“Don’t fucking tempt me.”
Harrick snorts. “You don’t have the balls anyway.”
I’m done.
“Where the hell did she go?”
Harrick shrugs. “Who knows? Who cares? She’s fucking gone. That’s all that matters.”
“No.”
Silence. Silas’s eyes narrow.
“If you’re so concerned,” he says slowly, “go after her.”
He lets that sit.
“But if you do, you can kiss that internship with my father goodbye. You know the one. The one that’s going to set you up after graduation.” He smiles. “You really want to throw that away for some broken girl who doesn’t even have a mark?”
I stare at him.
Two years. Two years of swallowing shit I didn’t agree with because I needed what his family could offer. Two years of telling myself it was temporary, that I’d get out eventually, that the ends justified the means.
Two years of being exactly the kind of person who’d let Nova run off alone after they made her cry.
“You know what?”
Silas waits.
“Tell your father to go fuck himself.”
Harrick’s mouth drops open.
“Stay the fuck away from her. Both of you.”
Harrick scoffs. “And if we don’t?”
“Then the scholarship won’t be the only thing I’m willing to lose.”
I turn and walk. Then run.
I don’t know where she went. I don’t know if I can find her. I don’t know what I’m going to say if I do.
But I’m not letting her stay gone.
Chapter 22
Vaelor
I’ve checked the library twice. The dining hall. The back paths behind the training buildings where no one goes this early.
Nothing.
She’s not here. Or if she is, she doesn’t want to be found—and Nova knows how to not be found. Fifteen years of practice. Years of learning how to disappear when disappearing was the only thing keeping her alive.
I keep moving. I can’t stop.
If I stop, I’ll think too much, and if I think too much I’ll remember her face at dinner two nights ago—the way she reached for the bread like she was still surprised it was there, the way she almost smiled when Rane said something stupid, the way she looked at all of us like she was waiting for the catch.
