Page 16 of Caelum

FIFTEEN

EVE

“I wish I were ready to fight and that my goddamn leg wasn’t so useless at the moment,” Dre mumbled as he stared at the rings.

I wasn’t sure why Reed had managed to knock him out for so long, but I knew that he was a lot weaker for it.

Though I was tempted to comfort him, I knew he hadn’t aimed the words at me but at Nestor, who clapped him on the back.

“Doesn’t matter, bro. Just get better in time for Aboh.”

“Easier said than done. Christ, we’re going to have two weak links.” Dre huffed. “Fuck knows what will happen.”

I frowned at him, and when he walked off in another snit—I swear, the guy had more moods than me—I asked Nestor, “You’re still going on this vacation to Aboh?”

His lips curved, but there was a light in his eyes that made me wonder what he was thinking about. “Yep.”

A short if not so sweet answer.

Studying him for a second, I was entranced by the length of his lashes and the way they brushed the upper curve of his cheekbones. If a man could be pretty, Nestor was close to that. I thought the only thing that saved him was the bump in his nose, which had obviously been broken several times.

Even as I wondered if that injury came from his parents’ fists or the boys here, I stated, “When do you leave?”

“Two weeks’ time.”

I bit my lip, trying not to be hurt that I hadn’t been invited along. Everything had changed since Dre had woken up, and I felt horrible even thinking that but it was the truth.

With his attention on the fight between Stefan and a guy called Tarick, who was built like a bull, I stepped away from the ring and headed out of the gym. I’d already worked out, so my suffering was done for the day. At least, I figured as much. I was sure someone else would tell me to slave away on the treadmill for another thirty minutes, but I preferred to walk around the grounds rather than be stuck inside watching grown men trying to make each other bleed.

The fighting was one of the reasons I subconsciously called them boys. Where it mattered, they weren’t grown up.

My mother had always said that at fourteen, I had more sense than my nineteen-year-old brother, and now that I was a little older with more sense than back then, I realized the same fit with the boys around me.

Slipping outside wasn’t difficult. We weren’t locked inside, after all, but I always felt like I was being duplicitous. Back at the compound, we were allowed only within allotted zones, and where the forest was concerned, we weren’t allowed anywhere near it even if, some days, I thought I’d sell my soul to be able to walk through those woods without anyone watching me—to be free, to be able to reveal my expression to the universe and not have to hide every last detail that made me me .

The thought had tears pricking my eyes as memories assailed me. I thought of the compound often, but never my family, and my biggest source of upset was that I didn’t miss them.

At all.

It was a joy to be here. So much so that it was hard to remember I was different. That this couldn’t be my home.

The thought had me curling my hands into fists so I could feel the prick of my nails against my palms.

“You going to punch that tree?”

I shot around and scowled at the boy who had obviously followed me from the gym. “What is it with you guys? You’re always trying to make me jump or something.”

Frazer shrugged. “It’s hard to talk to you when you’re not with the others.”

The others. I snorted. That was a nice, non-volatile way of describing their enemies.

I’d always thought the word nemesis was a tad strong, but Frazer’s three and my four loathed each other enough to be considered nemeses .

Well, I didn’t have four. Not when Dre disliked me so much, but the others felt like mine.

Sort of.

Another pang to my chest had me blinking up at Frazer. He had black hair and bright blue eyes. His skin was white, like alabaster it was so pure, and his jaw reminded me of granite. He had the jaw of a man whom you wouldn’t want to punch. Not unless you really wanted to have a broken wrist, at least.

“What are you doing out here?” I demanded and surprised myself yet again by not feeling any fear.

Once upon a time, I would have been nervous. Concerned at being away from everyone else, on my own with only a man at my side.

Though we were supposed to live a godly life, that didn’t prevent accidents from happening, and it didn’t stop the girls from being blamed either. Provocative behavior was something a man could punish any woman on the compound for, and it wasn’t the first time I realized how big a pile of bullshit that was.

The word flooded my subconscious with a deliciously disturbing image.

Bullshit.

One of Dre’s favorite words, if favoritism could be discerned by frequency of use, that is.

If I could, I’d bury Father Bryan in his own bullshit. He deserved it, that was for damn sure.

“Are you okay?”

The question was tossed at me along with a scowl. “No. I’m not,” I retorted.

He jerked back as though I’d hit him.

Surprised, I scolded, “If you don’t want an honest answer, don’t ask the question.” Spinning on my heel, I carried on down the path that would lead to the gardens on the west side of the property. I didn’t know what they were growing, but I liked the earthy smell and loved the view of the ocean even more.

Before I could take more than a few steps, though, his hand reached for my arm. I flinched at the strength in his grip then relaxed when he didn’t force me to look at him. He did nothing more than gently cup my elbow as he said, “Wait up.”

These prepositions would be the death of me.

I frowned at him. “Why ‘wait up?’ Why not just ‘wait?’”

He blinked. “Reed was right. ”

That had me huffing. “Yes, yes. I’m some kind of Victorian throwback. I can’t help it. Explain.”

“Explain what?”

“The difference between ‘wait’ and the ‘wait up,’” I demanded impatiently.

His brow puckered as he contemplated my question. I liked the way he scowled—it made his dark brows lower over his eyes, triggering a storm within the blue orbs that reminded me of the water crashing into the shore. “They mean the same thing.”

“I gathered that. So why didn’t you just ask me to wait?”

“Because that’s not the phrase,” he mumbled, reaching up and rubbing the back of his neck.

I could tell he was regretting talking to me, but now he’d made the first move, had indicated that he didn’t want me to go even if I was odd, I asked, “Why do you hate Stefan and the others? And why did Samuel call me a slut?”

His mouth opened, then he frowned again which had him firming his lips before he eventually mumbled, “You’re very blunt, aren’t you?”

A small smile played about my lips. “Yes.”

“Brusque too.” He began to walk, and when I didn’t follow, he half-turned to beckon me to move with him.

Our feet crunched on the pebbled path. The stones were white, and they glittered under the hot rays of the sun. Tiny occlusions in the stones made them seem like they were illuminated from the inside out. Against the roaring blue of the sky, I felt like I was walking on fire.

At my side, the hundred-year-old plus facade of the building gave way to a more modern stucco, and I’d noticed that the hodgepodge of different styles reflected different eras. There was one wall that looked like it had been blasted with tiny pebbles and another built of brick. For all that, it was like walking around a prison, and I’d be the one to know having lived in one most of my life.

With my gaze on the pebbles, I let Frazer speak because I didn’t have anything of interest to say, whereas he did.

Or so I thought.

“We’ve just never gotten along.”

It was my turn to scowl. “That’s it? That’s your reasoning?”

The others had told me that he and his friends were spoiled and thought themselves better than the others, but in my interactions with Reed, and now Frazer, I hadn’t noticed that. Samuel wasn’t pleasant, but bad pennies had a habit of turning up everywhere .

Look at Dre.

Maybe he was their version of Dre, with his constant scowl, endless huffing, and his champion-level ability to make me feel like a bowl made of butter on a summer’s day—useless.

He shrugged, and I could see he was taken aback by my disappointment in his answer. “Have you ever just disliked someone from sight alone?”

I thought about Sister Elizabeth with her perfect hair and perfect face and imperfect nature that made her a cat among the pigeons… I’d had to deal with her every day when I helped out at the compound’s school. “Yes. I have.”

“Then you know what I mean.”

Though I’d ponder that at a later date, wondering who was telling the truth and who was stretching it, I asked, “Why did you follow me outside?”

He shrugged. “You seemed sad.”

My eyes flared in surprise, which was actually quite uncomfortable considering how bright it was out here. There was a difference in light on the island. A difference I’d never come across before.

It was brighter here, I thought. Perhaps because we were closer to the equator? I wasn’t sure, just knew that I would have to stop simply borrowing the boys’ things and start buying clothes of my own.

I hadn’t been tossed out of the Academy yet, so why should I now? And I desperately needed a pair of sunglasses like the ones Nestor wore.

“I was sad,” I admitted, unsure why I told him that.

He nodded, not showing any smugness or self-satisfaction about being right. “I know.”

“Don’t you want to know why?” I inquired, my tone quite peevish when he fell silent.

“Dre’s awake. Dude’s got a tongue on him worse than a rattler’s bite.” Frazer shrugged, and when he did, his entire body seemed to jostle with the gesture. It was only then that I truly accepted how large he was. He was at least a foot taller than me, and even though I was round and pretty wide, he was even broader. “It was only a matter of time before you felt the sting.”

The irony being, of course, that Dre hadn’t exactly upset me. It was the prospect of not being invited to this Aboh place.

Why didn’t they want me to go?

Did they think I’d, as Stefan would say, cramp their style?

“Are you going to Aboh too?” I questioned, curious if it was a class trip or something.

He grunted. “Yeah.”

Well, he didn’t sound as happy about it as Nestor had. But I wasn’t happy either. Was it a boy thing? Could girls not go to Aboh? I wished I were friendly enough with the few girls in my year to ask if they were going to attend, but any overtures of friendship had been dismissed quite thoroughly over the last few weeks, so that wasn’t going to happen.

When the pebbled floor gave way to a patchy lawn that I could tell no amount of water would save from the scorch of the boiling hot sun, it was a relief to make it under the shelter of the garden.

There were plants and flowers here, but they were all covered with a bright blue tarpaulin that was strung up high to provide some shade.

The blue tarp went on for a couple hundred yards. The Academy wasn’t totally self-sufficient. I heard the plane taking off and landing every few days with supplies, but I knew the garden took off some of the pressure from the kitchens.

I’d yet to see someone working in here, though, and it made me wonder how early they worked to tend to a vegetable garden this size.

When I walked past a few rows of banana trees and then crossed paths with some tomatoes, I found what I was looking for. A solitary bench that overlooked the cliff.

“I didn’t know this was here,” Frazer stated, his surprise evident.

“Now you do.” I smiled at him, wondering why I was sharing my special spot when I barely knew him. “I found it those first few days when I needed some space.”

I’d never come here and found someone else using the bench, and I loved how solitary it was. I especially appreciated how there was nothing between us and the big blue yonder up ahead.

It was thrilling.

I could dance off the cliff and no one would ever know.

Not like that was how I was going to make my escape, of course, but the view epitomized freedom to me, and it sent tingles down my spine.

As we both took a seat, neither of us actually said anything, which wasn’t that surprising really. Boys could be quite boring. They barely talked unless it was about sports or games or a movie. Well, that was how it was now that Dre was back. Before, Stefan had talked about Romania, and Eren would tell me about the things his mother would make in the kitchen. Even Nestor had shared some of his tales of his life before Caelum.

Now that Dre was back, it was like he’d created some kind of blockage. As though he’d built a wall to purposely keep me out.

It hurt. And I wasn’t ashamed to admit it.

I hadn’t realized how much I depended on the boys until my interactions with them were being limited .

“It’s peaceful here,” Frazer said softly.

The crash of the ocean into the rocks whistled around us, belying his words, but I knew what he meant.

Fights were common in Caelum, and there was no whisper of the bellows that came from battle cries or the thud of fists into flesh, and the yelps of agony that reigned afterward didn’t pollute the air.

It was just quiet.

And it was beautiful.

“I like it,” I admitted. “Caelum is a lot noisier than I’m used to.”

“I’ll bet,” Frazer murmured.

Curiosity had me tilting my head to the side so I could take him in in a glance. He wasn’t looking at me but at the ocean, which meant I could look him over with ease.

He wasn’t as beautiful as Nestor or Stefan, but he had a handsomeness about him that was entwined with his strength.

“Why are you here, Frazer?”

“Reed said you were cool,” he replied after a handful of seconds.

I scrunched my nose. “Samuel said the opposite, I’m sure.”

He sighed. “Sammy can be a dick when he’s trying to protect us.”

Rearing back in surprise, I asked, “Why would he need to protect you from me?”

His lips curved. “That’s for me to know and for you not to find out.”

My brow puckered in disbelief. “You can’t leave it like that.”

“Why can’t I?”

“Because I’m too curious for my own good. I hate puzzles because I have to solve them,” I argued and was taken aback when he laughed. He tipped his head back, making those wavy black locks of his shiver with the movement. The wind seemed to like his laughter because it made his hair dance slightly as he turned to me, his white teeth flashing in a large grin. A grin that died when I reached out and touched his arm.

I didn’t touch people often. Had learned not to as a child—not even my mother who’d slap at my hand if I so much as reached for her arm. But I wanted to feel his muscles tremble with laughter. Of course, the second I touched him, that was the second he stopped.

Inwardly, I recognized that I didn’t just want to feel his laughter, but taste it, and because I didn’t know how to do that—and it seemed impossible because my laughter didn’t taste of anything, so why should his?—it didn’t stop me from wanting to capture his amusement somehow.

Frazer was made to laugh.

I saw that now and recognized his stoicism from the common rooms as a… what? A means of self-defense? So, why was he lowering those guards for me? Someone he’d never even spoken to. Had barely acknowledged.

Unease had me tensing up as the sensation of disloyalty washed through me. Stefan, Nestor, and Eren hated this guy, and yet I wanted to taste his laughter? What was the matter with me?

More than that, what was wrong with him? Why was he here when he loathed my friends and had no reason for wanting to talk to me as far as I could tell?

I had a feeling that no good would come of this, and yet, I found myself wanting to trace the curve of his lips with my fingertips.

“It’s not a bad thing to be in the dark sometimes,” he rasped, his bright blue eyes burning as he stared at me.

I could tell he wanted something from me, something I didn’t even know how to give.

My chest ached again, and though the discomfort was something I was accustomed to, I reached up and pressed a hand to the upper slope of my breasts, just beneath my collarbone. The heat from my palm quelled it some as I forced myself to turn away, to stop looking into his eyes, to avoid the confusing emotions he triggered in me.

In my days at Caelum, I’d come across hundreds of people. Most of them ignored me, the teachers rolled their eyes at me, and the students tended to avoid me, but seven boys had come into my world. Each so different, four of them loathing the other three, yet when they looked at me, truly looked at me, it was like, for the first time in my life, my heart knew why it was beating. They inspired in me a gamut of emotions, from fury to downright fear, and that was more terrifying than a thousand of those dreadful Saw movies the boys had insisted I watch last week.

He turned away, seeming to sense my unease. I imagined that he saw far more than I realized, or that I was comfortable with, and I didn’t know if that was because of his soul or simply because he was capable of looking underneath the surface and reading into people.

Having always been a people watcher—I’d had no choice. I’d had to constantly stay on my guard and to do that, I’d had to assess the world around me—I had to admit that I was curious about what had forged this man into the one sitting here on this bench.

Said man surprised me by blowing out a breath. “I’m surprised Reed isn’t out there today.”

I blinked at him. “Out where?” I turned to look where he was and saw he was staring at the ocean.

“Surfing,” he clarified.

“Oh. Like Surf’s Up ?”

Frazer snickered and shot me a look I couldn’t analyze—he was hard to read. “You mean the penguin movie?”

I shrugged. “I didn’t know what surfing was, so Eren decided to educate me.”

“With a cartoon?” Another snicker followed by a swift shake of his head. He got to his feet and beckoned to me with his hand.

Curious, I followed and stood on the edge of a very high, very craggy cliff. It was strangely beautiful. Was I scared? Considering there was a seven hundred feet drop? Sure. But the wind blasted me in the face while the sun burned hotly from above.

I felt safe.

It was strange to recognize that when I didn’t know Frazer all that well, but I knew he wouldn’t hurt me.

If anything, there was a gentleness to his eyes that I hadn’t seen when he was in the gym. It came when he looked at me, and his smile? It would have melted chocolate. Not because it was loaded with heat, but it emitted a continuous stream of warmth that had me gnawing on my own bottom lip in confusion.

He raised his arm and, pointing at the waves, said, “The island is a surfer’s paradise.”

“It is?” I just saw waves. “Why? Or should I be asking Reed that?”

His lips curved. “No, I can answer. There are several coves here, plenty of beaches, and each with different conditions that mean there’s usually surf on one side of the island whenever he needs it.” When I stared at him in surprise, he shrugged. “I’ve been with my brothers enough to know their quirks, so I’ve picked up on their hobbies. I can even translate surfer talk now.” That had his smile widening.

“Oh?” I’d admit to being curious about Reed. As far as I’d learned, there was only one man in his year that was aligned with the Hell Hound. I knew from my own experience the wrath that swathed me in its toxic embrace on those days, and yet, in his own way, Reed seemed quite chilled despite his Hell Hound proclivities.

“Yes. Oh.” Another smile that started to fade as he explained, “Reed surfs to forget.” A shorter, harder smile. “If only that worked for me.”

God, I wanted to ask what they wanted to forget, but instead, I murmured, “Does it work for Reed?”

“When he can surf for hours? Yes. It calms him down.” He cut me a quick look. “You know he’s going to be a Hell Hound, don’t you? ”

I snorted. “I have ears, don’t I? That’s all most people talk about. And the fact that you’re a Sin Eater.”

When Stefan told me that he was going to be an Incubus, his shoulders had puffed up in a way that told me he was proud. But Frazer? There was no pride on his face or in his posture at my words.

If anything, he turned away from me like he was ashamed.

I found myself wanting to reach out, to touch him, but that would be wrong.

His voice was a rasp as he stated, “See those waves there? The ones close to the beach?”

“Yes,” I mumbled, staring at the spot he was pointing to. I’d never gone to the beach, even though I knew everyone did on the weekend. Even the boys. They tried to drag me there but I couldn’t go.

Not when I’d seen what the girls wore.

“Those waves are intense.”

“Why?” It was a long, continual stream of a wave with a foamy middle that seemed to extend for a long time. It was also quite high, and I wasn’t sure how anyone could surf it without hurting themselves.

“It’s called a break. The seabed is formed from coral and volcanic rock, and the water breaks over them and forges very high peaks. Reed told me he surfed a double overhead once.”

“What does that mean?”

“Sorry. I’m used to his slang. It means it was double his height.”

My eyes widened. “But he’s very tall.”

He grinned. “Exactly. He was buzzing that day. See that cove?” He pointed to an area farther along the coast, around twenty or so miles away from where we were standing.

“Yeah. I see it.”

“That cove makes powerful tubes.” He winked at my blank look. “They’re the be-all and end-all for Reed. The wave is hollow when it breaks so they ride inside it.”

At first, I didn’t get it. The waves were different there, but then I noticed why. The water was deeper somehow. The waves seemed heavier, higher almost, but not like the other beach. I twisted to the side, trying to see why they were so different, but I was too far away. That didn’t mean I wasn’t curious though.

“Finally,” Frazer murmured, turning to the right, he mumbled, “you have what Reed calls the Pipe.” He waved at yet another beach. “Those waves are left-handed, and they break into individuals. There’s another coral reef on the seabed so it breaks, I’m assured, to perfection. ”

Though I stared at where he was pointing, I asked, “You don’t surf?”

“No.”

Yet he knew all this stuff about the three different beaches because of Reed?

The question made me pensive. “Why not?”

He shrugged. “Not my vice.”

“What is your vice?”

“Speed.”

“In what way?” Then I thought about the car and the plane I’d had to travel in to get here and blanched. “You mean in a car?” I tried not to think about how fast cars were, and tried even harder not to think about why it concerned me to imagine Frazer using those dangerous vehicles.

“You don’t like cars?” he inquired, cocking a brow at me, making me even more aware of how beautiful his eyes were.

“No, I don’t!” I shuddered. “They’re unnatural.”

He guffawed at that, and I watched in surprise as he bent over at the waist to laugh. It didn’t irritate me though—his amusement at my expense, I mean. If anything, it surprised me.

I didn’t know him well, but I’d seen him every day in the common room we all used—where the two sets of guys checked each other out as though they were both waiting on a war to break out between them.

I knew, point-blank, Frazer had never laughed like this before. At least, not in my presence. And it wasn’t because he was tense and on edge in the common room. They were all watchful, sure, but they relaxed too. Even during movies, Frazer hadn’t laughed like this.

He started wheezing as he whispered, “Remind me not to show you my Spider.”

“You have a spider? Ugh, why would I want to see that?” Caelum had a lot of creepy-crawlies I wasn’t used to, and the large spiders were some of the worst. Eren always captured them for me though. If I asked Stefan, he’d swat them with his shoe. I didn’t want the gross things to die, just not to share living space with me.

“No, not an insect,” Frazer responded while he was biting back laughter. Again. “It’s an Aston Martin.”

I scrunched my nose. “What is that?” He said it like I should know.

I didn’t.

“A sports car.” Another wheeze, and his eyes sparkled like blue fire as he drawled, “You’re like no one else, are you?”

My brow puckered. “Of course not. I’m me.”

“Yes. And I’m me.” His own brow furrowed slightly, and I didn’t like how his amusement had died at his words. His mouth tightened when he stated, “Unfortunately.”

The self-deprecating remark seized me up inside. Why was he so down on himself?

I bit at my bottom lip, debating over how to answer or if I even should, and in the end, I couldn’t let that smile die, couldn’t let what I thought seemed to be self-loathing take root.

Sucking in a deep breath, I reached for his hand and squeezed his fingers. He turned from looking out at the ocean as though it held all the answers to everything and murmured, “I’m glad we’re not the same because that would be boring, wouldn’t it?”

His smile, while not as large as before, was there again. “Yeah, you’re right. It would.”