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“Ro, sweetheart,” Gideon says quietly. “When has the presence of other students ever kept people from trying to hurt you?”
Well, damn. He’s got me there. Even students not affiliated with the covens have gone out of their way to make my life hell, regardless of who is around. I look at the front of the ferry, where I can just make out the buses and the drivers waiting. And there, I see a face that I actually trust. That I know will keep me safe.
The ferry slows. Before any of them can stop me, I shift away from Gideon and hurry toward the pedestrian plank again. “I’ll ride with Faulkner!” I call over my shoulder.
I’m sure that they call out protests, but I don’t hear them, because I’m already so far away from them. Cohen Faulkner, Seven Stars security guard, grins when he sees me. I grin right back as he shakes his head. “Rosalind Sweeney, you must be some kind of idiot coming back here.”
I laugh, resisting the urge to throw my arms around him in a hug. “I know, right?”
Cohen has had a front-row seat to most of my humiliation over the last six months. Each time he’d genuinely tried to help me, tried to figure out who was doing those things to me. And he’d nearly paid the price for it with his job when a rumor had started that he and I were involved.
And yet, here he is. Waiting to greet me.
It makes a warm spot bloom in my chest that I probably shouldn’t allow myself to feel.
He gives me almost a shy smile, his icy green eyes roving over me. “When I saw your name on the list of returning students, I thought you might need a ride up to the campus.”
“You thought right.”
Cohen tucks his hands into the pocket of his jeans and starts walking toward the parking lot. I laugh when I see what he’s brought. A golf cart. Not a car.
He gives me a sheepish look. “I thought we could take the trail instead of going the long way.”
“No arguments here.” It’ll be a heck of a lot faster than sticking to the roads that lead to campus, which means I’ll be there long before the four boys who seem to think keeping an eye on me is now their full-time job.
We climb in and Cohen starts off, wheeling his way through the town to the two mile-long trail that leads to the campus in much more of a straight shot than the roads.
“Will you get in trouble for doing this?”
He glances over at me. “For doing what? Monitoring the trail like I was assigned to today?”
I arch a brow at him, and he chuckles, shaking his head. “Okay, so I requested to be assigned to this area, but to answer your question, no, I will not get in trouble for giving you a ride to campus. All the security guards have done it on more than one occasion. And I wouldn’t have missed welcoming you back for the world, Rosalind.”
I hum and grab onto the handle on the ceiling as he takes a sharp turn at speed. My heart thumps in my chest and I don’t know if it’s because of the speed or because of his words.
“How was your break?”
I glance at him again, thinking about how I was attacked in a graveyard in London. “Quiet.”
He rolls his eyes at me. “Something tells me that’s not true. Trouble follows you wherever you go.”
If only he knew.
Cohen drops me off just before the end of the trail at my insistence. I don’t want him to get in trouble, despite his assurance that he won’t, but Dean Hardstark has already spoken to both of us once about having a relationship, and I just don’t want to risk it. Like he said, trouble follows me everywhere.
I head toward the girls’ dorm, intending to go to my room before the welcome back assembly, but I quickly realize I don’t actually know if my room is still mine. When I dropped out, I likely lost my room on the second floor. I just don’t know if they gave it to someone else. They probably did, right?
I detour to Putnam.
I haven’t made it more than halfway there when I hear an annoyed voice call out my name. “Sweeney!”
Frowning, I turn to where all four Consequences are heading my way, striding with purpose and the promise of retribution in their eyes. Though why that would be the case, I have no idea.
“You can’t just run away from us, love,” Hardin chides as they come to a stop in front of us. I roll my eyes.
“Well, you can’t have some kind of weird competition where you make me choose between the four of you. If you do that, I will always pick none of you.” I start walking again and they fall in around me, making it clear to anyone paying attention that I am with them, protected by them.
I try to ignore the glances coming our way, how the other students eye first them and then me, likely wondering why I am with them.
