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It’s menacing.
It’s deadly.
Leaning down, he whispers into Adam’s ear, causing his eyes to widen with fear and his face to turn white. It’s impossible to hear what’s been said over the roar of the crowd, but whatever it is, it sends Adam stumbling when Theodore loosens his hold.
Both men stand face-to-face again and the room halts. It’s as though everyone pauses for a moment, waiting. Hushed whispers go through the crowd as they watch to see what happens next.
It’s probably only less than a minute before Theo moves, but it’s as if time stands still for that long moment. His head turns towards me, his eyes catching mine as that deadly smile turns into something more.
Something worse.
Though I can’t pinpoint what it is.
I don’t move my gaze from his.
I can’t.
When he winks at me, I think I stop breathing. There’s an ache in my chest I don’t understand, and it won’t go away. Not when he finally looks away. Not even when his clenched fist strikes Adam square in the face.
Blood gushes from his nose, the bone cracking under Theodore’s knuckles.
That isn’t enough to stop him.
He throws punch after punch until the man is almost unrecognisable. The watching crowd screams in excitement the longer he continues with his beating.
Calling this a fight would be wrong; it’s nothing more than a brutal attack.
I don’t know how long it goes on for. Maybe it’s minutes, maybe it’s just seconds. At one point, Adam falls to the ground, but instead of stopping, Theodore brings a booted foot down on his groin. A collective wince goes through the room when he does it again and again.
Eventually, he stops, standing over Adam with that feral grin on his face. His knuckles are coated in the man’s blood, and splatters marking his face and chest.
When he turns towards the crowd, my blood heats.
I spin on my heel, rushing out the way I came in. My footsteps pound on the stairs, the outside calling to me so I can catch my breath. A taxi waits outside, and I quickly hop in. Reeling off the address of the last place I should want to go to right now.
But the one place I know he’ll find me.
THIRTY-SIX
“Ishedead?”Thewords slip out of Fallon’s mouth the moment I step into my parents’ cottage. Her voice is soft, cautious even, while she sips out of a glass of wine on the table.
She’s dressed in dark sweatpants and a matching hoodie. Her hair is tied off of her make-up-free face, and she’s never looked more beautiful. Her eyes lock on mine, the hazel barely distinguishable under the dim glow of the lamp in the kitchen.
“Do you care?”
She scoffs at my question, running her finger around the rim of the glass. She watches as I take slow, measured steps across the hardwood towards her. Nodding at the chair opposite, she gestures for me to sit down.
“I can’t have somebody’s blood on my hands, Teddy,” she tells me, lifting the glass to her mouth with a sad frown on her lips. “You can’t do that to me.”
“He’s not dead.”
She searches my face, looking for any sign of dishonesty. She won’t find it; I’m telling the truth. No matter how much blood I wanted to shed in that ring tonight, I kept him alive.
Though he’ll never return to the academy after tonight.
Nodding, she tips the wine down her throat, and I watch as her throat bobs as she swallows.
“Will you ever tell me why you pushed me away?”
