Page 141 of Dance of Thorns

I pull the pack of smokes out of my back pocket as I step outside and slip behind the athletic wing. Smoking isn’t permitted on campus, and it’s actually one of the rules they enforce.

Like I care.

I slip a cigarette between my lips and light it with a flick of my Zippo.

“Can I bum one of those?”

I whirl, then do a double take.

Fuck me.

Okay, they’re not twins, but she looks freakishly like the cheerleader princess I just ignored inside. Sort of. I frown. Eh, maybe it’s just their faces.

The girl looking at me—expectantly, like she’s already so sure I’ll give her a cigarette that she’s annoyed she doesn’t have it yet—is another freshman. She’s petite, with a build that screams athlete.

“I dance,” she says flatly. “Ballet.”

I frown. “What?”

“You were checking out my legs.”

“I…wasn’t.”

She smirks. “Yeah, you were.”

I totally was.

“I dance ballet.”

“So you said,” I say dryly.

She sighs. “So…where we at with that smoke?”

I snort in spite of myself, taking a slow drag as my gaze drifts over her.

She’s cute.

Scratch that. She’s fucking stunning. But she downplays it in this arty-punk way. The blonde hair, with a few light blue and purple streaks. The anarchy symbol painted in…is that White-Out?…on the side of her Mary Janes.

“Here.”

I take the cigarette out of my mouth and hand it to her.

Fuckin’ smooth, self.

She takes it with a small nod. “Thanks.”

I nod back, lighting a new one for myself.

“A little young to be smoking, aren’t you?”

“Aren’tyou?” She winces overdramatically. “Oh, sorry, unless you’re twenty-one and repeating the eleventh grade for like the fifth time?”

I smirk, nodding my chin at her hair. “They’re going to nail you to the wall for that hair, you know.”

“Really?”

“Really. Welcome to Thornfield, where fun goes to die a painful death, dressed head-to-toe in Brooks Brothers.”