In between laughs, I reach for my cinnamon bun—the only food item left on my tray — and notice Brix watching me. Not in a strange way. Just... looking. Like he had yesterday too.
“You alright?” he asks softly, just for me.
I nod. “Better.”
He nudges my shoulder with his. Just once. Warm. Steady. It’s comforting.
“I don’t believe you, but I know you’ll tell me when you’re ready,” he whispers to me.
Holly launches into a dramatic retelling of a student who accidentally lit their pants on fire during sin training. Sly keeps jumping in with wild commentary, not letting her finish a sentence. Brix acts out the entire scene with his bacon like finger puppets, complete with squeaky voices and exaggerated gasps.
I laugh, an actual laugh, and for once it doesn’t feel like something I have to fake. These moments with my new friends are what I live for.
My attention is snapped away when I feel a familiar tingle.
That sharp prickle on the back of my neck, like static crawling across my skin. My eyes drift across the dining hall, past the buzz of other tables and the clatter of half-eaten breakfasts—and land onAtticus. The only one of my bonds who seems to eat in this dining hall.
He’s leaning against a column near the archway, surrounded by a small group of his friends. But he’s watching me again.
His jaw flexes once. The muscle ticks, then stills. His eyes stay locked on me—flat, dark, calculating. A tiny crease carves between his brows, like I’m a riddle whose rules won’t stop shifting.
Whatever it is, it curls tight and sharp in my chest. My hand stills around my fork.
And just like that, he’s looking anywhere but at me—table, wall, ceiling—like the air got too honest between us.
And me?
My stomach knots. My face a little hot.
Asshole.
What is his problem? Still mad I talked to Maddox? Or is he just always that much of a jerk? Maybe he’s pissed that I’m sitting here with people who don’t make me feel like garbage. People who don’t break me apart with a single sentence.
The tug in my chest is replaced by white, fiery rage remembering how he let Daphne torture me with her powers and humiliate me like I was nothing.
He doesn’t get to look at me like that.
I turn back to my friends and force the tension out of my shoulders.
Let him brood over there like a morally ambiguous statue. I have better things to do—like surviving another day as a sinless Wrath. Like laughing with the people who actually like me. Like maybe letting myself enjoy the way Brix leans in just a little closer when I laugh.
And for now, that’s enough.
***
I tug my bag higher on my shoulder as I head back to the dorms, boots tapping a lazy rhythm across the stone hallways. The last class of the day is over, and all I want is my comfiest pajamas, and maybe to pretend this entire week didn’t happen.
I feel the annoying pull again. These are seriously getting inconvenient.This isn’t normal. I rarely felt my bonds here.
One of them is close.
I stop, step to the side and scan the hall. It’s empty; students scattered like afterthoughts as they rush off to their rooms or next obligations. No one’s looking at me. But something is….
A muffled scream tries to escape my mouth, which is now covered by a large hand.
I’m yanked- another firm hand snatches my wrist and pulls me through the half-cracked door of an empty classroom. I stumble forward, slamming into solid heat.
“Easy there,” a voice purrs, low and velvet-smooth. “Didn’t mean to scare you, sweetheart.”
