Page 5 of The Villain's Beast

At least at school I was under his control, but not under his thumb. I had room to reset, room to breathe, even if it didn’t always feel that way. After all, Ididhave Gideon North’s phone number. Shoving my hand into the pocket of my navy blue chinos, I traced the tip of my finger over the frayed edge of his torn notebook paper. I didn’t need to look because I’d already committed the number to memory. If I closed my eyes, I could see him scrawling the digits on the corner of the narrow-ruled page, including the weird and backward way he wrote his 5’s.

I pulled Gideon’s phone number out of my pocket and shoved it under my pillow, then I dialed it. It rang through to voicemail and I called him again. He answered on the fifth ring, voice scratchy and tired with sleep.

Good.

I’d woken him up.

“Hello?” he croaked, and I tried to not imagine him in a bed that looked like mine in a room of the same dimensions. I didn’t allow myself to wonder what his pajamas looked like, his body.

“We should start this report,” I said.

He breathed into the phone, loud, like his mouth was pressed directly against the speaker.

“What time is it?”

“Time to start our report.” I was a bastard, just like my father. “I’m in room 703, Southern Annex.”

I hung up before he could protest.

At least I’d given him the courtesy of letting him hide his face.

Or maybe I’d just been trying to hide mine.

Chapter 4

Gideon

Ishould have gotten dressed, but I was half-asleep and too angry to see straight. It was just like a Sinclair to expect the world to bend to his whim and operate on his timetable. My father had always told me the Sinclair family was a scourge on society, and every day I knew him, Fletcher proved him right. When we started school, I’d wanted to believe differently, even if he’d shut me down. Clearly, there was still a part of me that thought there could be a chance for change.

It was late.

It was for an assignment.

But Fletcher Sinclair had called me.

The spring air was warm and dry as I jogged across the campus from my room in the Northern Annex to Fletcher’s in the South. I hadn’t bothered to get dressed before heading out. Instead, I’d shoved my feet into a pair of beat up Golden Goose sneakers and set off in my plaid pajama pants and an old RHU shirt I’d picked up somewhere along the line.

When I reached the Southern Annex building, I rode the elevator up to the seventh floor, walking slowly down the hall so I could catch my breath. I didn’t want to look desperate, but now that I was wide awake, it was impossible to hide my exhilaration.The version of myself from the fall tried to push himself to the forefront of my mind, spouting off silly ideas about being more than our fathers and more than our names.

The door to Fletcher’s room was propped open, the deadbolt latch engaged to stop the heavy wood door from closing all the way. I knocked anyway, kicking it open with the toe of my sneaker and peering inside. His room was—unsurprisingly—the same layout as mine, though he’d of course decorated differently. Even in the dim light of his desk lamp, I could tell his room was a wash of navy blue and gray, from the bedding to the…well…to the bedding. There wasn’t any decoration to be found unless you counted the stack of books on his desk, which I didn’t.

Books were a necessity, not a luxury.

“I’m not surprised your manners are lacking,” Fletcher said from the bed, not looking up from the book in his lap. He was still dressed from class, navy pants and a white button-down, though he’d undone the top two buttons.

“It was open,” I reminded him.

“For a draft.” He closed his book and looked up at me warily, nostrils flaring when he took in the state of me.

For the first time, I thought maybe I should have changed into real clothes, though I didn’t truly thinkwhatI wore would make a difference tohowI felt standing in the entryway of Fletcher Sinclair’s bedroom.

“These rooms get so stuffy at night,” he said, setting the book on his nightstand and swinging his legs over the side.

“Open a window,” I suggested.

He glanced at his window—closed—like the thought had never occurred to him before.

“Have you read the book already?” he asked, changing subjects and standing tall.