning in a wide circle, I let out a scream.
The walls had never seemed so high before, so daunting. The urge to run away was an itch on my skin I couldn’t control. I needed to leave this damn school—leave the demons that haunted me. Moving briskly, I made my way to the sun-bleached shed, dwarfed by the trees.
Fucking Beau.
Fucking Maria.
She was probably one of those people who clapped when the plane landed.
I was so lost in my own thoughts that I didn’t see Dylan until I ran straight into his chest. I stumbled, grabbing a tree branch to right myself, as he placed his hands on my shoulders. I grimaced at the contact, immediately pulling myself away.
“What the fuck do you want?” I asked harshly through my tears. His smile was cold, predatory, as he gave me a once-over. Knowing Dylan, he relished in my pain. The tears dripping down my cheeks. My puffy eyes. My teeth nibbling on my lower lip until it drew blood. The bastard probably was orgasming at that moment.
Fuming with irritation at being caught in such a vulnerable state, I placed my hands on my hips and canted one to the side. Dylan watched me with amused eyes.
“Where are you off to, little sister?” His mere voice sent pinpricks of terror skating down my spine. How could one person do that to me? How could one insignificant bug demote me to a weak, simpering, fearful little girl?
“None of your damn business,” I hissed. My jaw hurt from how tightly I clenched my teeth.