Mr. Gifford cleared his throat, his pointed gaze on me, silently telling me that if I kept yapping he would be handing out detentions on the second day of school, which would be a personal new record for me, one I was tempted to achieve solely because I hated authority.
Hales folded the note and slid it into her bag.
Just forget about the stupid note. Not your problem.
But the more I tried to convince myself I didn’t care who’d written the message, the more my mind repeated the words in my head. What Hales didn’t know was that as we were leaving AP biology, I lifted her little note straight out of her bag. She’d been in a hurry, her backpack hanging loose off one shoulder, the zipper only halfway closed.
Easy.
I waiteduntil we were home, following Mason upstairs to the second floor. He turned to shut the door behind him as he strolled into his room, not seeing that I was still behind him until I caught the door. His eyes, so much like mine, glanced over his shoulder. “What’s up your ass? You’ve been acting like a bigger prick than usual.”
My brows pulled together in annoyance. “Did you give her this note?” I asked, tossing the crumbled ball at my twin without preamble.
The paper hit his chest and fluttered down the front of his shirt. He snatched it up before it fell to the ground. It had his signature all over it and was exactly a stunt he’d pull. Mason unfolded the note, his eyes moving over the words. “As much as I would love to take credit for this slightly romantic but eerie as hell note. It wasn’t me.” He shoved the paper back at me without waiting to see if I’d take it.
The note floated to the floor at my feet. I bent to pick it up with the tips of my fingers. “If you didn’t write it, who did?”
He scoffed, sitting on the edge of his bed and slipping his shoes off. “How would I know?” He leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees, studying me with an odd expression. “Are you upset someone else might be interested in your girl?”
“She isn’tmine.” My eyes darted to the note again, remembering the signature. They had signed it Mine. It stuck out to me, but I didn’t know why.
“Uh-huh,” he said, dragging the syllables out, his lips twisting. “Then why are you so worked up about this? It’s a cheesy love letter.”
I scrubbed a hand over my face, but it did nothing to ease the frustration buzzing under my skin. “I don’t fucking know.” I sighed.
“Look, if it’s not me—and it’s not—then it’s some other idiot trying to be poetic. He shrugged, leaning back on his hands, fingers splayed against the comforter. “She’s hot. She’s the new girl. Someone was bound to shoot their shot. It was probably one of the guys on the team.”
“Did you say something to them?”
“I might have. She’s all anyone is talking about, that and Raven Night.”
“Wonderful,” I mumbled, dropping against the wall.
“You’re reading into it too much. I’m sure it’s nothing.”
Maybe he was right.
“Besides, you know, there’s one guaranteed way to stop it,” he added, his light-green eyes dancing. “Claim her. If you don’t, she’s fair game.”
Why did I want to hit him?
14
MALLORY
For nearly a week, all anyone talked about was Raven Night, and it was refreshing to no longer be the topic of conversation and have the interest as the new girl slowly die down. I’d settled into a routine, and I liked routine. I rode with Paisley and Atlas to and from school, the three of us falling into an easy friendship like I never had before. Paisley worked most days after school, and my house was on the way.
The windows were down, late-summer air whipping through the interior and tangling my hair around my face in wild, unruly strands I kept having to push away. “So,” I said from the back seat, tucking my hair behind my ear for the tenth time. “What’s so special about Raven Night?”
“Nothing,” Atlas said with his hand out the window, waving up and down with the rushing wind. “Unless you’re a psychopath—which, now that I think about it, applies to more than half the school.”
“And we’re not psychopaths?” I asked, raising an eyebrow, catching his gaze in the side mirror.
The corners of his lips tipped. “Not this Friday night.”
“Got it,” I retorted, even though I very much did not.
“It’s just a stupid party hosted by the football team,” Atlas informed, shoving his fingers into his windblown hair and tousling the messy strands more as if it might help. “Well, the Corvos more specifically. It’s at this creepy-as-fuck abandoned church on the edge of town, and everyone wears masks.”
