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Her footsteps pad heavily behind me until she’s walking at my side. My eyes roll, not even granting her a glance.
“Oh, did you suddenly decide to help us?” She careens toward me and does a curtsey while continuing to walk at my side. “Thank you, almighty Mr. Saint for sparing us a second of your time to aid us in finding your fucking sister!”
She’s such a pain in the ass.
“If we’re being totally honest, I don’t need your help or Crew’s or Jagger’s. As far as I’m concerned, none of you have done a damn thing to help Maddie. If anything, all you’re doing is making shit worse. ”
She stops walking and I steal a look from my periphery. Her expression suddenly grows despondent. Eyebrows stoic, lips flat. “Jesus Christ, Scar. Don’t be so dramatic.” When her feet stay planted to the tile beneath her, my posture goes slack. I spin around to face her, head down, eyes on hers. “We’re all doing a shit job. Now, can we go? Please?”
Something about what I said brings life back into her. Her eyes soften and she bites back a smile. “Did you just say please?”
Fuck. Did I?
“No.”
She’s full-on smiling at this point, and for some reason, the proof of her happiness twists my stomach in knots.
“Yeah, you did. You said, and I quote,‘can we go, please?’”
“So what if I did? Who fucking cares if I said please?”
Her shoulders dance, the glee on her face never faltering. “I care, because that’s exactly what I was talking about. This is one of those moments I was talking about where you show a bit of humanity.”
I sweep the air with my hand and keep walking toward the records room. “You’re insane.”
She jogs back up to me, warranting a sigh. “And you’re not as dead inside as you want everyone to think you are.”
We’re walking in step when I ask, “Have you not heard anything I’ve said to you in the past five minutes?”
“I’ve heard. I’m stupid. I’m a bitch. I’m basically ruining your life. Oh, and you said the word please.” Her hands clasp together and that shit-eating grin on her face returns.
She's fucking loving this. One moment where a simple word slips out of my mouth and she will hold it against me until the end of time. It wasn’t even a niceplease.It was more of aright-fucking-now please.But whatever. If she wants to think warm blood runs through my veins from time to time, so be it. I know the truth. I’m the one who shivers at my own fucked-up thoughts. The one who fights like hell to wake up from his nightmares, only to find out I was never asleep.
Rounding the corner to the administration offices, our shoulders brush, and you’d think I just lit her arm on fire. Scar jolts, taking a few steps to the right and away from me. It’s laughable how much she pretends to despise me. I say pretend because, deep down, I don’t think she really hates me at all. Which is exactly why I have to up my game. I want her to loathe my existence. Only then will I be certain she won’t try and get too close because, if she does, I’m afraid I might have another moment of weakness and let her. If that happens, I’ll be just as despicable as she is. One touch, and we’re both going straight to hell.
ChapterThree
SCAR
“What exactly are we looking for?”I ask Riley, as she picks through a stack of folders she placed on a large desk.
“Elias Stanton’s school records. The dates just aren't adding up.” She glances over her shoulder. “I’m not finding anything here. Are we sure he was in the class of 2001?”
Jagger is the first to respond. “He was born in 1984. Had to be either 2001 or 2002.”
“That would be the year most of our parents graduated.” I say the fact out loud.
“All but mine,” Riley says. “My mom and dad were two years ahead of yours.” Leaving the stack on the desk, she pulls open a large drawer on the opposite side of the one she was just in. She closes it then opens another, repeating the process until she finds what she’s looking for. Bunching together at least a dozen folders, she pulls them out and plops them down on the desk beside the others. I watch intently, feeling like I’m not offering much help, but I don’t really know what I can do.
With the lights off, the only way we can see is with the screens on the open computers and the flashlight that’s on top of Riley’s head, which is attached to some sort of headband. She truly looks like a Guardian in all her glory.
Neo is sitting in the desk chair staring somberly at a wall—more than likely figuring out how many bodies can fit in a six-foot hole. Crew’s in another room, where he got himself logged into the headmaster’s account, and I’m almost certain he’s changing his American lit grade because he failed the last test. Jagger is in here on his own laptop, doing some research on the Beckett family. And, of course, Riley is searching for Elias’s paper trail.
“Got it,” Riley blurts out, her hand in the air holding the folder. Everyone stops what they’re doing and hurries over to where she and I are standing in front of the desk.
With Riley’s flashlight shining down on the open folder, she reads some random facts out loud. “He came to The Academy his junior year in 2001. Set to graduate in 2002.” She flips a few pages. “He entered as a Rook. Climbed up pretty quickly to an Ace.'' She turns a few more pages, but before she can read further, Neo snatches the folder off the table.
“Gimme that.” Using his phone, he turns on the flashlight and shines it down on the folder.
