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My teeth find my bottom lip. “We were just talking.”

“Ha. Yeah, whatever you say.”

My eyes flit up to hers, but I don’t say anything.

Dani continues, “Remember that rumor I was telling you about Lincoln? He makes girls⁠—”

My stomach swirls. “Makes girls, what?”

She licks her bottom lip, her eyes gleaming. “He makes them go on their knees.”

Misty’s eyes grow wide like saucers, and I cut her a glare. I’m acting guilty, so guilty. I pull my hair behind my ear as Misty stares at me curiously. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. All we did was talk. If you’re insinuating I sucked off my TA to get a better grade, you can rest easy, Dani.”

Dani just smirks and crosses her arms. “You’re blushing, Summer, and I’ve only ever seen you blush once.”

I place my hand to my cheek and she’s right, it’s burning hot.

“I didn’t do that. All we did was talk, and he’s letting me make up my assignment. But thank you for thinking the best of me.”

Dani crosses her arms. “Okay, I believe you. But you’re hiding something from me, I know it.”

I roll my eyes, attempting to conceal the complex feelings I have for him, as well as my desperation for him.

We pass a group of security guards, and I’m reminded of the missing girl from a few towns over. A tight ball forms in my chest—jealousy tightening its grip on my heart, not the guilt I should be experiencing.

“He offered me extra help, too,” Misty says out of the blue. Both Dani and I whip our heads to her. “I’m going to visit him every week.”

She darts her gaze between the two of us as we head to Dani’s car in the dark parking lot.

I glare at her and bite the inside of my cheek until my jaw locks. “Did you go down on your knees? You were in there before I was,” I ask her, and Misty’s face fires red.

She shakes her head. “I would never do that, that would be unethical…but he was flirty with me, too.”

That word.

Ethics.

He made me recite every sentence of that chapter.

“He’s a nerd,” I mutter, pulling my seatbelt over my shoulder. “Why are we even talking about him?”

Dani grins and slides in next to me. “That nerd is really hot, Summer. I can’t see how a guy who looks like that is single. And if he was flirting with you, then you need to get me closer to Xander.”

“Well, ask Misty, then,” I say flippantly. “Apparently, she’s the one he likes.” I turn back and wink at her. She scowls, but I don’t miss the tears forming in her eyes.

It seems as though I have lost all sense of life within me. The words that fill my heart with bitterness are not my own. They can only be attributed to my nameless monster, and the years of him whispering in my ear while I was asleep. I have no other explanation.

We drive the rest of the way in silence. When we arrive home, Misty grabs her things, heads to her room, and slams the door.

I stand in our small kitchen, and I give Dani a what the fuck did I do look.

She merely frowns. “You haven’t exactly been warm to her.”

I place my head in my hands and lean over the barstool. “Well, I haven’t exactly felt like myself since my father died.”

This summer was the hardest of my life. When I left home, I also left the life my mom wanted for me and trounced around Europe. I was going through the motions. I had these images of what college was going to be like, that it would make me better. Coming here, following in my father’s footsteps, seemed like the right thing to do.

My time, though, has largely been spent in solitude, engrossed in books, and captivated by a psychopath with potentially duplicitous personalities. One who cursed me with the mark of death.