Page 3 of The Devastation You Reap

Pushing from the door, I force myself to put the whole situation out of my head. I shouldn't have gotten involved in the first place. I know that all of this is my fault because I panicked that Charlie was actually in trouble. In hindsight, the fact that Nathan and Jace hadn't bothered to do anything about it should have told me that nothing was really wrong. But I've never been one to sit back and think when I decide something isn't right.

I learned that from my past. From my regrets.

I lie in bed, staring at the shadows on my ceiling and force my mind away from memories of other times in my life where I've done something similar and regretted it almost instantly.

As mortifying as tonight has been, what I've been through in the past was a million times worse. I'd take walking in on Charlie any day of the week over that.

* * *

I wake with a start and immediately kick the sheets off my burning body. My skin is covered in a layer of sweat and my heart is racing from the dream I was in the middle of. A dream that had no right being inside my head.Hehas no right being in my head.

I lie there with my eyes squeezed tight, willing the lingering image of him standing before me, one hand around my throat as the other one slipped down my body.

My skin erupts in goose bumps as a shiver of fear races down my spine.

I gasp, sitting up, my eyes scanning my room as if someone's here. As if I'm being watched.

But it's empty.

I fall back on an exhale and laugh at myself.

Stop being paranoid, Macie.

With a groan, I put everything behind me and head for a shower, needing to forget everything about the night before and get focused on a new week of classes.

"Good morning," I sing, finding both Nathan and Jace in our kitchen when I emerge.

"Morning," Nathan says with a smile while Jace nods in my direction looking a little worse for wear. "Didn't think you were meant to party during the season."

"Shut up," he grumbles, rubbing at his temples.

"Suck it up, man," Nathan says. "Coach will be waiting for us."

"Can't you just tell him I'm sick?"

Nathan stares at Jace, his eyes twinkling with amusement. "No. I can't. I told you not to do those shots."

"Ugh," he complains, looking between the two of us. "You prep school kids are a pain in my ass," he grumbles, dumping his coffee mug in the sink and disappearing toward his room.

"I didn't even hear him come in last night," I say to Nathan as I head for the coffee maker.

"That's because he's only just appeared."

"Jesus."

"We're not in Kansas anymore, Mace," he jokes.

We might have gone to very different prep schools, but the things we've experienced, the loneliness, the abandonment, they're one in the same and after only a few days of living here together we discovered that we had more in common than we first thought. Much like Charlie and Jace with their need to spend every day battling with a hangover.

"Right, let's go, asshole," Jace states, marching through the kitchen still looking like death.

"Later, Mace." Nathan winks before swiping his bag from the door and disappearing.

I'm almost done with my breakfast and ready to head to the library before my first class of the day when Charlie finally emerges from her room.

"Ugh," she moans the second she looks at me dressed and ready for the day.

I've always been a morning person, whereas Charlie is the ultimate night owl.