Page 469 of Lessons in Cruelty

I use the sleeve of my drenched jacket to wipe rain off my face. I can’t even imagine what my makeup looks like. Melissa said it was waterproof, but I doubt anything that comes in a glittery rose-gold tube could withstand this deluge.

“Kai!” Frustration strangles my voice.

I hear a noise behind me. I whip around, straining to see in the dark, but with the rain coming down as hard as it is, visibility is at zero.

“I’m not kidding around! Come out where I can see!”

I swear I hear a low chuckle. I might have brushed it off as imagination if my skin hadn’t broken out in goosebumps right then.

The body is an amazing thing. It can pick up on things our minds might be too tired, busy, or stupid to. An aroma in the air. A subtle change in temperature.

The feeling that someone is close.

And the instinct to run when it realizes they’re choosing to stay hidden for nefarious reasons.

My body tries to save me because I’m too tired, too stupid, and too fucking naive to realize how idiotic it was for me to come out here now.

Kai just trashed my room, and I expect him to talk to me? That we’ll kiss and make up?

There was a reason he gagged me so often when we played our games. I was chatty. Always trying to lure him into conversation.

He was the strong, silent, violent type.

…what are you doing out here all by yourself, m’lady? You climb out your palace window again? Bet the king would pay a pretty price to get you back. You think that blunt knife is gonna stop me, m’lady?…

And while he left many a bruise and scrape on my young body, he never went far enough to make me question—even briefly—if he’d truly hurt me.

Now I’m risking everything on the idea that he’s still the same boy, when I know he’s not.

Who’d have thought Haven Lee would be such a soppy fucking romantic?

Fuck this. I’m leaving.

The puddles I splash through paint icy mud across my calves and shins. The smell of the forest intensifies as I crash through the foliage en route to the campus.

A light beckons there. Open ground. Maybe even a security guard who could intervene if⁠—

Someone lunges at me.

I gasp, rear back, lose my balance, fall. Hard.

The clack of my teeth smacks through my skull like a baseball bat, stunning me. Roots and small stones dig into my ass and the tender flesh of my palms, muddy rain from the ground seeping instantly into my underwear.

He’s just a silhouette, but I recognize the way Kai moves as he stalks toward me. What I don’t recognize is the rough, unhinged tone of his voice.

“You can’t outrun the bandit, m’lady.”

My body wants to go into freeze mode, but I fucking refuse.

I flip around on hands and knees, scramble up, bounce off a tree trunk.

Spotting a gap in the trees, I feint right, then dive left. My heart soars as I hear Kai’s footsteps falter behind me. Such a pathetic victory, but fuck, it feels good.

“Leaving so soon, Miss H?” Kai calls out.

His voice is so fucking close, my hair would stand on end if I weren’t soaked through. I try to turn back to the campus, but Kai changes direction too, cutting me off.

Fuck!