The memory floods back, harsh light searing my eyes. Turning the world white as my relief morphs into shame.
Chelsea already resented me for the attention my disability brought. Teachers rearranging seats, getting special equipment, extra tutelage, like I wouldn’t have swapped in a second.
A tear blinks from my eye and I swipe it away, sniffing back more. But they swell too fast, more trickling down my face while Damien observes with the same blank stare as last night.
“Sociopath,” I mutter.
A tiny frown line mars his forehead. “Yeah… I am.”
That rampant honesty again. Far more confronting than little white lies, and this…? This unexpected admission feels like Damien gave me a tiny gift. Something I’ll unwrap in full, later.
Needing distraction, I shuffle pages. The confession hurt but the aftermath is cleansing. Each breath comes easier, head light with oxygen. “Have you looked through…”
Damien reaches under the table and plugs in the keyboard, playing some opening chords.
“We’re meant to cover your coursework.”
“Eight months’ worth in”—he checks his phone—“twenty-four minutes?” His hands flow through three minor changes. “Good luck with that.”
It’s hard to argue. “You like to play?”
“I like to dabble. Side effect of the perennially bored.”
He runs through another progression, then a rustic baritone erupts from his throat, loud enough to vibrate the walls and make my insides tremble. The tune is ‘Killer Queen,’ but he alters the lyrics into nonsense soup, referencing ice and snow and windy moors where the ancient peat dents underfoot.
Not that my senses care. My eardrums embrace his gruff tones, vibrating like a softly worded threat, each measured note deep, dark, foreboding, echoing across my skin.
“Ice cold queen…”
He rips his hands off the keys and kicks out the plug. Ending as suddenly as he began.
“You’re writing me a song?”
“Coercing you into bed didn’t work, so I’m trying to charm you.”
His tone is flat. An icy tendril flutters across my shoulder blades, perversely fascinated by this boy who’s as alien to me as I appear to others. His personality unbound from the chains of forever trying to fit in.
Maybe he feels that obscene pull—or feeds off it. Damien leans closer, his fingertips glancing off my hair. “Tell me his name.”
His face is close enough my breath bounces off his skin, warm puffs against my lips. He’s angled away from the light; the darkness of his hair matched by his shadowed eyes.
A fingertip trails along my cheekbone, last week’s bruise nearly healed, and my breathing quickens. A pull in my chest draws me closer, like a rope dragging me towards a cliff edge.
Dark. Intoxicating. I’m locked in his attention.
“Tell me his name and I’ll make sure he pays. I’ll make sure he never assaults another girl at a party.”
The shape forms on my lips, wanting to obey.
It would be so easy. Just two words. Three syllables.
I blink and, in that microsecond, Craig’s face twists in agony, the right person finally paying for his crime. Vengeance sweet and hot on my tongue.
Until the bill comes due.
I jerk away.
“Thanks, but I draw the line at one crime a week.”
