Page 34

SANJANA

I blinked, disoriented, as my alarm blared from the nightstand, drilling straight into my skull like some twisted form of punishment.

“Shit,” I rasped, reaching for my phone to shut it up.

There was sunlight streaming through the window.

That meant I’d already slept through the first two alarms I had set last night.

I couldn’t fall asleep and came up with a vague plan to study before school.

So much for that. This is what I got for being a procrastination queen. I groaned and shifted under the covers.

As I lay there, my thoughts drifted back to the night before—the car that had followed us, the dead crow tied to the rock that shattered my bathroom window, and that awful, taunting note.

I was not looking forward to the day knowing I’d been guaranteed a slot in the freaking Hunt.

There wasn’t much I could do about it, though.

I stretched, arms overhead, wishing I could just stay in bed where everything still felt soft and warm.

The house was quiet, and I wondered if everyone was gone, including Layla, since the other side of the bed was cool and empty.

It was probably best I got my ass in gear to somewhat uphold the promise of leaving right after them. I was surprised they hadn’t woken me up before leaving. With a tired yawn, I rolled onto my side and reached for my phone. The screen flared to life, way too bright for my barely functioning eyes.

I squinted, scrolling through notifications until one name made my stomach do that stupid thing it always did.

The first message came in well after midnight in response to me telling him goodnight.

He was probably up gaming or finishing an assignment.

Ryder wasn’t exactly the king to my queen when it came to procrastinating.

If it wasn’t either of those things, then he might’ve gone on a drive like he initially planned.

I’d gone with him on those late-night excursions before.

They were quiet and calming, a way to breathe again when everything else felt like too much.

I hated that he likely needed one because of me.

Rye ????

Goodnight, my gorgeous girl.

It wasn’t much. Three simple words that barely formed a sentence. Nonetheless, they gave me all the warm and fuzzies. His next text had come just a little while ago, telling me good morning, and the last came twenty minutes before my last alarm was supposed to go off.

Rye ????

You overslept, didn’t you?

I smiled and texted back.

No ??

I debated telling him about this Hunt business now before the girls and I told everyone else.

It wouldn’t take much for him to discover I was indeed Marked if he was still on the whole, I had no Huntsman thing.

Soon enough, the entire campus would know.

But that would mean telling him about the bird thrown through my bathroom window.

I would let him know about it eventually, but that was a matter of sooner versus later, and the Marked discussion was most important.

I scrolled through the rest of my notifications and spotted one from Arianna.

Ari

If you wake up and we’re not home, we didn’t leave you alone. Layla said she’d wake you and ride out with you. We decided to alter your plan a bit.

Don’t be mad. :)

Layla? Unless she’d tiptoed out like a cat burglar, she’d been gone just as long as the others.

I wondered if she was still stewing about last night.

If she was feeling some kind of way, why offer to wake me up?

More importantly, how the hell did she get to campus without a car?

I texted Ari a quick I’m up, then messaged Layla asking where she was before I popped into the thread with Ashton.

He’d sent something around six in the morning.

Ash

Ur mad, aren’t you? Can we talk?

I feel like we need to.

I stared at the message, sighing hard.

Talk. Yeah. We needed to, but this was another conversation that couldn’t be had over a text.

It also wasn’t a discussion to have while my mind was still wrapped in the memory of Ryder’s arms around me, and the way he called me his.

I would need to take a gap year at this point for all the ‘little talks’ I was supposed to have with people.

I hadn’t even gotten around to discussing the kiss that landed us all here.

The one I thought about when I was alone, flushed, fingers sliding over skin that ached for the man who kissed like he’d been craving me his whole life and had finally gotten a taste.

That kiss ruined me.

Technically, it was our second, turned into four more in one go. The first time our lips met, I was younger, curious, and he was there. It was a secret tucked between laughter and dares.

I told myself it didn’t count.

The kiss at the quarry cracked open something deeper and darker inside me. That kiss rewrote every memory of us with the sharp, brutal clarity of desire and downplayed feelings that had been waiting too long to be named.

In hindsight, I had no right to be mad at Ashton about Sarah. Not when I was borderline cheating on him in my head for nearly our entire relationship. I was trying to do the right thing now, though. Last night, I told Ryder to stick with Brooke. That was a step in the right direction.

This morning, I hated myself for it.

I couldn’t stand the thought of him living as someone he wasn’t even when he went home at night.

Maybe that made me a hypocrite. I felt like one.

A tangled-up, self-sabotaging, emotionally constipated mess.

If I got wise, I’d have my shit together by twenty-five.

That gave me a few years to figure out how to be a big girl and actually use my words instead of swallowing everything like it didn’t matter.

Worst case scenario, and I never figured it out, I’d live my life with stomach ulcers.

I couldn’t take the words back now.

Not the ones I already said or the ones I hadn’t.

So, I was going to get my ass out of bed and attempt to have a normal day.

If I didn’t focus too much on The Hunt soon underway, a relationship on life support waiting for me to pull the plug, and pretending I was fine with the guy I loved becoming someone else’s everything, that was totally manageable.

I rolled out from under my blanket, rubbing my eyes as I started pulling together clothes. The room was still dim, the sun barely stretching past the curtains, casting everything in that soft, peach-hued light that made it feel earlier than it was.

I grabbed a pair of sweats, a tank top, and my favorite oversized sweater.

Fashion influencer, I was not. Roxxi and Cloe had that crown locked down.

From the jewelry stand on my dresser, I picked up my necklace.

The jagged best friend charm felt cool in my fingers, dangling from its new chain.

It had dulled only a bit from years of wear.

I clipped it back on, my thumb brushing the uneven edge where his piece fit perfectly into mine.

Something so small, so simple tethered us in a way I’d never truly let go of.

I crossed the room and dragged the chair away from the doorknob where I’d wedged it last night, the legs scraping softly against the hardwood floor.

Maybe it had been overkill, but after the last forty-eight hours, I didn’t care.

I’d seen enough horror movies to know better, and our house wasn’t exactly Fort Knox.

Second floor, sure, but easily scalable if someone was determined enough.

Roxxi had texted and offered up her bed at some point, said I could crash beside her, but that would’ve meant leaving Layla behind, and I wasn’t about to be scared out of my own room.

I had the comfiest mattress known to man, a gel hybrid with cooling tech that was way too expensive to abandon unless the house was on fire.

I cracked the door open and peeked into the bathroom, an instinctive chill still needling at the back of my neck.

Stepping halfway in, I scanned the space.

The window was still sealed with the black trash bag.

The taped edges were solid with no signs of tampering.

I closed my eyes for a second and took a deep breath, forcing the unease back down.

I couldn’t be scared of my own bathroom.

It was literally essential to functioning as a human being.

Washing my face and brushing my teeth helped.

Throughout the process, I eyed my nails.

I kept them short because of cheer. The dark gel polish was still smooth and unblemished, but they were close to needing a fill.

Roxxi would be rounding all of us up to have that taken care of in the coming days, I was sure.

Back in my room, I ran a brush through my hair in front of the vanity mirror, smoothing the pin-straight strands until they fell neatly across my shoulders to the center of my back.

I studied my reflection when I was done.

My eyes were still a little puffy from the sleep I didn’t get and the stress I couldn’t shake.

I reached for my tone-matching concealer, dabbing it under each eye and blending until the shadows softened to something manageable. It wasn’t perfect, but passable.

Today would be fine.

One foot in front of the other.

I grabbed my satchel and keys, double-checking I had everything for the day as I headed downstairs. “Lay?” I called out just in case.

There was no answer. She definitely wasn’t here.

Moving on autopilot, I threw together a quick smoothie with frozen mixed berries, a generous splash of oat milk, a squeeze of honey, and two scoops of protein powder.

I hit blend, letting the hum fill the silence while I mentally sorted through what I needed to get done assignment-wise--too damn much.

When the blender came to a stop, I poured my drink into a tumbler and took a sip.

Tart and sweet with just enough thickness.