I totally forgot about the party.
I take a deep breath before pulling up my big girl pants. It doesn’t matter about the attack or if my cover has been blown. The attacker wants me gone, and that is exactly what I plan on doing. Tonight, I will be one step further to knowing the truth. I will be one step further to knowing what happened to Marlowe. One step closer to my freedom.
TEN
ASHER
My eyes flick to theshadowed doorway of the gymas I register the sharp click of it shutting behind my fleeing vixen. My brows furrow beneath the weight of rolling waves of mixed emotion. On one hand,a cold exhilaration surgeswithin me at the memory of fear flickering across her face. Yet, it is the battered state in which she left that knots my stomach and curls my fists in silent rage.
I rarely bother with the troubles of other students here; I have my own demons to contend with, burdens that seem to multiply with every passing day. My hours arerationed and regimented, each one dedicated to the singular purpose of drawing closer to the legacy waiting for me. Anything that doesn’t lighten my load, or advance me toward taking over from my father, is barely worth a moment’s thought.
And yet,something compels meto know what happened to my broken, little rich girl who stumbled in so dishevelled. Her white hair, half-loosened from its tie and more a bird’s nest than its usual sleekness, lingers in my memory. I don’t know what it is about her hair thatbewitches me, a soft weakness in my armor. When she sits ahead of me in the lecture hall, I have to physically restrain myself from reaching over to run the strands through my fingers, especially when she twists it into a bun to focus on her notes.
But she never has a hair tie. Every damn day, Ruella passes the same question down the row, does anyone have a spare? Every day, without fail, she’s left to wind it around itself to create a knot.
Sometimes I entertain the idea of carrying a stash of hair ties in my backpack. Other days, I envision taking a pair of scissors to that white tangle, completely severing the hold it has over me.
Today, the latter temptation has teeth. I tried to be decent, tried to imagine what I’d wish for if someone found my sister in the same predicament. And yet here I am, watching the shadows reclaim the space where her lithe frame departed.
“What the hell was that about?” Daylan asks while looking between the now empty doorway and where I stand confused. “What was she doing in here?”
Ruella isn’t your typical girl. I could tell that from the moment I set my eyes on her, the aura she gives off is like a caged animal. One that bites before it barks. Take this morning for example, instead of screaming and crying like all the other girls would be doing at the Academy if they were attacked. Ruella tried to hide it, lie to me and sort it herself. Which makes me more curious about her and what she is doing here. That’s why I am not raising hell to find out the person running around attacking girls on the campus. Her silence and then reluctance to tell me about it means it’s something personal. Before this morning, I wanted to hate fuck her, break her a little, show her that she isn’t as strong as she pretends to be. But now…Now I need to know everything. Something isn’t adding up. My instinct is telling me to dig a little deeper, and after ignoring my instinct the last time and the repercussions that followed, I won’t make that mistake again.
“I have no idea,” I reply grabbing my things from the floor by the bench. “But I am going to find out,”
Daylan falls into step beside me as I make my way back to the dorms. The bite in the air stings my cheeks, but I welcome it.
“Darcy was looking for you,”
I scoff. “So?”
“She wants to know what you are wearing tonight so you can match,” He snorts as I sneer in his direction.
“She’s doing my fucking head in mate,” I grab a cigarette from the box in my pocket and take Daylan’s lighter from his hand as he offers it to me.
“I honestly don’t know how you have lasted this long shagging only her. The number of girls that would line up for you is insane,”
After taking a drag, I raise my eyebrows at him. “Jealous?” I smirk. “You have been pretty preoccupied lately with your family stuff,”
“Yes I am jealous,” He admits with a grin of his own. “At least let me live vicariously through you!” He bumps my shoulder with his. Even though Daylan isn’t as close to me as Jacob is, he is still my friend. A good one, with more heart than myself and Jacob put together. He would do anything for us, even at the detriment of himself, which in my books makes him a hell of a friend to have by your side.
My father told me making friends is weak, we only keep people close that will help us become stronger in business and nothing more than that. What the fuck does he know, he has followed his own rules to be a big boss man and look at him. Barely has any say in the family company because he has zero clues as to what is going on. If he spent more of his early life learning the business instead of getting coked up, then maybe he would have been a better man. One I could have looked up to. One that would have allowed me a real childhood instead of playing the role of interim parent and husband to his piece of shit self.
Think of the devil and he shall appear.
I pull out my vibrating phone and groan at the name that is flashing on the screen.
Sperm doner.
I debate not answering, but I know if I don’t then he will come by to talk to me in person, and lately I have been picturing all the ways I can kill him, my favourite is with the gun I keep hidden. Taken out quick and meaninglessly, as he deserves.
“You go on without me,” I shake my phone at Daylan. “Got to take this,”
He nods. “No worries. My mum’s flight lands soon, so I will see you at the party tonight,” Then he continues up the path as I take a seat on one of the wooden benches dotted around the Academy grounds.
My phone goes silent as I light another cigarette, but vibrates again a second later with another call from the dickhead.
“Hello,”
