“Yes, today. You haven’t been keeping up your end of the deal,Liv. I gave you a grace period—but it’s time to get it together.”
My tongue rolls around my cheeks, wrangling back vicious retorts that brew in me.
What silences those insults is that he’s right.
I can’t risk him going to Dray and revealing what I know. Not until I’ve gotten myself sorted, until I’ve got a plan.
Whatever scheme I’m hoping falls onto my lap or tumbles into my mind, I don’t know, I just cling to the hope that it’ll be enough to free me from a future I just can’t fathom.
The warmth of Landon’s glittering eyes runs me over, from the ponytail tacked onto my head down to the toes of my suede boots.
“You’re more of a skier than a snowboarder,” he decides, and he isn’t wrong. “I’m the latter. Think you can keep up?”
“Those mind tricks don’t work on me,” I say, dull. “I’m more than happy to fall behind.”
Unaffected, Landon just lets his grip slip away from my arm, ignoring the stares that flicker over us from the few students strewn about the grand parlour. And though Asta, still standing by the coffee station, watches him with enough intensity to burn a hole into his cheek, he doesn’t even glance her way.
I do.
Out the corner of my eye, I keep tabs on her, her arms folded over her chest, the silence of her seething rage as the machine whirls behind her, too loud in the soft quiet of the parlour.
I grit the answer out, “Fine.”
Because what else can I do?
I did make the deal.
Sure, I could go back on it now, since I already got the information I needed—but what happens when there’s more to learn? What happens when Landon gets pissed off enough to go to Dray and tell him what I know?
I doubt he would put himself in that position, in the path of Dray’s wrath, but then again, we’re all Snakes here, just doing our best to stay afloat.
“I don’t have my skis,” I add before Landon can leave me for the boys’ dorm.
“Borrow mine.” He gives a slight shrug. “88s.”
I’m better with 80s, and I haven’t gone on the slopes for a long time, so the reluctance—the nerves—start to appear.
My mouth thins, lips sucked inward, and I bite down uneasily.
“You have your snowsuit?” he asks with a glance at the doorway we all but block, the one that leads to a corridor running through to the cigar room, a place of not so lovely memories, and a bathroom, and the two staircases to the girls’ dorms.
The temptation is there, ribboning through me, to just run into the dorms and hide.
That will save me from the slopes.
But not from the consequences.
I nod, reluctant.
Landon’s smile is warm victory. “Meet you back down here in an hour?”
And he’s gone.
I don’t watch him stalk through the parlour, shouldering students aside. I turn my back on the curious frowns aimed at me, and that one constant searing glare I feel itching over my flesh like a fucking grater.
I snub Asta—and take my coffees to the dorm.
By the time I’m perched on the edge of my bed, sipping at what should be hot, freshly brewed bliss, disappointment slumps me.
