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CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Yet again, I have a paper due in the morning that I’ve barely started.

Seems to be my Thursday night routine. But this week I have a good excuse.

Between Leo’s betrayal and all the information Rime dumped on me last night, I can’t think straight.

It’s hard to do a literary analysis of Utopia when my life right now is anything but ideal.

In the past twenty-four hours, I’ve pendulum swung so hard I’ve given myself motion sickness. One moment I’m ready to call Rime and tell him I’m in, the next I think I’m insane for even considering it. This morning I made a pros and cons list, like the rational person I’m not but should be.

It didn’t help.

I’m so agitated that the mere rustling of Liv’s textbook pages has me climbing the walls.

With a sigh, I pack up my laptop and head off for the library, but absolutely not the third floor.

Instead, I camp out in the Life Sciences section, in a carrel so well-hidden, even the dust mites can’t find me.

The whole STEM wing was recently modernized, robbing it of all character and charm.

The result: fewer people, fewer memories, and fewer daydreams to distract me.

In less than two hours, I finish my essay, submit it, and start the trek back to my room.

Cold and tired, I speed up once Newberry is in sight, only to grind to a halt when someone calls my name. Fury and despair lock my knees. And my heart.

“Betts, wait!”

Foolishly, I glance over my shoulder, my eyes meeting Leo’s as he jogs toward me.

No. Just no. Move, legs! Go!

With a jerk, they give in to my will and I dash for my dorm.

I’ve nearly made it to the steps when, out of absolutely nowhere, huge pine branches slam down onto the landing, blocking my way to the door.

I gasp and stagger back, my stomach flipping when my feet catch nothing but air.

Strong arms brace me and set me safely and solidly on the stairs.

Ruthlessly, I elbow my rescuer, forcing him to let me go.

“What the fuck?” I breathe, my eyes locked on the branches.

They’re lush and healthy, and still connected to the tree.

The tree that’s stood straight and proud alongside Newberry’s west entrance for probably longer than I’ve been alive.

Only now it’s not straight, it’s bent, the whole thing bowing gracefully, like a dancer, over the stone stairway.

There’s no storm, no heavy machinery, no high winds. Nothing that could bend a tree?—

I whip around and glare at Leo. “What did you do?”

“Whatever I have to do to get you to talk to me.”

Seething, I shake my head. Isn’t it enough that he’s shaken up my whole life with his lies, that now he’s got to freak me out with his magic, too?

“Fix it,” I demand, like he’s a child who broke a toy, not a faerie who can call on trees.

“If you promise you won’t run away.”

“Fine.” But only because if he doesn’t fix the tree, someone is going to call campus security.

Leo goes still for a moment, his eyes on the pine and his blinking long and slow. When he raises a hand and traces an arc in the air, I turn around quickly, just in time to watch the tree lift its branches off the steps and straighten to its full height. Like it’s a sentient being.

Holy shit.

But Leo doesn’t give me a chance to contemplate what I’ve just seen. He reaches for me. “Betts, please.”

I step out of his grasp. “Please, what? What do you want, Leo?”

He swallows, jaw tight. “You.”

Like an excited puppy, my stupid heart leaps in hope. No, down girl! I’m not falling for this. With one deep breath, I put up my walls. He’s not getting in again.

My snort is so abrasive, the little hairs on my neck stand up on end. “So this is the plan? Keep pretending you want me so I’ll give in and help you?”

“What? No.” He reaches for me again, then thinking better of it, snatches his hand back and curls it into a fist at his side. “Is that what you really think?”

“I don’t think; I know. ”

“I never pretended.”

“Oh, just like you never lied, either?”

“I admitted I lied. But only about who I am.”

I drop my backpack at my feet so I can cross my arms. Protect my heart. “Yeah, one big lie made up of a thousand little ones. So you’re a senior, right? From Philadelphia?” My words are coming out on thin ribbons of air. “Do you even know where the fuck Philadelphia is?”

“Betts—” His eyes are wild.

“And what about all that faerie bullshit? ‘Anne’s a faerie, just like you, Betts. What a pretty faerie you are, Betts.’” I forget to breathe as I mock him in sing-song. “‘Let me tell you all about the faeries, Betts. The pixies and the brownies and the ones that sleep in snakeskins.’”

He’s looking away, raking his fingers through his hair and working that lower lip like it’s a steak.

“All your stupid little hints,” I scoff. “What were you trying to do? Cover your ass in case I accidentally figured it out?”

“I don’t know,” he groans. “I don’t know why I said those things. I just wanted to…I was hoping…” He clamps his mouth shut and shakes his head.

Oh, I know what he was hoping: to bend me to his will. “You were manipulating me. This whole time.” I throw my hands up. “This whole… thing .”

“Betts, please. I wasn’t pretending, and I wasn’t trying to manipulate you.”

Cold air stings my wet cheeks.

Fuck, I must be crying.

When he steps closer, I back up, nearly tripping on the stairs. “Don’t.” If he gets near enough for me to look into those eyes. If he touches me?—

He halts. Tips his head. “I promise—I swear—that my feelings are real.”

He somehow gets a hand around my shoulder. The second I notice it, I shrug him off, but it’s too late. I’m already reacting to his touch. Already weakening.

“No,” I choke out. “No. I know what your promises mean.” He promised to protect me, promised he wouldn’t let anything hurt me.

And then he broke me.

The tears are so hot in my throat, it hurts to talk. I swipe my bag off the step and make for the door, spinning back around as I open it. “Go home, Leo.”

He groans my name again, but I’m already halfway inside. Abruptly, he shouts, “Don’t go back to him.”

Oh, no. No, he did not .

My misery twists into fury.

With exquisite composure, I deposit my bag inside and stomp back down the steps, all the way down until Leo and I are nearly eye to eye. “Don’t go back to whom?” I grit out, even though I know. I just want to hear him say it .

Surprisingly, he doesn’t flinch. “Zander.”

“Why not? Because he could hurt me?”

“He did hurt you.”

“So did you!”

“He’s poison.”

“You only say that because he was right about you.”

Leo’s beautiful features contort. My blow landed just right.

He rallies and growls, “Is that what you’re doing this weekend? Going away somewhere with him?”

Heat shoots up my neck to my face. “It’s none of your business what I do.”

“So you are .” His eyes blaze as hot as my skin.

“Jealous?” I taunt.

“He doesn’t deserve you.”

“What, and you do?”

For a moment he glares back at me, lips parted and nostrils flared. Then suddenly he drops his head. “No.”

“Fuck off, Leo.” I pound up the stairs, yank open the door, and let it slam behind me.

You’d think after a fight like that I would go back to my room and sob, but I don’t.

I fume. The hands-shaking, hyperventilating, heart-racing kind of fume.

Luckily Liv left for O-Chi while I was out, because she’d be grilling me right now, her dark, perfectly waxed eyebrows all furrowed in concern. I don’t need concern, I need strength.

I pace the short expanse between her bed and mine, seeing nothing but red.

I’m so angry I don’t even have the brain space to contemplate what Leo did to the pine tree.

All I can think about is his hypocrisy. So Zander can’t tell me to stay away from Leo, but Leo can tell me to stay away from Zander?

Like Leo is some sort of rescuing hero who’s going to save me from my mistakes? Please. He was my mistake.

For all his faults, Zander isn’t a liar. Self-absorbed and jealous, yes. But he never betrayed me like Leo did. Never played with my heart for his own ends.

Leo ripped my whole world out from underneath me, just so I wouldn’t be under anyone else’s influence but his. That’s why he doesn’t want me going near Zander.

I’m so over it. So done.

I drop into my desk chair and toss my amethyst pendant into my bottom drawer with such force it bounces and lodges between my journal and a travel pack of tissues. To keep it company, I smush Avery’s book, all the witchcraft tools, and the stupid faerie pin on top of it.

There! I slam the drawer shut.

No more psychic. No more witch. No more faerie’s pawn.

No more fae, period. I’m out.

Avery and Aaron are skilled enough to help them find their dumbass weapon.

Far more skilled than me. And if they really need another psychic, Leo can wander the halls of the psychology department.

I’m sure there he’d find one much more competent and willing than me.

I don’t want to have anything more to do with it.

It’s time for me to reclaim my life.