“No.” Something flashed in Ayaz’s eyes that I couldn’t place. Something like a real human emotion. “I’ll be a doctor.”
I tilted my head to the side. “I can’t imagine you as a doctor. You’re going to have to work on your bedside manner.”
“Yeah, well.” Ayaz’s body locked down, whatever emotion I’d seen locked tightly away again, replaced by the simmering resentment that I was beginning to suspect was a cover for something much deeper and darker. “You don’t know everything.”
“Not much time to draw pictures as a doctor.”
“Correct.” Ayaz’s tone said that he wasn’t up for discussing it further.
“I’m going to business school. One day I’m going to look at all the monarchs from across a boardroom table, and I’ll be able to buy and sell the lot of you, and maybe then you’ll know what it means to be treated like shit just because of where you came from.”
Ayaz’s eyes burned into mine. “There’s a lot you don’t know about this school.”
“What’s there to know? It’s a bunch of snobby kids who are going to be snobby adults in unhappy marriages, breeding the next generation of snobby, unhappy kids.”
“You think you know what’s going on,” Ayaz hissed. “But you can’t even begin to imagine. The future of the modern world is decided in this school. There are kids here with the power to topple nations, to bankrupt the world’s financial institutions, to commit unspeakable acts of evil. If you knew the truth of who you’d face across the boardroom, or the source of their power, you wouldn’t want to be any part of it. You’d either go mad from the revelation or flee into the peace and safety of the ghetto from where you came.”
I snorted. “You sound like Thomas Parris, talking about his Great Old Gods. You don’t know me. You don’t know what I can handle. I’m not afraid of you or Trey or anyone else at this school.”
Ayaz’s face darkened. When he spoke, his voice had this dead, resigned tone that sent a chill through my body. “You should be.”
Chapter Fourteen
Ayaz’s warning echoed in my head for the rest of the week. Every time I thought if it, and the way he’d said it in that dead, hopeless voice with his eyes flashing, a chill ran over the back of my neck.
Or maybe that was just me getting used to my new haircut. Greg hadn’t stopped praising it ever since I unveiled it at rehearsal. I hadn’t told him about the tar. The look of abject pity on Loretta’s face as she watched me cutting my hair off had been burned into my brain. I couldn’t bear it if Greg looked at me in the same way. I told him that Headmistress West forced me to cut them off, and left it at that.
As the weekend drew close, people lost interest in me in lieu of gossip about Saturday’s party – who was going, what were they wearing, what alcohol and drugs had been smuggled in courtesy of staff members amenable to bribery. Quinn hadn’t spoken to me since the previous week, so I assumed Courtney had made her point and he was back licking her boots.
After Saturday dinner, I went to the library with Greg and Andre to study for a couple of hours. We got next to nothing done because all he wanted to do was berate me for not going to the party. I was starting to appreciate Andre’s company more – he would wiggle his eyebrows at me and make funny faces while Greg yammered on. His stone-faced demeanor was a mask, just like the masks we all wore. Underneath, Andre had a wicked sense of humor, and I almost forgot that he was mute. It was nice to hang around someone who didn’t expect you to fill in the silences or bombard you with a hundred questions.
Finally, I gave up and suggested we turn in for the night. We walked back through the dorms toward our staircase. I couldn’t help but notice how empty it was, all the doors shut, no music thumping or voices laughing. We stopped outside Quinn’s door – it was locked when I tried the handle, and there was no loud music or fucking sounds coming from within. “See?” I beamed at Greg. “He’s already left for the party. I’m off the hook.”
Greg looked gutted. “Damn, honey, I was rooting for you.”
“Yeah, well…” We descended our staircase into the gloom. “At least this way I don’t have to wear some uncomfortable, ill-fitting party dress. I can just chill out with a book and—holy shit!”
I swore as a shadowed figure moved in the darkness, reaching for me. Quinn’s laugh rolled from the gloom, deep and throaty and intoxicating.
“Fuck!” I flicked on the hallway light. Quinn leaned against the bare stone wall, rolling a joint between his fingers. With his emerald dress shirt untucked at the waist, matching his dancing eyes, and a leather jacket slung casually over his shoulder, he looked every bit the bad boy cliche.
He also made my chest tighten and a warm fire flicker to life in my core. Quinn’s coconut and sugar scent combined with the sweetness of the weed and swirled inside my head, turning me about, making me dizzy and disoriented. Smoke tendrils curled around his face, giving him a sinister quality that was utterly irresistible.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” he said.
“I couldn’t think why.” I pulled my key from my pocket, then stopped, waving it in his face. “Wait, I don’t need this. You’ve got a key to my room. Why didn’t you just go in, make yourself at home, destroy a few more of my possessions.”
Quinn shrugged. “Not me.” He grinned. “None of that shit was me.”
“I don’t believe you. Go away, Quinn.”
“No can do. You said you’d be my date.”
“That was before you put tar in my hair.” Behind me, Greg gasped. Andre made a choking sound. Shit, I hadn’t meant for them to find out.
“Like I said, wasn’t me. You owe me a favor, Hazy, and I’m cashing in. Put something sexy on, you’re coming to a party.”
“No, I’m not.”
