I hear the door to my bedroom creak open, and Pandora comes down the hall toward me, wearing one of my shirts, which is long enough to reach halfway down her thighs.
A flash of possessiveness courses through me. She looks so hot wearing my clothes.
She looks like she belongs to me.
Pandora stops beside me and presses her head against my shoulder. “Blaze is right. I’ll cover it. Since it’s my fault. Also, your dad is a bag of dicks and you’re better off not beholden to him anyway.”
“But I’m better off being beholden to the two of you?” Samantha demands, sitting up straighter. “Why should I expect you to do anything to keep me safe?”
Pandora shrugs. “I mean, I also helped Zayden see the error of his ways. He’s regretting hard, wherever he is.”
I bite down my amusement.
Yeah,whereverhe is.
“If you don’t want our help, you can try to get financial support from the school?” I suggest. “Or you can leave, and let Pandora’s efforts for you go to waste.”
“Because you think that if I go somewhere else, anywhere else, those… those people will hunt me down,” Samantha says.
“I wish I could say otherwise, but I know these people.” I grin at Samantha, and I know it’s not a reassuring expression. “It’ll make things easier for me if you’d rather take your chances.”
“Because you’re involved somehow,” she says darkly. “Because you’re having to go against your own fraternity if you want to protect me.”
I don’t know what pieces she’s put together, but it doesn’t take a genius to conclude that I’m involvedsomehow, I guess.
Pandora takes my hand and squeezes it. “So what’ll it be, roommate? Take your chances with the vipers you know, or go on the run until you’re out of energy and the predators can easily spear your exhausted body?”
Samantha’s fingers tighten on the blanket as she keeps it tight around her body. “You know I don’t really have much of achoice,” she says. “I’ll…” Her voice cracks again. “I’ll stay. But if I end up back there…”
Pandora lets go of me and gets closer to Samantha. “You won’t. And I’ll teach you how to gouge out eyes and disembowel anybody who tries, okay?”
Samantha edges back, but there’s only so far for her to go. “Yeah. All right. Self-defense classes with Pandora Pavone.” She lets out a choked, bitter half-laugh. “Sounds great.”
“You’re laughing!” Pandora smiles and tentatively takes a seat on the bed next to Samantha. “You can tell everybody about how your crazy roommate forced you to stab a cantaloupe a million times until you could do it without hesitation.”
I frown when she sayscrazy roommate.
She isn’t crazy.
She’s passionate, and she stands up for herself, and I don’t even care that she burned down the frat house anymore.
I leave the two of them alone and go downstairs, clutching my phone.
If Pandora can handle calling herself crazy, if she was able to deal with Ezio on her own… If she was able to come back to me and Asch and River after all that shit, then I can make this phone call too.
I dial my father.
He picks up after two rings.
“Blaze. I’m going to need an extremely good explanation.”
The disappointment in his voice cuts through me, and my throat goes dry.
But Bouchards don’t show weakness, and we aren’t cowards.
“It’s exactly what it seems like,” I say. “I’m not sure what else needs explaining.”
“You lied to me,” my father hisses. “And all this, for what? If you wanted the girl, I would have given her to you.”
