I could. All it would take was a phone call to daddy. Hell, even a text message would do it. But I was done. I’d find another way to cover the hole in my third year plan.
“Out,” Magnus hissed.
I rose, collected my bag and my charcoals, and looked down at my smudged painting. At the threat hidden in shadow that no one could see anymore. Somehow, I liked it better this way. “A gift,” I said lightly, knowing what came next.
“I’ll toss it the moment you leave the building,” Master Magnus said, oh so freaking predictably.
I shrugged, and aimed my body toward the door, keeping my steps small.Five, six, seven?—
“Or, perhaps I’ll leave it behind a stack of boards where it will remain, dusty and unused for a decade, alongside the work of other mediocre students who have walked out of this room and disappeared into obscurity. Names forgotten, just like their withering talent.” The spite that laced his voice froze everybody in the room, including mine.
What a hateful little asshole you really are.
Perhaps it was Magnus I'd painted in the hood, but then, I’d never gift him such prime real estate.
No, that sought after position belonged to someone else. Who, I had no idea, but certainly not him.
I rotated on my heel to face him as the soft kiss of night air drifted through an open window accompanied by the faint scent of spice-tinged weed. “Please do. I’m sure it will sit nicely next to yours.”
The words tumbled too-freely from my poisonous lips. David Magnus’s eyes flashed with the sort of hatred that I thought only happened in movies. Then my feet moved me across the floor and out the door with me an observer only in my own exodus.
And in the narcotics laced air, I swore the faintest laugh followed me from the art studio.
CHAPTER TWO
KASH
Helia was a fucking goddess. I’d kneel to worship at her feet, but she trotted across campus too fast after her altercation with her lecturer. I walked away after the first part of her class, leaving my twin to listen in. He could stay and contemplate the future of the man who I refused to callprofessor,as if he was even worthy of the title given to his colleagues. I had another job tonight to occupy my time that took me away from sweet Helia. But I would return to her soon.
Mind, the girl that my twin and I followed around campus like a fucking puppy attracted plenty of attention. The sort who wanted more than a little look while she sat in art class, painting pettily away. The sort who wasn’t content to simplysee.
The sort who needed to touch.
And that was never okay.
Her little art friend found out the hard way. He liked to touch, and he liked to do far more than look. Because he liked tosteal.
It turned out that Art Buddy Ethan had an obsession to rival ours.
No. That was an outright lie. I should punish myself, but later. After I washed away the blood that coated every pore in my arms. I toed the body out of the road as I moved around, keeping my steps small, my feet on the plastic I’d laid out for this particular event.
Ethan hadn’t made a whole lot of sound. He hadn’t fought much, either. In fact, he only said one thing, that I still mulled over, as though it baffled him:
“I thought it would be both of you.”
Strange words, for a strange college student.
Usually, the Rippton cadre screamed and begged for their lives, or offered some ridiculous—and often, lowball—amount of payment in order to keep their pithy lives intact. That tactic never worked, of course. But on the rare occasion, someone offered something we didn’t have, and we… kept them. Like a prized puppy.
And once. Just once, we let that person run free.
I still wasn't sure if that had been a mistake or an interesting turn in life. But right now I needed to clean up before Key berated me for my mess—again.
Helia Mascot had been a long running obsession of ours. Unhealthy, unusual and unseen. All the things that made us…
Well, us.
She was perfection in every way. Pretty, in an unintentional, gothic princess sort of way with the elfin, delicate features, and the eye of an artist who sees the world from a skewed perspective, rather than taking reality at face value like so many others. Eyes hollow from internal pain and torture, the kind that we often dealt out. She already understood that, which meant that we had a common ground.
