One week later, I feel it.
While few and far between, I’m not the only student at Caspian Prep who walks to school. Most of the others move at a snail’s pace, like they’re trekking to prison for a life-long sentence. I don’t see the point in dragging out the agony. My motto: Get in and get the hell out. So I’m used to people glaring at my back when I push past them on the sidewalk.
But this time, I slow as the feeling of being watched skitters across my skin. It’s like cold fingers behind my ear, making me shiver and pull my hoodie over my head. I scan the manicured lawns and sparkling BMWs as I walk, but nothing is out of the ordinary.
Paranoia isn’t new to me. When I was thirteen and first figuring out how to survive on the streets—in The Pitts, no less—the feeling followed me everywhere. Some nights, I even contemplated crawling back to my worthless dad, but fear alone couldn’t make me that stupid. If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be looking over my shoulder in the first place.
Now, with each step I take closer to school, I try shaking the paranoia off. I move faster, my eyes fixed on my surroundings. But the feeling doesn’t shake. I’m practically jogging by the time I cut across the school parking lot and enter through the back doors.
“Well, if it isn’t the daddy fucker.” Carter smirks, his blond hair a shaggy mess around the pointed angles of his face.
Stupid poem. He’s been stalking me between classes ever since, but this is the first time he’s said anything about it.
I somehow manage to suppress an eye roll, walking right past him and his small group of friends. A couple of them snicker. Marco and Elijah stay quiet; the first because he wants in my pants, the second because he’s already been there and is hoping for a repeat. Unfortunately, Carter leaves them behind to catch up to me.
His arm slips around my waist. “So that’s what you’re into now, huh?” His voice is quiet, but the menacing undertone is loud and clear. “Creepy sleazebags?”
I shrug his arm off and offer my sweetest, fakest smile. “Believe me, if I was into creepy sleazebags, you’d be first on the list.”
Just as I push open the door to the women’s bathroom, he grips me by the wrist. His fingers cut into my skin as he tugs me against his chest. When I reluctantly meet his gaze, his blue eyes are cold.
I grit my teeth. “Get your hands off me.”
“I thought you liked it when I touched you.” His lip twitches, but it’s humorless. He brings his mouth to my cheek. “Don’t you remember? When you spread your legs and begged for it? Over and over, like a bitch in heat.”
Bitterness slithers up my throat like bile. I can’t even say he’s lying. But the smug expression on his stupid face, the way he’s looking at me like he thinks he knows me, it fuels my fury like a match to gasoline.
He knows nothing about me or the reason I slept with him that night. The truth is, it could have been anyone—anyone just to make it all go away.
“It was freshman year, Carter. You can’t really expect me to remember it as well as you seem to,” I lie, because I wish it were true. “Besides, if I’m still your best fuck, maybe the real problem is you.”
My words are still settling in the air when I yank my arm from his grip and enter the bathroom, letting the door slam in his face behind me. He pushes it back open, but he stills when a girl brushes past him and shoots him a disgusted look before entering one of the stalls. As he stands unblinking in the hallway, I flash a bitter smile, turn around, and listen to the door fall shut with him on the other side.
I grip the edges of the sink and stare at my reflection. I inhale. Exhale. Slow and steady. My olive skin looks a shade too pale this morning, my brown eyes still wide and on alert. As much as I hate Carter’s constant reminders about that night, and his assholeryness in general, he’s not the reason my hands are unsteady when I check that the girl is still locked in a stall and untuck the two-inch shard of opal glass from the waistband of my jeans.
Despite the years that have passed, I can still make out half the flower that was etched into the vase before it shattered. I glide my thumb across the dull edges stained with red, unable to look away from the faded smears.
It’s so much more than a shard of a vase. It’s more than the weapon I once turned it into. It’s a reminder of what almost was, and what I overcame. A promise to survive. And a secret I’ll take to my grave. But it’s also a reminder to stay alert, to abandon weakness, and to never forget where I came from before the Rutherfords swept me up into their ivory tower.
Because people like him—the one whose blood is caked on the shard beneath my thumb—they never stop searching. And people like me, well, we never stop running.
Which is why paranoia is neverjustparanoia for me.
After carefully tucking the piece of glass back under my waistband, I splash cold water on my face, pat myself dry with a paper towel, and throw my curls up in a ponytail. A flush sounds from the stall behind me. As the other girl washes her hands, I remove my jacket and stuff it into my backpack.
In a way, I have Whitney to thank for my outfit. It wasn’t until she started a school-wide petition for “freedom of expression” and “individuality” that the board finally nixed their bland uniforms. Some of the guidelines still get me in trouble—my black top is too small, showing glimpses of my silver navel piercing whenever I move—but Mr. Doau will make sure I get detention regardless of how I dress, so fuck it.
The girl exits the bathroom, and I follow closely behind her. I’m halfway over the threshold when a white T-shirt blocks my path, rough hands curl around my wrists, and I’m forced back into the bathroom.
“What the—”
“Tell me the truth, Eva,” Carter breathes in my face.
He’s backed me into the wall, locking my wrists at my sides. A wave of panic hits me, cold and sudden. I swallow it down.
“Why do you do it?” he asks. “Why do you fuck everyone but me now? Is it your way of getting back at me?”
“Don’t flatter yourself, Carter.” I sigh, feigning boredom just to piss him off. “Nothing I do is for you.”
