Page 9 of Silver

I don’t leave it locked. I quietly stick the key in the knob to disengage the lock now that I’m back.

Yeah, as soon as I left her, I put on tennis shoes, grabbed my wallet and keys—both hers and mine, and slipped out of the house. I took a rideshare back to the strip club to get her car and drove it back here.

I don’t need to snoop around in her things. I’ve already done that a few times in the past. But I did grab several of her trashy novels from the floorboard and stuff them into a duffel bag with a selection of clothes. Back in the room, I hang some of her clothes in the closet, leaving her intimates in the bag.

She doesn’t own much, which annoys me. I know more than I should about her because I’m a nosy fucking bastard. She has no idea how long I’ve been watching her, following her, tracking her.

She caught my eye weeks ago when she first came into the math lab. It was easy to discover her full name, look her up in the university system, and find out far more details about her than I should be aware of.

I’ll need to tread carefully so that I don’t accidentally divulge anything I shouldn’t know about her prematurely, but I’m a smart guy. I can handle this.

The truth is, my first thought when I saw her was simply lust. She’s gorgeous. Even more so in that fucking hot-pink stripper costume—which I intend to burn because no one will be seeing my girl’s body but me.

No. One.

After the first time I met her in the math lab, I didn’t see her for several days. Long, frustrating days. That was because she doesn’t have a current address listed in her file.

The next time she came into the lab, I followed her to her car. I became suspicious when she opened it because I could see it was filled with far too many things. Luckily, she didn’t get in and drive away that day. She simply dropped a few books off, picked up a few more, and headed toward the library.

I’m a world-class stalker, so I easily stuck a tracking device under the frame of her car.

That night, my blood really started to boil when I discovered she was sleeping in her car. She has no home. It’s so fucking dangerous that I wanted to throttle her.

Instead, I did the next best thing I could think of. I chose her to be my victim for the freshman prank this year. I made a plan. One night, she parked in a deserted parking lot near the very back of campus. I yanked open her back door, pulled a ski mask over her head, and proceeded to scare the piss out of her. Literally. I know she peed herself while I had her kneeling on the concrete.

That did not stop my girl from sleeping in her car, though. That had been my intention. Scare the fuck out of her so she would find suitable housing, and then I wouldn’t have to worry about her safety all the time.

I’ve since deduced that was never an option for her. She doesn’t have the funds for housing. She’s on a full academic scholarship, but it doesn’t include room and board. I’ve dug around in her private life. I know she was raised by her grandmother on the other side of the country. The woman was kind and good to her, but she’s old, and she doesn’t have the funds to put Daphne through college. That’s how my girl ended up homeless in this city. Alone. She’s determined. A hard worker. I admire that. But she’s also been sleeping in her fucking car. Even pranking her didn’t get her into a better housing environment.

Making it my sole focus, I’ve spent two weeks trying to figure out how to get her off the streets. She fixed that problem tonight all by herself. The moment I saw her driving, I started following her. When she pulled into the parking lot of that strip club, flames came out of my head.

Until tonight, she’s been working at a diner, waiting tables. But I’m certain it doesn’t pay well enough. She’d have to work fifty or sixty hours a week to afford housing. If she did that, she would fail her classes.

I knew what she planned to do tonight. There hadn’t been any other options. She’d gotten herself a new job, stripping. It made sense. It would pay much better than the diner, especially since she’s a fucking knockout.

She’s been exhausted from burning the candle at both ends for weeks. That’s partly my fault. How the hell could she possibly sleep well in her car after what I did to her?

And her grades are suffering. She’s a straight-A student. She was in high school, too. She worked her butt off to get into Darkwell. Lately, she’s been too tired to get her homework done, and she’s gotten some poor grades on quizzes. Luckily, it’s nothing that can’t be fixed at the moment, but she will start failing important tests and assignments without intervention.

That intervention started tonight.

I should have known she would be so fucking perfect for me. I suspected, but until I had her in my room tonight, I couldn’t be certain.

She’s fucking masochistic. She doesn’t just read trashy books about kink. She craves it. She proved that in spades earlier, and I’m still shaking from the confirmation.

After setting my alarm so I can get four hours of sleep, I lie back, determined to get some rest.

“You boys are nothing. Fucking morons, all of you. If you don’t end up in juvie, you’ll be in adult prison before you reach twenty.”

I stand against the wall of the house, facing the backyard. The boys who have become my brothers are lined up next to me. Rook, Dante, Talon, and Lucien. We’re used to this. The asshole who runs this boys’ home is a total dick. We’ve dubbed him Master Drill Sergeant Keagan. He’d probably bury us in the yard if he found out what we call him behind his back.

The lecture continues.

“You’re fucking idiots!” he shouts. “The only way you’ll ever stand a chance in life is if you get some fucking muscle on you to do hard labor.” Spittle is flying out of his mouth.

“Lucky for you, I’m here to help you shits.” He points across the yard. “See those fence posts? They need to be replaced. You boys are going to dig until you can get them out. Tomorrow, you’ll learn to make concrete and put the new ones in. There are about twenty posts, so you’d better get to work. You may not come inside until all of them are out of the ground. Do I make myself clear?”

I don’t let my expression show my fear as I stare across the yard. I’m not confident the five of us can remove even one of those posts by the end of the day, let alone twenty. We’re fifteen. None of us has hit a growth spurt yet. We’re scrawny. But there’s no fucking way we’ll go down without trying.