Page 63 of Twisting Beauty

Bridgit went still so abruptly it felt wrong. Like panic had reached inside her and locked every joint.

“Fuck,” Nuala breathed. She was already moving, crossing the grass at something close to a run.

“Hey, asshole.” Her voice cracked across the courtyard. “Get away from my sister.”

She shouldered herself between Elias and Bridgit in one clean movement and gathered her sister against her side with a fierce protectiveness.

“Come on, B,” she murmured to her sister. “You don’t need him.”

Bridgit sagged into her, her desperation breaking apart into sobs.

Nuala shot Elias one look, saturated with disgust. Then she turned and steered her sister away without another word.

Elias watched them go, rolling his shoulders like he was brushing them off like dirt. He didn’t look embarrassed. He didn’t look like he cared at all that he’d made someone cry.

“Bitches be hysterical,” he said to no one in particular.

“I’ve got to take her home,” Nuala said to me as they passed, her expression caught somewhere between fierce and apologetic. “Sorry.”

I nodded and watched her walk away, my throat tightening.

Because I was left standing there alone.

Nearby, a few students were still watching Elias. “Another notch on his bedpost,” someone said, and someone else laughed, low and ugly.

For once, they weren’t looking at me.

Until Elias saw me, and the whispers sharpened.

The grin on his face came first, slow and deliberate. He pushed back his floppy hair, brushed down his front, and started toward me with that particular loose-limbed stride of his.

I looked behind me.

Lorcan was still there, holding court at the far end of the courtyard, his three friends and a small group of hangers-on arranged around him like a small kingdom. The distance between us felt suddenly very thin.

I was stuck between the two boys I needed to avoid. But it wasn’t a difficult calculation.

I turned on my heel and walked back the way I’d come, straight toward Lorcan’s end of the courtyard, because for some stupid reason, he felt safer. I kept my pace even, my chin level, and I only glanced back once.

Elias had rounded the archway between courtyards. He’d stopped at the edge of it, one hand braced on the stone, and he wasn’t looking at me anymore. His eyes had gone to Lorcan, and something had shifted in his expression that made me glad I’d put distance between us.

For the moment, I was safe from him.

I faced forward.

Lorcan and his friends were all looking at me.

Shit. Head down. Walk faster. I pulled my bag tight against my chest, both arms crossed over it like that might do something useful, and I fixed my eyes on the path and willed myself invisible. There were maybe twenty feet between us. Fifteen. Ten.

“Rua,” Lorcan called out, his deep voice making my tummy flip.

It surprised me, the way he said it. Not sharp. Not mocking. Just my name in his mouth.

I didn’t pause to acknowledge him. I didn’t look up. I counted the cobblestones instead.

“Rua. Wait.”

I won’t. I can’t. Every time I looked at him, I could feel his fingers inside me and my stupid body ached. My nerves were already scraped raw, too much exposure, too many eyes, and I was supposed to be keeping my head down. I was supposed to be the girl nobody looked at twice, and instead, I had spent the last few days being the girl everybody looked at, and I did not have anything left for whatever this was.