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She buries her face in her locker, doesn’t even look up.
“It’s me.” I lower my voice. “Elias Hart.”
She jerks her head around to face me, whipping golden hair across my face. She smells the same – peaches and coconut, and underneath something wild and undefinable – and the scent threatens to undo me. She cocks an eyebrow at me. “You say your name like I’m supposed to recognize it.”
I study her face as she drops her books on the shelf. On top is a battered leather volume – a book of Greek lyric poetry. It looks to be written in actual Greek. Where did Mackenzie go for four years that she developed a taste for ancient poetry?
“Elias Hart,” I say. “I can walk you to class if you like. We can catch up on—”
“You’re in my way, Elias Hart.” She places a hand on my pec. The touch is so sudden, so unexpected, that I let out a weird noise, like a wheeze. Smooth, Eli.
In my defense, I did not expect Mackenzie Malloy to be touching me today.
She’s painted her nails with a minty-colored polish that matches the cold of her eyes. Her fingers curl slightly, like claws. She shoves me. Hard. Caught off balance, I step back, crushing Noah’s foot with my heel. Noah grabs me before I fall on my ass again.
There’s a collective intake of breath – a reverse hurricane sucking the air from the corridor. I may be making an ass of myself, but I’m still Elias Hart. I’m not someone you fuck with if you want to survive at Stonehurst Prep.
“Fuck you, Mackenzie.” Noah fixes her with his own signature glare – burning hot with a rage he’d never be able to control around her. Surely she remembers Noah. He’d sure as fuck never forgotten her.
Mackenzie regards him with a detached interest. I watch the anger take hold of Noah, squeezing him inside until he bursts. His arm flies out, and I throw up a hand to deflect him. But he’s not trying to land a blow. Before I can stop him, he storms off toward homeroom. Great, now on top of everything else, I’ll have to deal with sulky, moody Noah.
Mackenzie doesn’t acknowledge his departure. She slams her locker door shut, spins on her heel, and strides off toward the Humanities block, her skirt hugging her thighs in a way that makes a hard lump form in my throat and something even harder strain my uniform pants.
Mackenzie Malloy.
After all these years, how is she back in my life?
And why is she pretending she doesn’t know who I am?
Mackenzie
Fuck. Fuck.
I knew it.
I knew this was a bad idea.
That guy at my locker, Elias Hart – the one with the too-perfect golden hair and the faint Southern drawl and the eyes that shine like the ocean. The one whose face seems oddly familiar, but I can’t place the how or why.
He knows me. Somehow.
If he knows me, he can undo me.
I checked everywhere. No mention of an Elias in any of my diaries. No photographs of the boy with the sunset smile and fuck-me-slowly eyes hidden in my room. I’d remember that face – it’s hard to forget, especially when he looked at me like I’m more than a morbid curiosity, like something precious he thought lost forever has suddenly appeared again.
What disturbs me the most is that some part of me recognizes him, too. Some part of me feels a connection to him that reaches back into the past, into before. And that’s fucking terrifying.
And his friends… the angry one behind Elias, with the eyes like charcoal tears and the wavy hair that just begs to run my fingers through it. And that other dude with the labret piercing who looks uncannily like Gabriel Fallen, singer from Octavia’s Ruin – only my favorite fucking band of all time. He even sounds like Gabriel – all sexy and British – but that’s impossible because Gabriel’s in Europe, writing a new album to honor the death of his drummer.
I shake it off as I walk into my assigned homeroom and slide into a seat near the back. I can’t afford to get distracted by guys this year. It’s tempting, because the whole sex thing is part of my stolen life, part of what I’m here to reclaim. But guys like them are also dangerous, in more ways than one. The only way I’m going to pull this off is to focus on getting through this year with my secrets intact. I can’t afford to let some dude – or dudes – derail that.
Even if they…
I pull myself from my thoughts as the room fills up. Eyes flick to me, over me, exploring and delving, drawing conclusions from every tilt of my chin and fidget of my fingers. Heads lean together as students whisper about me. I roll my eyes and take out my phone, tapping on the screen as I pull up the contacts list. Who the fuck cares.
Let them stare.
I scroll through the contacts. The iPhone is pretty old – at least four years old, to be exact. It’s got a case with a glittery pink heart on it, too young for me now, but I like it. The screen freezes, and I tap it on the edge of the desk. There are only twenty contacts, and I know them all by heart. I check anyway.
