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62

Summer

I feel the color drain from my face, my entire body going cold as those words fully sink in.

“What?” I ask, hoping that I’ve heard her wrong.

She hisses, looking back at the door. “Get the headmaster. Now.”

I turn on shaky legs and run to the headmaster’s office. I barge in without knocking, not even caring if he yells at me. My blood rushes in my ears, and my head spins as my eyes lock on him. He takes his glasses off, dropping them on the desk.

“Miss Tuatha De Daanan. What’s wrong?”

My whole body is numb, but as I stare at him, my mind clears a little, and I can think again. “Sir, someone else has been?—”

He is out of his seat and standing beside me in a flash. “Show me.”

My heart is pounding, and my lungs burn as I try to gulp down oxygen, but I nod and lead him back to where I left Alice.

She is standing in front of the door like a diminutive guard dog, looking more intimidating than I have ever seen her. If anyone approaches, they’re immediately dissuaded by a glare and a snarl. I stop about ten feet away from her, but the headmaster breezes past me straight to Alice.

“I know the scent. It’s too much blood to be living.” Alice glances at me, fear flashing in her eyes before she looks back at the headmaster. “Definitely fae,” she says. Her voice is low, but I can still hear her as clearly as if she were standing right next to me in an empty room.

The headmaster nods once. “No one in, Miss Legosi.”

My gaze remains fixed on the door, imagining all the horrors it conceals.

The headmaster slips into the room, and for a few minutes, I remain frozen, staring at the door. But then my feet are moving of their own accord, taking me closer. Alice blocks my way, and I stop. I don’t say anything, but I hold her gaze, silently asking her to move aside, telling her with my eyes that I need to see what is behind the door. I need to know one way or the other if this is something I need to be afraid of or if it is just random.

Alice stares at me assessingly, and I wait patiently for her to decide. Finally, she nods and moves just enough to let me through. The room is exactly how I imagined it. There is blood everywhere. Gods, how can there be so much blood? Now that I’m in the room, the coppery smell mixed with the fear of the victim is overwhelming. She is in the middle of the room, propped up on the desk, left like some broken, discarded doll.

The headmaster spins and closes the distance between us in two strides, his large body blocking my view. “Out,” he growls.

I try to look around him, needing to see more and work out if there are similarities here, too.

He grabs my arms, holding me still and keeping me in front of him. “You should not be here.”

I look up at him, shocked to feel the unfamiliar warmth of a tear sliding down my cheek. “She looks like me. Doesn’t she?”

He holds my gaze with his mercurial eyes, and after a long moment, he nods.

I close my eyes, feeling another tear escape. “This is my fault,” I whisper.

“This is the fault of a murderer,” he growls.

I try to move again to see her, needing to give her this sign of respect. It is only fitting that I am forced to feel an ounce of the pain that was inflicted on her. It’s a decision I regret immediately.

“I asked you before if you were strong. Has your answer changed? Because it looks as if it has,” he asks harshly.

I look up at him, feeling more tears fall. My cheeks burn with the unfamiliar sensation, but they don’t stop. While I have always hated my inability to cry, I hate more how vulnerable it makes me look now. It makes me look weak, and I am so tired of being weak.

“This is senseless savagery. In the face of horror is when true strength appears,” he says. “Leave. Now.”

I brush my tears away and leave the room, but her face is burned into my mind. I walk past Alice without stopping, wrapping the numbness around myself like armor. Alice calls after me, but it’s like she’s on the other side of the realm. I walk through campus, dazed and in shock. My body feels like it’s shutting down. The only thing I can see is her with her pallid skin, the dark holes where her eyes used to be, and her hair matted with blood. Blood. So much blood.

I’m deep in the forest before I feel him. His hands grab my arms, and he shakes me, his voice loud in my ears. “Little fae.”

I struggle to get away from him, but he pulls me against his chest, and I stop fighting, all my energy draining from me. My breaths are painful and labored, making my chest seize. For the first time in decades, I feel tears pouring from my eyes and hysterical sobs wracking my body.

The stranger holds me, and I should be scared. I am scared, but fear surrounds me so thoroughly that I’m frozen in this terror. It takes minutes, hours, days, who the fuck knows before I manage to push myself away from him. My eyes are sore, not used to the salty tears.

“What happened?” he asks, not attempting to touch me again.

“Was it you?” I ask, my voice cold as ice, hoarse from the sobs.

He tilts his head.

“Don’t play dumb. Was it you?” I watch him, frustrated by his blurred form. “Did you kill her?” My voice shakes only a little as the question hangs between us.

“No.”

“You had nothing to do with it?”

He shakes his head and slowly reaches for my hand, pressing my palm to his chest. “I had nothing to do with it.” There is no flutter as he says it, no whisper of a lie, but maybe he’s just a very good liar. I’m a good liar, or at least I used to be, so I know it can be done.

I can tell he can sense my disbelief. “Why would I lie?”

“I don’t know why you do any of the things you do.”

“Did you know her?” he asks.

I pull my hand away and take a step back. “No.”

“Then why are you crying?” he asks.

I look away, shaking my head. “Just go away.”

“You’re scared,” he says. “Why? You could find them. Kill them if you want with barely a thought.”

I tense, the shock of his words shaking me from my stupor. “What?”

I feel him move closer to me, my body hyper aware of his presence. “You could kill them, this person. These people.”

I don’t move, staring up at his wavering form. Can he feel the same dark power in me that Torin could? It drove Torin wild with desire. He saw it as something to harness, something to control.

He crouches and starts drawing something on the ground. I narrow my eyes at him before looking down at the rune that’s taking shape in the mud between us. It’s not one I recognize, but I know it’s powerful.

When he’s done, he stands and brushes his hand against mine. “To reveal hidden things.” I look at him. Maybe today has just been too much because I do not understand what he is saying. “I can show you more. Teach you,” he says.

“Teach me?” I repeat.

It only makes sense to decline, to scream at him to leave me alone, but something stops me. This feels different. Torin never wanted to teach me to wield my powers responsibly. He wanted them wild and untamed because if I had control over them, then he didn’t.

I know I would benefit from his teaching. It is quickly becoming apparent that I cannot hide from my reality and the danger I am in, but there must be a price, something he wants, and I don’t know if I can pay it. Perhaps if I set some boundaries, I can turn this in my favor, ensuring the safety of not only myself but my relationship with Connor.

The darkness that rises and fills me with delicious hunger when the stranger is around must be tamped down. I can do that as long as he does not brush against the thinning membrane containing it.

“I have a couple of conditions,” I say, studying his featureless face, trying to read him.

“Which are?” I can hear the interest in his voice.

“You stop harassing me. Stop saying inappropriate things to me.” I pause briefly. “And we only discuss business,” I finish laying out my boundaries.

Surely, they will keep me safe, not only from him but also from the sick thrill I feel whenever I am with him, talking to him… thinking about him. Maybe putting some distance between us will protect me from the desires of the coiled darkness within me. I’ve been repressing it my whole life, but now it roils and stretches impatiently within me.

“Harassing you?” he asks, tipping his head.

I glare at him. “Yes, and you respect my relationship with Connor.” I tack on that last bit, given his penchant for diminishing it.

He crosses his arms over his chest. “I fail to see any benefit to me in this.”

“I’ll willingly hang out with you while you’re teaching me. You clearly want to be around me.”

“I want to protect you. It’s not the same thing,” he hisses, the vitriol clear.

“Well, if we eliminate the threat, you protect me. There’s your benefit,” I snap back, just as viciously.

“You’re using my…” I hear his jaw clench. “My focus on you.”

I narrow my eyes on him, trying to pretend my stomach doesn’t flutter at his words, but I also consider the word he chose and the hesitation before using it. It was as if he had stopped himself from saying something else, and I really wanted to know what that was.

“You want to die. Is that it?”

“Is that a threat, Stranger?” I snarl.

“Why won’t you just accept my help?” he growls back.

“Because you won’t accept my boundaries,” I hiss.

“Between you and me, there are none,” he growls, his voice raised.

“You and me? There is no fucking you and me. I don’t even know who you fucking are!” I shout back.

He grabs my face roughly, his fingers digging into my jaw. He’s not hurting me, but I feel how easily he could. “You will,” he says, his face inches from mine.

My breath hitches, and then he’s gone.

I fall to my knees, and without my anger fuelling my adrenaline, without the distraction of the stranger, the trauma hits me like a ton of bricks. It slams down on top of me, crushing me beneath its weight. I fall to my side, and everything goes black.