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I eyethatlike the trap it feels like.
“Where’s your dad?” I ask instead, noting that this question is enough to throw him.
“Leave my father out of this.”
He stalks downstairs, leading me into a narrow passageway that runs alongside the dining hall. There are no lights but we can hear the subdued bustle of the crowd.
“Wherearewe?”
“The staff hall.”
“This is how you get food,” I realize with a start. “When the dining hall is shut, you come here.”
“What I do in my spare time is none of your concern.”
No. It won’t be. Since I’ll never see him again.
His voice is snappish, severe, and it’s only then that I note how little space there is here. I’m pressed against the stone wall, gazing at the dim figure of Rory, who becomes one with the shadows the more I try to pick out his outline.
There’s the noise of a spark, and then light blooms between us.
“Boo,” he says, lifting the lighter at eye level.
His gray eyes shine at me, drinking in my face like he needs to sample every inch of it.
“That was cruel, little saint,” he murmurs, and I swallow, feeling his breath against my mouth. I don’t know where he’s going with this, but his mere presence makes me feel enchanted, captivated. Like I’m finally looking upon the rumored beast of an old fairy tale.
I give him a quizzical look, my gaze caught between his narrowed gray eyes and the firm line of his mouth.
“Yourdancewas cruel,” he clarifies, and oh. So this is what it’s all about.
If this is Rory’s reaction, then maybe… maybe it worked after all…
“You started it,” I whisper back.
“What do you think you’re playing at?”
I give him big, wide eyes, staring at his tight fingers curled around the lighter. “I was just dancing,” I say, as innocent as I can make myself sound, as innocent as I was around Baxter.
“In front of all those people? In front of our teachers? In front of the press? In front of mydad?”
“I don’t understand,” I say, continuing to play dumb, continuing to speak in that sweet, almost mockingly innocent voice that seems to undo Rory right in front of me. It’s breathtaking to watch. “What’s wrong with dancing?”
He growls low in his throat and then darts toward me, pressing me against the cold sharp stones. “Stop. This.” Both syllables are snapped from his tongue, echoing through the enclosed space like a hysterical cry.
It’s the one moment I’ve ever considered Rory weak, and I… I did that to him.
It worked.
It fucking worked.
I can’t stop the grin that’s taking over my mouth. I can’t stop the laughter in my throat or the gleam in my eyes. I lower my mouth to his, and breathe lightly, “Stop what?”
He squeezes the lighter in his grasp and releases a tight exhale, backing away from me.
“You were meant to be a timid little lamb. What happened?”
I went through a forest of my worst nightmares and survived.
