“Both,” I say, blocking each punch in turn. “And they’re not mad. They’re just . . . malevolent.”
Kade laughs. “I’m glad I can always get a vocabulary lesson along with my boxing instruction.”
“Maybe you should be an English teacher, ‘cause you ain’t never gonna be a boxer,” I tease him, sending a combination back at him.
Kade slips the punches with promising speed.
“There you go!” I say. “Not too shabby.”
He fires back at me and I bat his fist aside.
“Not too great, either,” I snort.
I don’t know why I’m laughing. I’ve got a hundred different problems plaguing me, and I’m still fucked in the head from seeing that picture of my mother. But Kade is so easy-going that it lightens my mood to spar with him, even on the worst days.
He refuses to quail under the obvious antagonism of the older students. And he never shirks from practicing with me, even when he can’t land a single hit. His persistence is infectious.
Kade attacks again, even faster. This time he manages to get a rapid jab inside my right glove, and it grazes my chin.
“Oh, you felt that one!” Kade chortles, bouncing on the balls of his feet.
“Not as much as you will,” I growl.
After class, I help Snow pick up the discarded sparring pads.
He sprays them with sanitizer and wipes them down with a towel.
“Well,” he grunts, throwing another pad on the pile of those that have been cleaned. “What is it?”
“What do you mean?”
“I know you’re not helping me tidy up out of the goodness of your heart.”
“I could be.”
“You’re not.”
I pick up a sweaty towel and chuck it in the laundry bin, irritated by how easily he sees through me.
“I got in a fight with Cat the other night,” I say.
“What happened?”
“She found my mother. Living in Chicago, under her sister’s name.”
Snow is silent a minute, digesting this.
“Why did that occasion a fight?” he says, at last.
“Cat tracked her down without even asking me. She shoved a picture in my face.”
Snow cocks an eyebrow at me. “And that made you angry?”
“She had no right.”
He makes a dismissive sound. “She has every right.”
I wring the next towel in my hands, glaring at Snow. It’s just like him to take her side for no fucking reason.
“How do you figure that?” I demand.
“It’s called intimacy, Dean. You let someone in your life, and they’re in your life. She’s not a doll you can put on a shelf until you want to play with her again. She’s gonna have her own ideas of how to do things.”
“It’s my fucking mother! It’s my choice if I want to find her or not.”
“Cat didn’t fly her to the island. It’s still your choice if you want to see her, isn’t it?”
My blood pressure is rising, thudding in my temples and behind my eyes. I don’t know why the fuck I come to Snow for advice when he’s just as infuriating as Cat. Maybe even more so.
“She had the balls to try to break up with me!” I say.
Snow chuckles, and I’d like to chuck this towel right in his face.
“Sounds like she did break up with you,” he says.
I fling the towel into the hamper, biting back the torrent of angry words that want to spill out of me. I regret how I spoke to Cat. I don’t need to set another relationship on fire—even if Snow is seriously pissing me off.
“Well?” I demand.
“Well what?”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Have you considered apologizing?”
“Why the fuck should I apologize? She’s the one who should beg me for forgiveness.”
Snow sighs, picking up the last of the pads and carrying them over to the storage cabinet.
“Dean,” he says. “I don’t think this is the first time you’ve blown up your own life. Have you ever tried fixing it instead?”
“What do you mean?”
“You want connection, don’t you? Stop pushing away the people who will give it to you.”
“I don’t want to see my mother.”
“Then don’t. But Cat is right here.”
I look down at the mats, my guts churning.
“I don’t think she is. I really fucked up.”
Snow closes the cabinet and locks it.
“No relationship is built without mistakes,” he says.
I cast a quick look at his stony scowl. “You think she’ll forgive me?”
“Maybe. If you learn how to say sorry and actually mean it.”
“What does that look like?”
Snow folds his arms across his substantial chest. “Only you can figure that out,” he says.
I think about that while I gather up my duffle bag and prepare to leave.
Right as I reach the door, I pause and turn back.
“Snow,” I say.
He turns around, waiting.
“With Sasha . . . how did you know you were really in love?”
Snow answers without hesitation. “I knew when I was willing to do anything for her. Give anything. Risk anything.”
Then he heads back to his office, not waiting for my response.
24
The Spy
This school year has seemed the longest yet.
I’m so tired.
I never realized what a strain all the lying would be.
The rest of the students are energized by the warming weather. For me, it has the opposite effect. Another summer rolling around—another anniversary I don’t want to mark. I never thought I’d be here three years later.
Miss Robin still hasn’t found what she’s been searching for day and night for all this time.
“If we can’t find it, maybe we should consider—”
“No,” she snaps. “We proceed with the rest of the plan either way.”
My stomach clenches. I don’t like the rest of the plan. I’ve never liked it.
She lays her hand on my arm, looking in my eyes.
“I know this is hard for you. But it’s the only way. She’s coming here next year. She’ll be alone and unprotected.”
Kingmakers: the safest place on earth, invulnerable to attack.
Unless the enemy is already inside.
Miss Robin squeezes my arm, her fingers frightfully strong.
“This is not a world made for the gentle and the just. You are a wolf, and always have been.”
I remove her hand from my arm and hold it between my own.
“I’ll do what has to be done.”
“I know you will,” she says.
For now, I have another task at hand. Much simpler than the task awaiting me come September.
I find Cat Romero plodding across campus with her arms full of books.
Cat always looks too small to carry whatever she’s carrying. I have to resist the urge to offer to take the stack out of her hands.
“Hello Cat,” I say.
“Oh, hello,” She replies, miserably.