Good Girls Never Rise: A Dark Boarding School Romance

I was sure he had walked me so we didn’t get caught by whatever teacher had night duty this evening, probably the same one that almost caught us in the dining hall moments ago, but a small part of me wanted to think it was because he wanted to spend as much time with me as I did him.

“I’m sorry I took you with me tonight. It was reckless of me.” He dropped my hand and took a step away from me. “It won’t happen again.”

We stared at each other for a scarily long time, and each time I tried to sort my emotions and figure out what exactly I was feeling, I came up short. Because the truth was, I’d never felt like this in my entire life.

I felt different. Isaiah made me feel something big, and even though I understood why he was apologizing to me and why he was telling me that it wouldn’t happen again, I still felt the sting of disappointment. It was like he was closing off a part of himself to me, and that was silly because had he even really opened up in the first place?

He had. He told me why he was at St. Mary’s. He told me a little bit about himself, and I was certain it wasn’t without caution.

He opened his mouth to say something, but I interrupted him. “Remember earlier when you said your father was a bad man? That Bain’s father was? That Bain was?”

Isaiah’s brows lowered, and he dipped his head in a nod. I gulped back the fear that was crowding my throat and took a step toward him, placing my hand on his hard jaw, splaying my fingers out over his warm skin. “And how I told you that I knew all about bad men?” Isaiah’s gaze darted to mine as I whispered something so raw and unforgiving. “My uncle is a bad man too, Isaiah. And you were right. I am running from him.”

His hands were around my face so quickly I stumbled backward. Our lips joined together as he cupped my cheeks hard, crashing my body into his with a speed that made my pulse pause. His tongue dipped in my mouth, and that same coiled feeling of sparks that I seemed to feel every time he touched me erupted in flames. Was it the weight of my words that made this kiss even deeper than before? Or was it all in my head?

Isaiah pulled away quickly as he backed me all the way up to the door, pushing my back against it. “Why did you just tell me that? Where did that come from?”

I gulped a lungful of air before saying the same exact thing to him. “You told me some of your truth, and you deserve the same from me.”

We stayed quiet for a few moments before Isaiah ran a hand down his face. “We’re going to go up in flames, you and I. You know that, right? This…”—he pointed at me and then to him—“is…different.”

“Different?” I asked before shaking my head to bypass my question because it didn’t matter. “I don’t care if I go up in flames.” At least here, at St. Mary’s, I had the choice.

A quick breath-stealing kiss landed on my lips before he let go of me, and I was met with a shadow of something dark on his features. Torment? Pain? Regret? It was like a knife being lodged into my chest with either option.

“It would be a shame for someone as innocent as you to go up in flames, Gemma.”

Then, he turned around and walked down the hall as stealthily as he had crept into my life.

Sloane was sleeping when I snu

ck into our room, and I was grateful. I smiled at the sticky note taped to my pillow in her handwriting that read, Details. I knew she’d want me to spill everything that had happened with Isaiah, and I didn’t want to lie to her. In fact, I wasn’t sure what to say at all. Did I tell her about what he did to me? The kissing and the...other stuff? Did I tell her that we’d snuck out of St. Mary’s and that I’d wrecked the headmaster's car?

No.

I would take that to my grave. I couldn’t believe what the night had held, and I especially couldn’t believe that I didn’t regret a single thing. Not even driving illegally with my heart lodged in my throat as someone chased us from behind. I was certain the adrenaline was still flowing throughout and that was why I was so calm at the moment. Tobias would be so proud of me if he knew of all the things I was doing. He’d always been the more daring twin. He used to tell me that I needed to live more and bend the rules. Figure out who I was. Which was probably why Richard hated him as much as he did.

As soon as I stripped out of my clothes and quietly washed up in the bathroom, paying extra attention to how swollen my lips were and how my cheeks held the faintest tint of red on them, I slipped into bed beneath my fluffy covers and replayed the night over and over again as I tried to fall asleep.

I should have been tired, and I was. It was almost three in the morning by the time I’d laid down, but there had been one thing nagging at me from the second I let myself breathe again: the conversation with Isaiah when we’d pulled up to the place that Bain had gone to. I knew there was more to that story than Isaiah had told me, but I wouldn’t dig any further than I had. If Isaiah wanted me to know more, he’d tell me. He didn’t expect me to tell him my life story, and I didn’t expect him to either.

But what confused me the most about the entire situation was that the psychiatric hospital was vaguely familiar to me—like a photo in my head that was clear but tattered around the edges, leaving out the important stuff. And then there was the moment when I’d asked Isaiah where we were, and he said, “Somewhere I hope you never learn about.”

But I had learned about it.

Or seen it.

Something.

Something had clicked when we pulled up to the dark, ivy-covered building. It was almost as creepy looking as St. Mary’s.

I lay in bed for the next hour and a half, tossing and turning, in and out of sleep, willing the visual of the psychiatric hospital to rid from my brain. I’d even thought about Isaiah and his hungry kisses, but each time I’d let my mind wander, the nagging question popped into my head.

Why was it so familiar?

Then, it hit me.

I lifted the blanket off my body and peeled it away slowly, hoping the rustling wouldn’t disturb Sloane. Though, she had hardly moved an inch since I’d gotten back into our room.