“Who are you?” Dove snapped, in case he was one of Bryce’s vultures.
“I’m Thomas. Whenever I’m annoying, my mom says I’m a little shit and she’s shipping me to Australia.” He sounded unfazed. “I think it sounds fun. What stuff do you like?”
Bryce Kane and the others backed off, as if Thomas was something to be wary of, and Dove relaxed.
“I like running,” she said—she’d recently added “conquer track and field” to her spreadsheet. “I read a lot,adult books, too.”
Thomas picked up a stick and dragged it in the dirt as they walked. “We should race and see who’s fastest. I think I am, but”—he sounded factual—“you might be because you’re taller.” He turned to Andrew. “What about you? What do you like?”
Andrew’s eyes went wide. People would clock Dove as the friendly one and assume Andrew was rude, not shy. No one bothered with him.
“I like to write,” he said quietly.
“He writesamazingbooks,” Dove added, forever his one-person hype team. “I’m researching how we can publish them and become millionaires, but I got stuck designing a cover.”
“I could draw you a cover,” Thomas said. “But I only draw monsters, so you probably couldn’t handle that.”
He looked at Andrew as he said it, his mouth a serious line with a challenge tucked into one corner.
“I can handle you,” Andrew said.
He’d meant to sayI can handleit.
A smile broke across Thomas’s face, all sharp edges and cleverness. Andrew loved it.
Then a hand shoved Andrew’s shoulder and he stumbled. “Excuse me! Trying to get past!” Bryce shouted, and his friends cracked up, because of course he wasn’t. He reached out to shove Andrew again.
Dove whipped around in fury, but Thomas was faster. He leveled his stick right at Bryce’s chest.
“Touch him again like that,” he said mildly, “and you’ll wish you hadn’t.”
Bryce towered over them with a mocking smirk. “Is this even your class, runt? I think the preschoolers went the other way.” He began to reach toward Andrew again. “We’re just messing around. Didn’t mean to make Andy cry like a little—”
Thomas slammed the stick down so hard the forest echoed with the crack of wood against skin. Bryce’s howl was of both shock and rage as he doubled over, a vicious red welt on his hand.
A horribly delicious feeling flooded Andrew’s chest. He could taste pain in the air and for once it wasn’t his, andhe loved that.
The teacher stormed toward them.
Thomas casually tossed his stick into the trees and didn’t look concerned. “He won’t touch you again,” he said.
Andrew could hardly breathe. “You’ll be in trouble.”
The light in Thomas’s eyes was bold and ferocious. “But he won’t touch you again.”
FIVE
Instead of waiting up until the witching hour to sneak out and stargaze, Andrew fell asleep. He’d found Thomas in the dorms after dinner and they’d fallen into their usual first-day routine of haphazardly unpacking until Andrew had nodded off on his still unmade bed. He dreamed brambles wrapped around his throat, a briar rose resting on his tongue. Dove kept knocking on his door, begging him to come to the forest with her, but he couldn’t squeeze words out past the thorns. She went without him.
His best talent had always been letting people down. Even in sleep, apparently.
When he woke, it was dark and he felt feverish. Pinpricks of pain rippled through his right hand, and he gave a sleep-fogged moan before looking down.
Blood streaked his knuckles, every scar flayed open again. When he made a fist, skin peeled apart to show stark white bone against raw tendons.
Andrew shot upright with a cry. A light burst on and he whipped around, an arm flung up to defend himself from the glare—or an attack. But it was just Thomas clicking on his desk lamp, one boot on and worry furrowing his brows.
“Are you okay?” he said.
