I stared ahead, eyelid twitching, refusing to blink.
I let my head thud, lightly, against the cold pane. I let him see that I wouldn’t even give him the blink, or the tremble, or the tears. I could feel him watching for a reaction, the whole ride, like a hungry fish circling the wound.
I let the poison eat its way through me. The worst thing you could do with someone like Caiden was show them the wound.
The bus jerked to a stop on the shoulder of some godforsaken back road, its tires crunching loose gravel.
Caiden’s thigh pressed harder against mine as the bus’s movement shoved us both sideways.
Mrs. Grant barked a warning, her lips puckered in the rearview. “Settle down, please! We’ll be at the fort in twenty minutes.” Her voice bounced around the metal shell, paper-thin, always on the brink of tearing.
Outside, the sun clawed through the haze, slicing the world into slabs of icy blue and dust. I watched crows fight over something mangled in the ditch.
I wondered if the other students could see, if they cared, if they’d ever know what it felt like to be the smallest thing picked by the world.
Caiden didn’t speak. He just flexed his hand, tapping the tips of his fingers against his thigh, one-two-three, restless, drumming some primitive code he probably didn’t even know he was broadcasting.
I tried to picture where his mind went when he wasn’t plotting ruin. Did he ever dream? Did he ever wish for anything but the next hit, the next fight, the next day to dawn?
He caught me watching him and his eyes flared before he clamped his face back into the steel I always expected.
His jaw ticked.
"You got a staring problem?" he said, voice low.
I shrugged, not looking away. I knew if I blinked, he’d win. I wasn’t about to lose, not today. "Do you get off on making people miserable?"
He arched a brow, like this was a stupid question. "The world’s miserable, Amelia. Some of us are just honest about it."
I rolled my tongue along my teeth, hating how raw his words left me. "Maybe some people don’t want to drown in your truth."
He grinned, all wolf, no heat. "Maybe they need to learn how to swim, then."
He thumped his head back on the seat, a grim laugh rattling loose. "You know, you act like I’m some kind of monster. But I’ve seen real monsters. You wouldn’t last a minute in my house."
I wanted to fire back, tell him what he already knew: that my own house was a graveyard, and I’d slept in enough empty beds to know every inch of the dark.
But I didn’t. I just closed my eyes and let his words chill me.
The bus rolled on. Every pothole rattled my bones.
My hands were cold and damp, the skin along my wrist burning from where I’d picked it raw the night before.
I curled my fingers, digging my nails into palm, and counted the seconds until we arrived.
The fort hunched on the hill like a decaying tooth, all weathered wood and bristling fences. The bus hissed and shuddered like a dying animal as Mrs. Grant’s shoes clacked down the aisle.
“Pair up with your buddy, please, and stay together for the tour!” she trilled, her breath a fog on the air. “This place is like a maze if you’re not careful.”
I rose, hoping to melt into the tide of bodies clogging the aisle, but Caiden blocked me, one broad hand gripping my shoulder with a pressure just shy of pain.
“What are you doing?” I spat, part of me bracing for him toshove me into the seat again, to snap something in me that hadn’t already splintered.
“Not like you have any friends here,” he sneered. “If I don’t stick with you, you’ll vanish in five seconds flat. Think of it as a mercy.”
I twisted under his grip, but he didn’t let go, just marched me down the steps and into the raw wind.
The chill cut through my layers, needling my bones. I hunched up, arms crossed, wishing I could shed my skin and leave it behind.
