When our physical training test was over, I tried not to hang like a mosquito behind Rush, but I wanted answers and I couldn’t wait much longer. Scarlett, who was clinging to him as usual, sent me a few scathing glares but otherwise left me alone.
Finally, he pried himself away from her and said he was going for a swim in the lake behind the school. She complained that it was too cold. This was my chance. Fuming, I paced in an empty classroom for a few minutes, then headed out a side doorand slipped down the gravel path toward the small lake perfectly framing Gray Mountain in its dark waters.
My sweat from our training had started to dry, and I was barely fighting off the shivers when I made it to the lake. But one glance at Rush and I wasn’t cold anymore.
Ender, help.I spun halfway around, trying not to look at him as he finished a lap and turned around.
“Hey, it’s the gambler!”
Fists forming, I turned to him. He bobbed in the water, a glistening smile on his face. I crossed my arms and pointed at the dock.
He saluted me and swam toward the dock. I forced myself not to watch as he climbed out, but when I assumed he’d wrapped up in a towel, I whirled back around, only to be faced with a full view of his abs.
His laugh sent my blood from simmering to boiling. He rubbed his towel on his face and then, annoyingly, down his stomach.
I huffed and turned aside.
“Am I making you uncomfortable?”
“I hate you.”
“I’ll take that as a resounding yes. Tell me, prickly little cactus, why are you uncomfortable?”
“Don’t flatter yourself. I have a dragon who can torch your pretty face off any day I want him to.”
“But you do think I’m pretty?” He chuckled and tossed a shirt over his head. I stole a glance at him while he pulled it down. I tried to remember what he knew, what he could do with one word to Headmaster Vaughan if he chose to turn me in. According to his words to Luther this morning, I was nothing more than a charity case, useful to him only as long as my dragon was helping him toward his own goals. But part of me didn’t believe he only cared about finding his answers, not now. Notafter he’d doctored my wound. Not after he’d tried to save me from Myth’s flames.
But trusting Rush Covington might turn out to be the most dangerous thing I could do. “You, sir, could do with a little less arrogance,” I said. Before he could reply, I poked my finger at him. “I know we’re not friends, but you didn’t have to act like I was some…some…charity case.”
He sighed. “We were careless. Someone saw us returning to the school. I had to come up with something, some reason I would be with you late at night. I thought my excuse was better than Luther’s.” He strode dangerously toward me, his blue eyes reckless. “Would you rather I pretend he was right?”
I groaned and pressed my hands to my face. My mind scrambled between images of Shep walking away and Rush shielding me from Myth’s sparks. “Fine. About Myth…”
“We’ll go tonight, like we planned. But we can’t make any more mistakes. No one sees us.”
“How will we leave the school without anyone seeing us?”
“I have a way.”
We fell into step on the path, but we’d soon be visible to people coming and going from the back doors of the school.
“Always mysterious,” I grumbled.
“Always prickly,” he replied.
I frowned at him, but he only smiled in return.
“You head to the lair; I’ll head this way.” He pointed up the path, his breath fogging on the air.
“Why do I have to go back down there? Myth isn’t even there. ”
“Because I’m all wet, and it’s freezing.”
“You’re the idiot who wanted to go swimming.”
“Iwantedto go somewhere quiet, somewhere people wouldn’t overhear us.” Shaking his head, he stormed off downthe path toward the lair, leaving me to walk up to school, fighting the urge to glance back at him.
As I walked toward the entrance off the solarium, a man’s voice called my name from the path below. I turned.
