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Great.
I didn’t tell him I was leaving. Lord knows how Theo discovered that I was going back to California, but he clearly found out somehow and he does not look happy about it. He races down toward the jetty, heading right for me. His brows are banked together, his eyes cold and furious. He jabs a blue-taped finger at the golf cart and snarls at me. “Take it back up to the academy, Kid.”
Iwasgoing to get into the golf cart. Now, I’m not so sure that I want to. I’m not in the habit of obeying this asshole’s orders. I hurl my bags onto the back of it, but I refrain from climbing in and starting it up. I round on Theo, marshalling my emotions—I’m so angry that I could cry. “Why are you even here?”
He doesn’t even stop to talk to me. He skirts around the golf cart, right past me, and storms down the jetty toward the principal…and my “aunt” Ruth.
Oh,shit.
I follow after him, a riot of nerves making my stomach twist all over again. “What thehelldo you think you’re doing?” I hiss.
Theo doesn’t hear me, or just ignores me. Either way, he doesn’t answer my question. “I mean it. Take the cart and go.”
“Who the fuck died and madeyougod?” I grab him by the arm, wrenching him around. I don’t think he was expecting me to do this, because I very nearly succeed at stopping him in his tracks. He wrenches his arm free, letting out a ragged breath, and—
Oh god. The look on his face…
Why does he look like that?
“Take the cart and go, Voss.”
“I will not! I’m a fucking human being!. I’m not a mindless piece of meat, to be ordered around. My dad was a drunk and an addict, and he died in a pool of his own puke when I was five years old. I’ve managed without a father ever since then. I’m not holding auditions for a new one now!”
He draws deep—a ragged, painful breath. “Fuck, Sorrell. Please. Just…please. I’m literally begging you.”
My mind reels. I can’t even begin to unravel what’s going on right now. I feel like I will officially lose my shit if I don’t get some answers soon. I’ve never seen anyone look so desperate, though. Theo’s is unrecognizable. There are dark circles beneath his eyes. His skin is wan and pale. His lips seem bloodless, and such a terrible pain shines out of his eyes that I can’t bear to feel it cast in my direction.
“If I get back into that cart, you’re going to tell me what the fuck is going on,” I say. Not a request. Not a plea. A statement. The time for begging for information is over, and I will have the answers I need or there’ll be hell to pay.
Theo looks utterly defeated…but he nods. “All right. We’ll talk tonight.”
“Great.” Going against every instinct I possess, I get into the cart. I do not leave, though. I wait. A rotting, festering sinking unpleasantness settles in my gut; it takes all of my will power not to throw up into my own lap. I watch as Theo stalks across the jetty, to where Principal Ford and Ruth look to be locked in a heated discussion. Are they arguing? As soon as Theo arrives, he rounds on Ruth andrages. I can’t hear what he says. I can’t understand the strange series of emotions that pass over my mentor’s face—sadness; confusion; irritation; frustration. I understand the last look that settles on her, though. Pure anger. Out of nowhere, she lashes out at Theo, striking him hard across the face.
I cover my mouth with my hands, watching in disbelief as Theo goes for her; he looks like he’s about to hit her back, for fuck’s sake. But he doesn’t. He reins himself in, both his hands balled up at his sides. Principal Ford steps between them, holding her hands up in a placating gesture that doesn’t seem to calm either Theo or Ruth down. The principal speaks, her mouth moving a mile a minute, and Theo looks away, back out across the lake, clenching his jaw. He looks wound tight enough to explode.
Without saying another word, he spins on his heel and charges back up the jetty. He doesn’t look at me as he charges along the edge of the lake and disappears, not back up toward the academy, but toward the dense forest to our right.
I hardly register Principal Ford getting back into the golf. A heavy, oppressive silence chokes in the air. Ford opens her mouth, but I slowly shake my head. “Don’t. Please. Just…don’t. I can’t stomach any more lies right now. Just take me back up.”
16
SORRELL
I curl into a ball,listening to the rain hammer against the window. On the other side of the glass, the world is a streaky grey, gunmetal mess. The green of the lawn and the copse of trees in the distance is drab, the details of the landscape reduced to muddy smudges.
I unravel in my cocoon of blankets, quietly coming apart.
I don’t even rehash the events of this afternoon in my head. What would be the point? I wouldn’t even know where to begin. Where would I start, if I wanted to make sense of any of this? If I could justfinda starting point, the beginning of the thread, and work my way forward from there, I might have a fighting chance of muddling through, but everything is so tangled together that doing so is simply impossible.
So I lie in my blankets, nursing a pounding headache, that cursed piece of music haunting my thoughts, doing my best not to think at all.
Just after seven, there’s a knock at my door. It’s Lani. She wears a pitying look that stokes my anger into a burning inferno. It could destroy the world, this rage I have inside me. I know I shouldn’t direct it at Lani, but the very last thing I need right now is her fucking sympathy. “If you’ve come here to try and make me feel better, or talk it out, or braid my hair or some shit, you can forget it,” I say, blocking the entrance to my room with my body.
She nods, as if she understands perfectly what I’m going through and how I’m feeling right now. “I know. I haven’t, I promise. Actually…Theo sent me.”
“Wonderful. Let me guess. He’s breaking his promise and not coming to have a conversation with me, right?”
“No. He wanted to make sure you still wanted to see him first. I take it that you do?”
