Their phones blew up, and it was a welcome interruption after the conversation we’d just had. After I agreed to let one of them stay with me here, a terse quiet had fallen.
I hated it.
It felt unnatural.
Something between us all had been broken, and I didn’t know if it could be fixed. Still wasn’t sure I wanted it to be. But what I told them was true. I didn’t have any place else to go. Lennox was the last place I wanted to go back to, but where else in this world was there a place for me?
With the so-called best friend who betrayed me?
With my female Hitler of an aunt?
This was the only place I’d felt like I’d fit in so long I had to wonder if I ever felt like I fit anywhere else before this.
“What is it?” I asked as they all read the messages on their phones, noticing how their faces had turned stony.
Rook dropped his phone into my lap and I glanced between it and him before picking it up to read the message on the screen.
Diesel: We have a meet with the Aces tonight. Sending details and location later. Be ready for 10 pm.
Diesel: Becca Hart got on a plane this morning to Europe, but we need her back here. She’s our only source of intel on the piece of shit who was trying to make a move on you. Make it happen.
“I’m coming with you tonight,” I decided, rising from the couch to go and discard my mug in the kitchen sink. Feeling Grey’s eyes on my ass as I walked.
“I don’t think that’s—”
“I wasn’t asking. I’m a Saint now, remember?”
Grey nudged Corvus’ arm, giving his head a little shake. Telling him not to push this right now. I was willing to bet he would try to convince me to stay behind later. He wouldn’t have any luck.
I needed to speak to his father. I needed to make a couple of things clear if I was going to even try to stay in Thorn Valley.
Corvus’ nostrils flared. “Fine,” he growled. “Are you coming to class?”
I lifted my head to the clock on the kitchen wall and sighed, the word fuck silently forming on my lips. There was already lots of noise in the hallway outside. Classes would be starting in barely twenty minutes.
“We can pick up your assignments,” Grey offered, and I looked at him curiously for the second time this morning.
He was giving me this weird vibe. Like he was stepping on eggshells. Tip-toeing around me. It wasn’t like him.
The air was still charged with everything said and not said. It felt fragile, like even the smallest push would send everything we’d built tumbling down to ruble and ash. I wondered if he felt it, too. If he were afraid of what might happen if he pushed too hard.
“No, I’ll go,” I decided. “I don’t need another absence right now.”
Really, I didn’t need to deal with more angry texts from my psycho aunt right now. No wonder my dad never talked about her. But more than that, I wanted the distraction.
“Rook?” Grey asked, and I watched the exchange between them, wondering why Grey was offering to pick up his assignments. Why he assumed Rook wasn’t going to class.
His dark eyes betrayed nothing, but he gave Grey a tight nod, lifting his gaze to me. “Mind if I stay here?”
“Uh…sure. I guess.”
He leaned back on the couch, lifting his legs to cover the area where I’d just been sitting, laying his head on the armrest. His forearm lifted to cover his eyes.
“I’ll meet you guys down there,” I told the other two, going to change.
“We’ll wait,” Corvus decided for them both. “Hurry up.”
Don’t stab him. Don’t stab him.
I had a mind to make them wait as long as possible, but that would only see to it that I got locked out of homeroom for being late. Though, with my new status around here, maybe I could walk in whenever I wanted. Maybe I didn’t have to ever be marked absent at all.
I’d have to see about that.
For today, though, I’d behave, if only because I wanted to save myself enough time to drop into the dining hall on the way to class and swipe a bagel.
Rook didn’t so much as stir when we left the apartment, and I found myself shutting the door quietly behind me, twisting the knob to avoid the catching sound of the metal.
“He isn’t a newborn,” Grey commented, and heat bloomed over my chest, but I didn’t give him the satisfaction of my attention or a reply.
Something told me he hadn’t slept last night after we parted ways in the road. I felt maybe just a little responsible for that.
The few students remaining in the hallways parted, scurrying to get out of our way as we made our way to the elevator at the end of the hall, who jabbed the button, and stepped inside.
Funny how barely a month ago I had to sneak into the thing to use it. Now it was as much mine as it was theirs.
Perks: they were the silver lining holding everything together right now.
When the doors opened with a solemn chime, the three of us froze.
Heads turned, eyes latching on. Whispers dying on parted lips.
The main atrium was filled with students, but they weren’t what we couldn’t stop staring at.
Pasted to every available surface in the entire space were photographs. On the banister. On the walls. Scattered over the floor.
I wasn’t sure what I was seeing at first, until I knelt to lift one to inspect it more closely.
They were photographs of Rook…
And…
“Is that the vice principal?” I asked, turning the photo of their entangled naked bodies in what appeared to be the unused academy chapel. In this shot, Rook had his fist around Mrs. June’s throat while he drove into her from behind, her face the picture of bliss. Her tits spilling out of her blouse over the back of a pew.
I scanned the others on the floor close to us, finding at least ten other pornographic images. I couldn’t help but notice the different bits of clothing they wore. The different lighting. Proving that this wasn’t a one-time thing but a very regular occurrence.
Corvus lifted his phone to his ear and growled down the line. “Get down here. Now.”
We stepped out of the elevator, and it closed behind us.
Numbly, I lifted another two photographs to look at them more closely, hating how my stomach was twisting into knots.
“What the fuck are you staring at?” Corvus demanded, eyeing the gape mouthed students still hovering all around the atrium. He reached behind him, lifting the edge of his jacket, where the distinct shape of a gun was pressed between his jeans and his lower back.
I dropped the photos, grabbing his hand before he could draw it.
“Get the fuck out of here,” I yelled, and the ones who hadn’t already fled, raced to follow their wiser peers, dispersing within seconds.
Behind us, the elevator chimed again and Rook appeared, leaning lazily against the door with dark circles beneath his eyes.
Corvus bent and scooped a handful of photographs from the floor, shoving them into his stomach, putting him off balance as he grabbed them.
“The fuck, man?” he groaned, lifting them.
His surprise quickly turned to an approving smirk, his brows lifting. “Damn. Some of these are really good. I told you that camera was a good investment.”
“Did you do this?” Corvus hissed, pushing Rook into the elevator to give them some privacy as the bravest of the students still lingered in the archways leading out the classrooms.
“Why the fuck would I?” Rook shoved Corvus back, tossing the photos unceremoniously on the floor. “She was useful in my back pocket. She won’t be now.”
“It was a power play, then?” I found myself asking aloud, needing to know.
Rook tipped his head slightly to one side as he considered me. “You worried, Ghost?”
My blood pulsed with electricity at his words, and I was wholly unable to stop myself as I reentered the elevator with them, shouldering Corvus out of my way. Making the doors chime loudly as they were kept from closing again.
“If it was a power play, then I’m impressed.”
He frowned.
“But if you ever touch her again I’ll have to kill her. And cut your balls off.”
That frown vanished, his eyes sparking with amusement.
I could hardly believe I’d said it, but I realized I meant every word. He was mine and no one else’s.
He licked his lips. “Understood.”
“Good.”
A bang outside the elevator made the three of us exit to where Grey still stood, watching the scene playing by the office.
The principal, a man I’d only ever seen once besides now, tried to maintain order among his staff as Mrs. June was escorted out of the office between two police officers.
She caught sight of Rook and paused, her chin beginning to quiver.
Rook pressed two fingers to his lips in a silent salute to her, not a care in the world. Mrs. June spat onto the floor in his general direction, her face going red despite the thick coating of makeup covering it. “Fuck you,” she shouted. “You sick bastard!”
“You loved it,” Rook called after her as the officers moved in to restrain her, dragging her from the building now as she struggled, cursing and kicking all the way.
Another officer exited the office, leaving the principal’s side with his sights set on Rook. And wouldn’t you fucking know it, his name badge read Vick.
I snorted.
He looked nothing like his phony counterpart. Round through the middle with a saucer sized bald spot on his crown that he was trying to cover with a midlife crisis toupee that looked more like roadkill.
“Sawyer Clayton,” the officer said, and I sensed more than saw Rook stiffen beside me. “We have a few questions if you wouldn’t mind coming down to the—”
“I would mind,” he hissed. “And it’s Rook.”
“Mr. Clayton—”
But Rook was already gone, vanishing down the north hall, likely headed straight for the exit.
Officer Vick cleared the gap between us with uneasy steps, fumbling to get a card from his pocket.
He held it out to me instead of the two guys at both of my sides.
It wasn’t so long ago another Officer Vick was handing me a card. I wasn’t going to fuck this up twice.
“Would you give me a call when he’s ready to talk?”
I took the card he offered with a smile and tore it into four equal pieces, letting them fall to the floor to join the photographs when I was finished.
“If that’s all?” I prodded when he just stared, his face going a little green around the edges.
He left without another word and a rush of pure ecstasy rushed through me, making me almost cringe at its intensity. Man, if you could bottle up that feeling and sell it…
The PA system crackled to life as the principal made an announcement to the academy from the front office.
“Good morning students, please be advised that all classes for the day have been canceled. Any due assignments are to be submitted through the online portal unless otherwise instructed by your professor. The computer lab, cafeteria, and library will remain open for your use. Thank you.”
“Well, shit.”
Corvus and Grey were staring at me, I realized. Looking more than slightly impressed by my little spectacle with the real Vick.
I gave myself a spiritual pat on the back and shrugged. “What? I wasn’t about to fuck that up twice.”
Grey smirked, clearing his throat as he went back to studying the picture in his hand. The obvious question in his eyes likely the same one we were all thinking.
“These are definitely from Rook’s hidden camera,” Grey mused. “But if he didn’t do this, then who did?”
