The walls were lined with a few windows, and a couple of stone benches were built into the room. There used to be some kind of house or meeting place attached to the tower, but it was long gone now.
Black vases hung from the walls with decaying roses the color of ash sitting inside. Who knew how old they were?
A little light streamed in, making the red, blue, and gold of the stained-glass windows dance off the walls, and wooden stairs wound around a wall and spiraled up, disappearing from my sight.
Kai released my hand and pulled out a book of matches, lighting the small stub of a candle sitting on the windowsill. The small room glowed a little warmer, and I suddenly became very aware of how quiet it was, the music nearly inaudible in here.
His presence—the anticipation—was a weight on my chest. God, he was beautiful.
His skin was a little darker than mine—warm, tanned, and glowing—and I bit the corner of my lip, gazing at his neck. I could see the ridge of the vein coming through the skin, and I wondered what it would feel like to touch it.
I’d seen his mother once. He had her lips and smile and lashes.
But Kai definitely took after his father, too. Angular jaw, lean body, straight nose, and while his hair was thick like his mom’s, it was coal black like his dad’s. He also inherited his father’s sharp gaze…. So sharp and stern it intimidated me.
Kai turned, the candlelight flickering in his eyes, and I heard the wind howling in the trees through the open gate.
“How do you know me?” he asked, walking toward me.
“Everyone knows you.”
“Do you go to our school?”
I shook my head. “I’m…homeschooled.”
Which was, I guess, the best way to describe it. I’d only made it through the sixth grade, missing more school than I attended, when my brother moved me in with him and made me start doing all of his homework, while I stayed home all day. And that’s how I learned Algebra and Spanish and how Shakespeare used corruption, betrayal, and deception as themes to portray guilt, sin, and retribution. He attended the classes, absorbing just enough to pass tests, while I did the written work, absorbing just enough to not be completely ignorant. There were gaps, of course, but I’d done a really good job of disciplining myself to do the work and his assigned readings. I had always been less than everyone around me, and it made me want to be more. I’d try to get my diploma, at some point.
“I see you around, though,” I explained. “My bro… my mom cooks for the Torrance’s.”
I swallowed, my throat like a desert. That was a lie. Marina wasn’t my mother, but it was the explanation we decided to give people, since my father didn’t want anyone outside the house to know who I really was.
Neither did my brother.
I finally looked up, seeing Kai just watching me with probably a thousand more questions in his head that I hoped he wouldn’t ask.
“I should go,” I told him.
I moved to head around him for the door, but he blocked my escape, stepping in front of me again.
“No.” He placed his hands on both sides of me, on the wall, locking me in. “The thing is, you heard my all my shit today, and I like my privacy. How do I know you won’t talk? How do I know you didn’t Instagram yourself in that confessional, bragging that you were punking me?”
I shot my eyes up. “I wouldn’t…I…” I rushed out, stammering. “I would never do something like that.”
“Why should I believe that?”
Because it wouldn’t have even occurred to me! I wasn’t devious. I’d been elated when he started talking in that confessional.
“Because I…” I trailed off, searching my brain. “I don’t even have Instagram.”
He cocked his head, his eyes scolding me for such a stupid response.
“I don’t even have a cell phone!” I blurted out. I didn’t even have the capability to record his confession, dammit.
“You don’t have a phone?” He didn’t look like he believed me. “Everyone has a phone.”
Apparently not.
But before I got a chance to retort, he reached out and put his hands on my hips, squatting down, and trailing his hands down my thighs.