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He could be completely insane, but if that were the case, I would want to know that too.

I wanted to know everything.

The facts of the case were simple—we’d all arrived at a mysterious boarding school that never had class, the teachers wore masks and didn’t speak, students were being sacrificed to a monster in the basement, and there were tunnels beneath the school that we believed led to an exit.

But fuck, saying that in my head made me thinkIwas insane.

I was probably going to need at least five therapists, at the minimum, once this was all over.

Clenching my jaw tight enough to break, I ground out, “Tell me.”

“Everything?” He quirked a manicured brow, and something entered his eyes, something besides the usual impassiveness I was so used to seeing from him. Excitement. Maybe even amusement.

“Everything,” I agreed…praying that I didn’t come to regret that decision.

He steepled his hands together on top of his chest and leaned forward, a contemplative expression on his artfully handsome face.

“Very well.” He tilted his head to the side. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this, doll. I’ve met thousands and thousands of students, and a handful of them have asked me to divulge my secrets. I always tell them no, but now…” Another curious gaze speared me. “For some reason, I want to tell you everything. Maybe I believe you actually have a chance of escaping.”

His eyes twinkled as if he was reining in laughter, but I kept my lips compressed in a straight line.

“So…?”

“So.” He tapped his long fingers against his thigh before abruptly standing up, his sudden movement startling me so much, I fell further into the couch. “Come. Let me make you dinner”

“Dinner?” I asked, my tone betraying my incredulity.

He smirked at me, the smile not quite reaching his eyes, and gestured towards the table we’d just played poker at. “You do like to eat, don’t you?” He bent forward to rummage through his minifridge—the only student in this school who had one—and I wasn’t going to lie. My eyes totally remained glued to his firm, muscular ass until he straightened up.

Sue me. He might have been batshit crazy, but he was also fine as hell.

His grin widened, and this time, I was pretty sure it was genuine. The man knew how attractive I found him and reveled in the knowledge.

When he slammed the fridge door shut, he had a loaf of bread in one hand and packages of turkey and cheese in the other.

“Sandwiches okay?” He didn’t wait for me to respond as he traveled to a tiny counter just to the left of his fridge and began to toss meat and cheese onto the bread slices. I stood from the couch and moved to stand in front of him, watching each of his movements carefully. Cautiously. Heath was a cobra I was terrified would strike at the slightest provocation.

“I’m not really hungry,” I responded, but the look he gave me told me that wasn’t an option.

When I continued to eye the food as if it were poison—which wasn’t out of the realm of possibility, knowing what I did about this school—he sighed, forking his fingers through his brown hair. His icy eyes speared me in place as he held his own sandwich to his lips and took a bite. “It doesn’t have the drug in it,” he told me, easily able to read the expression on my face. “You won’t forget.”

The food in the cafeteria all contained a strange, unidentifiable drug that made the students completely oblivious to the horrors directly under their noses. As such, the guys and I had chosen to only eat food from sealed containers. If we were forced to eat any of the cafeteria food, Aiden had a second drug that was supposed to reverse the effects of whatever the professors gave us.

Sighing, I accepted the sandwich Heath handed me and took a tentative bite. The bread was slightly stale, but at least the meat and cheese were fresh.

And better than that, my mind remained sharp and coherent, not at all clouded over by the drugs I had when I first arrived.

“Sit. Sit.” He moved back towards the poker table and held his sandwich in one hand. With his other, he pulled back one of the seats and nodded for me to sit. I practically rolled my eyes at his chivalrous display. I had a feeling that Heath was anything and everythingbutgentlemanly.

When he finally sat opposite me, his sandwich already three-quarters of the way done, I worked to get the conversation back on track.

“So…you claim we’re in Purgatory.” I couldn’t even begin to wrap my head around this. On one hand, his words sounded ludicrous, absolutely insane. But on the other…

They felt right. It was a stain on my soul that I couldn’t remove, no matter how hard I scrubbed. Nothing I did, no amount of soap, could eradicate it.

Purgatory.

The word tasted bitter and caustic on my tongue, almost acidic in nature, and I desperately wanted to spit the word onto the ground.