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“Cato, you locked them in,” I said, grinning wide. “I love you.”
“Love you too,” he replied without skipping a beat—taking a needle to my happy balloon and a flush down my neck. Did a guy just tell me he loved me for the first time and I had no idea if he meant it seriously or jokingly?
Yes, that’s exactly what happened to this milestone in my life.
And this is the part where I move on like nothing happened, and obsess about it later.
I didn’t sleep that night, and to my delight, neither did Annika, Wesley, or Giovanni. For about half an hour, they pounded and hollered at the door, calling for help. They did try calling on their phones, of course, but unfortunately for them, Wilder rerouted them to a number that rang endlessly and never picked up.
After both these attempts failed, they tried getting some sleep. I blared the music again until Giovanni lost it and threw his chair at the door.
He had no one but himself to blame for so many reasons. Just because he was a lying sack of duplicitous scum, but also because he had to have the best dorm on campus, and Lyon Hall rooms were soundproofed.
The boys all passed out long before me—Rafael’s leg pressed against mine, and my untrusting Wilder’s head on my shoulder.
I stared at my captives—tiredness pressed at the back of my eyes and film layered my mouth from too much soda and popcorn. Over and over I pressed the buttons, my smile huge and curled into aching cheeks.
TWO HOURS LATER, THEIR banging got the attention of someone passing in the hallway. I figured this out when the door flew open and three guards poured in.
It’s the only reason I let Rafael drag me away, promising that if I liked the night before, I’d love what he planned for Giovanni that night.
After grabbing a quick shower and bite to eat, I floated to my first class of the day—Cato by my side. For weeks and months, I thought of nothing but making the five men on the top of my list suffer till they begged for death. That my soul was warped beyond saving wasn’t lost on me. I didn’t miss the girl I was before. I just missed her big sister.
Fingers probed my skull. I hissed as he brushed over the bump.
“Fuckers got me good.” I gently drew his hand away, letting ours swing between us. “I am fine. The nurse checked me for signs of concussion. What really gets me is I don’t know for sure who it was. Saylor said I had the week to reconsider tossing Victor back into the Royal dating pool. If I didn’t, life would become twice as miserable for me here.
“I can believe sad little Royals would torment me to suck up to her, but I don’t get why the Dregs would join in. It’s not just Royals throwing drinks in my face, and it wasn’t a Royal who almost got me expelled. A Dreg could’ve messed with my chair too, but again why? I’ve seen the way Saylor treats other Royals, let alone the Dregs.
“Saylor and her friends are awful to them, so what’s the upside to bullying someone else to make your bully happy?”
“Because maybe then they stop bullying you.”
Said so simply and matter of fact, the statement stopped me in my tracks. “Do you really think that’s it?” I breathed. “Like how the Royals play this stupid game of status? Life gets easier for a Dreg if they do their bidding.”
My gut churned. “So that’s why none of them helped Winter. Fuck, that’s why they participated! Better some random former housekeeper’s daughter than one of them.”
Cato’s fingers glided down my cheek. “You’re crying.”
I hadn’t noticed I was until he said.
“Here.” Opening my hand, Cato placed something on my palm. My brows popped at the lighter. “They make you sad. Make you cry.” He closed my fingers tight. “They can’t do that if they’re burning.”
A shiver skittered up my spine. Cato Dumont was so many things behind his muzzle, but his stays in psychiatric hospitals were no accident.
I tasted the darkness in him. Watched it grow as a black-and-white movie on my mental screen. A young, handsome boy raised in money, amorality, and violence. An explosion rips his mother out of his life and not one, but two brothers are forever changed. Both driven to conquer pain and flames. Both courting brutality at the end of their marionette strings. Neither one of them subscribing to society’s sense of morals or sanity.
I don’t know when exactly our life scripts intersected, but I knew it was long before we met.
I slipped the lighter in my bag. “Thank you, Cato.”
He walked me to the door of the anthropology classroom, us arriving seconds after Victor. Wilson’s usual I’m God’s gift to the world grin faltered at the sight of my silent shadow in the muzzle. I waved bye to Cato, waiting for it to come.
