I snarled, my lip rising with disgust. Then, I paused for a millisecond, realizing that the last few times Isaiah had called me Good Girl, I didn’t recoil like normal. Weird.
My tongue stayed tied as I pulled my arm free from his touch. I eyed the light from the hallway from behind his wide stance. If I just slipped past him quickly and kept my back to the other side of the wall, I’d make it out and into the open area. But running wasn’t a specialty of mine, and without having a solid plan of escape, I needed to stay put. I knew that from experience.
“A message for whom?” My voice didn’t shake with my question, and pride filled me.
But just because I didn’t seem afraid on the outside, didn’t mean I wasn’t on the inside. Bain gave me the creeps. He had given me the creeps on Saturday, especially when we were in a pitch-black room, and he gave me the creeps now. There was something cold in his touch. Something that felt too familiar to me. “Your little boyfriend, that’s who,” he snarled, squinting his other, uninjured eye at me. “Tell him that I know who he is...” He huffed out a laugh, and I pulled back even farther from his space, annoyed that his breath was touching me. He pushed his unbuttoned white cuffs up to his elbows before grinning at me wickedly, pausing for dramatic effect. His square jaw dropped as he reached a finger out and stroked the side of my face, despite me pulling away. “And it won’t be long before I know who you are too. I recognize you. I just don’t know where from yet.”
I felt the blood drain from my face as he trailed his nail over my cheek, like he was summoning the blood to leave my body by the request of his finger. Then, he spun around and left me standing in the dark, spider-infested corner alone as the late bell rang throughout the hall.
I hurriedly rushed into art, and I’d been a frazzled mess since.
Mrs. Fitzpatrick was still talking with me about the painting I’d done early yesterday morning before breakfast as all my peers were still asleep in their beds when I felt the looming danger from behind. I knew Isaiah was staring at me; I could feel his eyes the entire class. The skin on the back of my neck was prickly, and Bain’s words played on repeat as each second passed.
I recognize you. Did that mean Bain knew Richard? Did he know me? Better yet, did he know what went on behind closed doors? Richard was very private when it came to me, except for when he’d drag me to his elite dinner parties that consisted of other shady businessmen and politicians. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the way they’d talk to me and run their hot gazes over my body told me all I needed to know now: Richard’s closest allies were not good people. Not at all.
I wouldn’t have been surprised if they knew the details of my uncle's plans for when I turned eighteen. He didn’t think I knew, but I did.
“Gemma.” Isaiah’s hand wrapped around my small bicep just as I began walking out of the art room like I had a fire trailing me. “Wait up.”
Blinking through thick moisture, which infuriated me to no freaking end that my thoughts had caused such a thing, I glanced up to his face.
The blue color of his eyes caught my attention first, and for a single, fleeting moment, I felt at peace. Calm. But then everything came tumbling back into view, and my lips turned downward.
“We need to talk,” I rushed out, feeling the words waiting to explode out of my mouth.
“Come on,” he said in a low voice as some students passed by but not without looking at us with their greedily receptive eyes. Drama: it was what made high schoolers thrive.
I shifted my attention to Cade and Brantley as they tipped their heads to us and walked away with furrowed brows and phones in their tight grasps. They definitely looked like they were up to something.
“They’re taking the blog post down. I didn’t know about it until right now. I know you feel uncertain that it won’t get back to your uncle, which it won’t, but I’ll get it taken care of.” Isaiah pulled me into the classroom beside the art room that must not have been used in quite some time, because it smelled of dust and had white sheets draped over every last piece of furniture. He shut the door behind me quickly, pulled me away from the dirty glass window, and let go of my hand.
He stood back and watched me with a careful eye, and I did the same to him. A small, barely noticeable flutter of butterflies swarmed my stomach, and it seemed all my thoughts disappeared. He wore his maroon school blazer today, which fit his wide shoulders perfectly. His tie was still a little loose around his neck, his tanned skin peeking out from the top of his unbuttoned white shirt. His coal-colored hair fell over to the side in a deliciously messy way, and before I knew it, my mouth was gaping, and heat was blasting to my cheeks.
Words died on my tongue as I went to say something, because not only was I checking Isaiah out, but I think he was doing the same to me. His eyes were locked and loaded on my bare thighs as I squeezed them together, and I swore there was a strong magnetic pull that was almost forcing me over to him. Wait…why did we need to talk again?
“Um,” I finally managed to breathe out. The short word seemed to bring us both back to reality as his head snapped up, and his icy eyes left my legs.
“Fuck. Right.” Isaiah shook his head and leaned back onto the sheet-covered desk.
I stayed exactly where I was to begin with, too afraid to get any closer. “Did you attack Bain? Did you do that to his face?”
His jaw was tense. “No.” Then, he shrugged. “That’s not to say I didn’t want to, though. But I’m on probation with the SMC, remember? I can’t afford to get in trouble.”
I sighed in relief but shifted nervously in my new shoes that had magically appeared on my bed yesterday morning when Sloane and
I got back from breakfast. She laughed and rolled her eyes playfully, mumbling something under her breath about the headmaster. “Bain talked to me before class,” I said, pulling my blazer sleeves down over my wrists.
Isaiah’s eyes hardened before he shrugged off his jacket and crossed his arms. “He talked? Or did he do something else?” The hardness in his gaze made me gulp.
Just how dangerous was Bain? And how dangerous was Isaiah? My inner voice whispered the answer to that question before I answered him. “He said to tell you he knows who you are.”
Isaiah’s chest heaved, and I watched as veins popped out over his hands. “Was that it?”
My gaze shot down to my new shoes. They shined with the little bit of light coming through the window as rain slashed at the glass. “No.”
“Good Girl…” Isaiah was closer now, and I quickly brought my head up to see where he was. His strides were slow and casual as he approached me, stirring up the dust in his wake. “I know you don’t trust me, but if it has to do with Bain, I need you to tell me.”
My tongue swiped over my lips as my heart thumped against the walls of my chest. A really big part of me wanted to trust him, but I had a really hard time trusting myself to do so. My judgment was skewed. After all, I’d trusted Richard for seventeen years before I’d learned that all he was, was a devious man hiding behind the gavel in his hand.