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His touch was burning through my clothes, burning away my skin, until I was stripped bare for this monster to see. My heart continued to beat, my lungs continued to take in air, but I was dead to the world. This fucking monster had killed me with just a touch.
Desperate, I began to run, distantly aware of his laughter echoing behind me. I had no destination in mind, only away.
My footsteps pounded over the carpeting, down a spiral staircase, and outside. The sunlight belied how cold the day had become, my thin jacket doing little to quell the chill. Still, I ran. Past the carefully planted flower beds. Past the ornamental roundabout with the stone statue. Past the academic building.
My breathing sawed in and out, my heartbeat ricocheting.
Pulling my jacket tighter around my shoulders, I became distinctly aware of a low moan. No, not a moan. A cry. A strange combination between a scream and a sob. Masculine.
I had run farther than I had thought, stopping just in front of a minuscule shed with distressed wooden walls, faded white paint, and a collapsed roof. Row after row of unwashed windows greeted me, and the doorway was balancing precariously on its hinges. Weeds and ivy climbed up the structure; the grass was overgrown, completely obscuring the pebbled pathway.
The sound—the hiccuped cry—was coming from in there.
My mind warred within me, curiosity fighting against my rational sensibilities. My curiosity won out, and I found myself slowly venturing toward the building, hands shaking with nerves. The air was cold, but that was not the cause of the goosebumps erupting on my skin. My tongue snaked out to lick my suddenly dry lips as I pushed open the rusty door. Steady hands belied my fear when I looked around the sparsely furnished dark room. The only light came from the blighted sunlight, peeking through the gray clouds.
There was no furniture besides a worktable carrying a handful of unfamiliar tools. Opposite that, yellow tape announced a section of the room as “in construction”—a fact that I found immensely odd considering it was mere inches from the wall. What could possibly be added when a fence was adjacent to it just through the faded wood? The second thing I noticed was the shock of garnet hair and piercing eyes. Those eyes effectively trapped and ensnared my own.
They were red-rimmed, tears suspended from his abnormally thick lashes. His nose was just as puffy, as were his cheeks.
“Kace?” I asked, shocked. My eyes automatically roamed his body for injuries. Had the professors gotten to him? Hurt him? The mere prospect had me seeing red. I had never considered myself nurturing or protective before, but something about Kace made me want to kill every last person who dared hurt him. Dared to make him cry as he was. I couldn’t understand my own emotions, my own feelings. I told myself that I hated him and his friends, hated everything that he stood for, hated what he had done to me, but a sly voice whispered something else entirely.
After all, what had Kace done besides take the fall for me? If I should hate anyone, it should be Tanner and Aiden. Aiden specifically. There was no denying that he was the instigator of everything that had happened—the drugs, the lies Tanner told me, the constant bullying.
“Kace?” I ventured a tentative step forward. He reminded me of a cornered animal preparing to run. His wide eyes flitted, never sticking on one thing in particular. After that initial eye contact, he made a point of not meeting my gaze again.
“Go away,” he whispered harshly. Succinctly. His words were as sharp as a whip marring flesh.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Why do you fucking care?”
His words momentarily stunned me. Because he was right, of course. I had no reasontocare, no reason to want to comfort him. Not after everything we had been through.
Those assholes had drugged me and lied to me, made me believe that I was trapped at this magical school—scoff—but Kace’s vulnerability called to me and my protective instincts. Before I could second guess myself, I crouched down beside him.
I didn’t touch him—I had a feeling he wouldn’t appreciate the gesture—but I allowed him to know that I was with him.
“Did the professors hurt you?” I asked softly.
He snorted, lips curving into a cruel sneer. “Everybody hurts everybody in this world. That’s just the nature of life, Bianaca.” His voice turned hoarse, each word nearly indecipherable. “I have hurt so many people.”
“You have,” I agreed with an offhand shrug. When his head snapped toward my face, I smiled unapologetically. “What do you want me to say? Lie? We both know that would do no good.”
“I hurt you,” he continued brokenly. “Why are you being nice to me?”
“Because you also saved my ass,” I pointed out. “You took the blame for me. And besides, you weren’t the one bullying me. That was Aiden and Tanner.”
He looked so despondent that my heart physically ached for him. I wanted to reach out and grab his hand, but I balled my hands into fists to resist the urge.
“I should’ve stopped them.” He bobbed his head decisively as if agreeing with his own statement. “I knew you had nothing to do with Josie’s disappearance, but the others…” He raked a hand through his hair causing the red strands to become even more disheveled. “Josie was a sister to all of us, but she was related to Aiden by blood. Her death…disappearance…” His voice fumbled over that word before he cleared his throat and continued doggedly, “It shattered him. Aiden, as you may have guessed, had never been the sanest person to begin with. He lost the final shred of his humanity when she went missing, and I don’t know if he’ll ever get it back.”
My legs throbbed from holding myself up, and I allowed myself to sink onto the dusty wooden floor. Curling my legs to my chest, I wrapped an arm around them. Holding myself together.
“What happened?”
Kace dropped back to the ground, sprawling himself spread-eagle. He stared up at the ceiling as if he found one of the wooden boards particularly interesting. For a moment, I thought he wasn’t going to answer. When he did speak, after a long moment of silence, his voice was subdued. Soft. Devoid of any feeling.
“What you saw at the cafeteria. They began calling names. Aiden was absent during that time—probably fucking his latest conquest. We were sitting at our usual table—Tanner, me, Josie, and Olivia—when Olivia’s name was called. At this time, we had already deduced that the school wasn’t what it appeared to be. We didn’t know everything, but we knew that any name called was fated for death.
