Cade
My temples throbbedas I rested my head against the headmaster’s office door. My entire body was vibrating with the thudding of blood to every open vein, and the shallow breaths told me just how much I wanted Journey, despite the look of pure betrayal that dominated the slate color of her eyes. My lips tingled, and my tongue was tinged with the sweet taste of her mouth, and I was completely out of sorts because Journey gave me nothing but another riddle to decipher, just like those fucking threats that were burning a hole in the floor of that linen closet.
You truly think I tried to kill myself because you stood me up? Her sharp-as-the-winter-wind laugh full of sarcasm echoed around the office, slapping me with confusion and concern. What did that mean? My heart pumped out doses of unsettling misfires, and the wheels were turning viciously. I quickly stood up and began pacing back and forth from Tate’s desk to the door that I’d just had Journey backed up against with my tongue halfway down her throat. When I reached his desk again, I violently pounded my fist on top of it. Papers flung through the air and landed all over the soft carpet, which had me craning my neck to the bookshelf.
I stomped over to a paper that was resting underneath a fallen book, grabbing it along with something that read Smith. My eyes scanned the contents quickly, realizing it was something that had fallen out of the folder that Journey had dropped when I bombarded her. What was I thinking? Putting my hand around her neck like that? The feel of her pulse against my fingers drove blood straight to my dick. I wanted to feast on her body more than ever before because I knew it would be different this time around. You appreciated something a little more when you lost it. I’d lost Journey, and although she was back at St. Mary’s, she was no longer mine.
She was different. The gray in her eyes hardened to stone as she tried to act intimidated, as if she were in charge of our conversation. Even through her lie of saying she wasn’t afraid of me, she still wasn’t the one on top. I could see right through her. The pale skin on her cheeks tinted with red as she pushed up against my front, feeling how hard I was for her, and I hoped like hell she knew that I didn’t give a fuck about the scars along her arms. I gave a fuck about her, and her alone.
Why did she lie?
She was afraid. Maybe not of me, but she was afraid of something, and a familiar feeling of protection flooded me like a tidal wave. I hadn’t felt protective over much since she left. In fact, I hadn’t felt much of anything since that night—not as deeply as I felt when she was near, at least. It was like Journey, herself, was my beating heart that kept me alive.
Leaving the office even messier than before, I headed straight for the girls’ hall while reading Journey’s lost paper. It seemed to be a summary of her life in what I was pretty sure was Headmaster Ellison’s handwriting:
Journey Smith - assumed birthdate: 10/18/2004
Arrived at Clemency Orphanage as a newborn on October 18, 2004 (given birthdate) bundled in a pink blanket with a note that read: In danger - keep safe and do not trust anyone. She has been at the orphanage since birth. Sister Mary did not allow anyone to adopt Journey due to the note, fearful that she was sending Journey with someone who shouldn’t have been trusted. Journey had issues as a young child with anger and feeling abandoned but slowly stopped discussing such issues as she grew older. She is very loving and smart. Sister Mary has asked me to educate her and to keep her safe until she graduates. At that time, Sister Mary said she would tell Journey of the note/threat. Sister Mary said there was never another note to be found regarding Journey, and all traces stopped at the original note tucked into her baby blanket.
My stomach knottedas I peered down the girls’ hallway, wondering how I’d even gotten there from the headmaster’s office. If the duty teacher was out and about tonight, I wouldn’t have known, because I was solely focused on what I’d just read.
What the fuck?
My eyes flicked to the linen closet that veiled the other threats that Sister Mary had seemed to be waiting for, except they came to me instead. Something sticky, like impending doom, had sludged up my veins and had me in a chokehold as I stood in complete and utter confusion. Did someone hurt her? I replayed the anger-laden conversation that I’d just had moments ago with a girl who smothered herself in every nook and cranny inside my brain, always showing up in between the empty spaces of dark and light. I began prowling toward her door as my heartbeat slowed, but it was hard, rocking against my ribcage, gearing me up for round two, until I heard a shuffling of feet and saw the flickering of a flashlight.
Fucking shit.
Part of me wanted to stand and wait to come face to face with the duty teacher, prepared to get detention, but the other part of me felt the need to be alone to gather my thoughts, so I slipped inside the very linen closet that held my secrets and rushed out leveled breaths until my pulse calmed.
The shine of the flashlight basked the floor of the darkened closet as it swayed by, and soon, the footsteps disappeared down the hall. I placed my shoulder against the door and tilted my head, my messy hair falling over my forehead. The longer I stood in silence, the more the threats laying just a few feet away underneath the shelf taunted me. Each one raced around my head, along with the new information I’d just stumbled upon, causing me to think very carefully about my next move.
My body was pushing me to go to her room, to slip inside and demand she explain her cryptic message followed by her condescending laughter, as if I was the malleable one in the situation. Did she think I was going to take her little warning and become pliable underneath her biting words?
If she thought I’d back off from her, she didn’t know me at all.
A quiet huff left my tight chest at the thought. Journey was likely just as confused about me as I was her. I did leave her out there that night. The moon was our witness.
It didn’t matter if I had good intentions backing my decision to cut her off or if they were justified at the end of the day. It didn’t matter if I was trying to be chivalrous and put her safety first. She ended up hurt, and it was my fault.
Only now, I wasn’t sure how she had gotten hurt, and she wasn’t really in the mood to tell me, and all that did was make me want to try harder. The perseverance ran deep.
Walking over to the pieces of paper that I would continue to keep under lock and key, I shoved the missing information from her file underneath my trusty keeper of a shelf and went back to the linen closet door, knowing I would retire to my room for the rest of the night and toss and turn in my bed until morning when I could see her again.
I’d keep my distance, but that didn’t mean this was over.
This was far from over, and deep down, she knew it.
My hand stilled on the doorknob as I cracked the door, hearing something in what should have been the still hallway. There was a rush of air that swept inside the stuffy crook full of blankets and sheets that caused prickles to hit my neck.
“What are you doing out of your room?” The voice of Mr. Cunningham filtered through the tiny opening of the door, and my brows crowded. Did Journey not go back to her room? I almost stepped out into the hall to save her, although I had a feeling she didn’t want to be saved, but when a different voice hit my ears, I stilled.
“Needed to clear my head.”
Motherfucker. The skepticism smacked right into me as I wondered what Bain was doing in the girls’ hallway when the majority of them were at the claiming. He had always snuck away—that was, if he hadn’t found a girl to feast on—to do his father’s bidding. And although the Rebels and I were technically out of the gun-running business due to turning our backs on our fathers and betraying them, Bain was not. His father now reigned over the western part of the United States and had taken past clients of Isaiah’s father and scooped them up under his wing, meaning Bain was still sneaking away occasionally and running guns.
My pulse began thudding against my neck as I rubbed the back of it tightly, trying to uncoil the tightened muscles that were bundled there. I couldn’t see much through the sliver in the door, but I could hear their conversation clearly.
“In the girls’ hall?” Mr. Cunningham asked suspiciously.