“The—the girl we saw in the woods who had the golden net. She was wearing that gauntlet.” I tried to soundsteady and casual, but my heart was pounding hard, and I was sure she could feel it.
Oaklyn kept staring at me. I could see her brain working behind those bright blue eyes. “I never said her name.”
“Yes you did.”
“When?”
“I don’t remember.” Shit, my mouth was so dry, and my lies felt clumsy on my tongue. “But you did, because how else would I know it?”
I shimmied up to plant a kiss on her lips in a desperate attempt to distract her. For a moment, she stayed rigid and unresponsive—but as I pressed my naked body to hers, my nipples grazing her skin and my legs wrapping around her thigh, she softened, and a hungry noise escaped her.
She kissed me back, and I opened my lips to let her tongue dip into my mouth. But as our bodies responded to each other in a now-familiar way, panic guided my actions, as if I could somehow stop her from learning the truth if I kissed her hard enough.
She rolled on top, and I wrapped my legs around her hips to hold her against me. Her breath hitched, and her fist came up to wrap in my hair, and it was my turn to let out an involuntary noise as she pulled.
We were both rougher than usual. Fingers grabbing, teeth biting, bodies writhing. There was a new calculation in the way her hands moved over my body, as if she was desperately trying to solve a puzzle instead of making love. And I was urgently trying to prove something.
I tried to say everything in my heart without words: I’m sorry I’m lying to you, Oaklyn. But this part? The way I respond to your touch, and the way my heart races when you look into my eyes? This is real.
That was the end of the conversation. She said nothing more.
But the rest of the morning felt…off. I can’t be certain, and I might just be paranoid, but my journal was in a different pocket of my backpack when I zipped it shut to go to work. I’d been keeping it safely buried in the depths of the middle pocket, but I found it upside-down in the main compartment.
Did I slip it in too hastily last night, or did Oaklyn read it while I was showering? Was I imagining the way she looked at me as I got ready—searching, scrutinizing? Her eyes followed me around the apartment, lingering a beat too long when I checked my phone, when I brushed my teeth, when I kissed her goodbye.
“See you tonight?” I asked at the door, trying to sound normal.
She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Of course.”
It’s possible she read my journal and knows everything—about Katie, about my mission to spy on her, about how I’ve been lying to her since shortly after we met. But it’s also possible that I’m just scared and paranoid. I can’t imagine how angry she’ll be with me if she finds out the truth…and just as much, I’m terrified that when that happens, I’m going to lose her forever.
Chapter 18
Dangerous Loyalties
Orderingmytextbooksfeelssurreal, like I’m watching myself play the role of a student while my life crumbles to pieces.
Sitting at a picnic table in the C.S.A.M.M. courtyard with my laptop, my eyes glaze over as I stare at the checkout page. My mind keeps playing out different versions of how tonight’s invasion at Lighthouse Park will go—how the chimeras will respond, how the Shadows plan to capture them all, whether blood will be spilled.
But my degree is a huge part of the life I’m fighting to keep, and I need to do this. If I’m going to avoid witch prison, I need to make sure I maintain this fragile balance of—
Beside my laptop, my phone lights up with Hazel’s face.
My heart lurches. Okay, turns out some things are a higher priority than textbooks.
I abandon my laptop, where the timer on the checkout page warns me I only have four minutes left, and grab my phone.
“Still alive?” I answer, glancing around to ensure no witches are listening. They stroll past on their way to and from the lounge, and beside me, Ethel and another resident cat named Juniper watch the koi pond.
“Yeah.” Hazel’s voice is flat and tired, like she’s struggling with the emotional burden of everything as much as I am. “No indication that she’s using me to get to you.”
“Oh, thank God.” Relief floods through me—followed quickly by a knot in my stomach. I don’t like what comes next.
Neither does Hazel, apparently, because she’s quiet.
“You don’t have to spy for us if you don’t want to,” I say, watching a ladybug crawl across the picnic table. “I’ll tell Natalie off.”
“Don’t.” She sighs. “I don’t want you to argue because of me. Besides, I’m already working on finding out where Sophia lives.”
