“Can I ride shotgun?” Kimber is asking flirtatiously as Chasm slides a lazy glance in her direction and smirks.
“Are you fucking kidding me? No. Get your ass in the backseat and stop hitting on my best friend. Don’t you have any shame?” Parrish snaps, shoving Kimber into the back as she mutters insults and curses under her breath.
“Why don’t you let Chasm answer for himself?” Kimber bites out as I slide in beside her and she scowls at me, her expression almost disturbingly similar to her brother’s. Her brother. My sister. Parrish and I might not be related, but we share four blood-related siblings. Is it weird for me to pretend to date him?
I decide the only weird part about it is how goddamn rude and dismissive he is. I don’t glorify bad behavior from boys, so what is it? Why? Why am I doing this to myself?!
“I don’t date freshman,” Chasm replies, some Podcast about modern day serial killers playing on his car’s stereo, which isn’t even remotely something I expected from him. “Sorry, Kim.”
“Whoever said I wanted to date you?!” she gasps, like the thought’s so abhorrent to her that she’d rather die than admit her crush aloud. “That’s disgusting.”
With a sigh, I lean my elbow against the window and park my chin in my hand.
“Fucking hell, Kimber,” Parrish scoffs, looking back at her with disdain marring his pretty features. “You’re almost as bad as Dakota.”
I kick the back of his seat hard enough that he grunts, and Chasm gives this annoyingly self-satisfied chuckle.
“I’m under strict orders to take you kids home,” he says, heading for the Whitehall gate at a speed that’s at least twice that of the legal limit. I check and double check my seat belt, just in case.
“How are you able to hang around the house so much if Parrish is grounded?” I ask as Chasm lifts his pretty amber eyes to the rearview mirror so that he can smile at me.
“Just consider me part of the family,” he says, locking eyes with me in the rearview mirror. We hold each other’s gazes for a disturbing amount of time before he turns back to the road. “Did you hear that Gavin is fucking some actor twice his age? He was sharing dick pics with anyone that would look.”
Mindless gossip. I don’t even know who ‘Gavin’ is.
For the love of god, I think as I suppress a roll of my eyes and lean back against the seat, trying to listen to the Podcast instead of the day’s gossip. The hosts are discussing the latest rash of disappearances and murders in Seattle, most of them involving teens around my age. It’s too depressing to listen to, so I stuff my own earbuds in and close my eyes for the rest of the drive back to the ice cavern.
I slump onto my bed and cover my face with my hands.
What a long-ass day.
“Knock knock,” Chasm drawls, slouching in my doorway and smoking a cigarette. I swear I locked the door, but he probably just picked the lock. I sit up, so that I can glare at him.
“What do you want?” I ask him, but he just laughs and continues to smoke. I’m assuming that Tess isn’t home then or else he wouldn’t be quite so blatant about it.
“I wanted to check on you, after such a wild first day and all,” he says, sauntering into my room and looking around with a wistful nostalgia on his face that’s clearly crafted of bullshit and arrogance. He’s just come in here to annoy me, clearly.
I lean back, planting my hand on the bed only to realize that I’ve just put it in something … wet? With a frown, I lift my palm up and notice the blood. What the hell?
“You’re the talk of the school, you know that, Little Sister?” Chas asks, seemingly oblivious to my predicament. I blink a few times as I stare at the red on my palm and then surreptitiously flip the comforter back, revealing a small red stain underneath. Huh. I remember stripping my sheets this morning. At least … I thought I did?
I must be losing my mind.
“Am I? I hadn’t noticed.” Only, I had. And I’m not sure whether it was a smart move on my part—or a huge mistake, playing this game with Lumen and Parrish. I move into the bathroom and wash my hands, heading back into the room and systematically stripping the bed while Chas watches, still smoking his cigarette.
He pauses at the sound of footsteps in the hall and we both turn to see Parrish in the doorway. He narrows his eyes on his friend.
“Why are you in her room?” he asks, this biting edge to his voice that gives me pause.
“What do you care?” Chasm retorts, tilting his head slightly to one side as Parrish flicks his attention my way, noticing the bloodied sheets and comforter. He frowns slightly, like he, too, remembers the exchange this morning. I kick the pile of blankets into the corner until I can get rid of both boys.
I’m not ashamed of my period—no girl should be—I just want them both to go away.
Parrish doesn’t respond with words. Instead, he slits his eyes in that way of his, the one that seems to say I expect everyone around me to know what this means, to know what I want. I roll my eyes at him and grab onto Chasm’s arm, intending on dragging him to the doorway. What actually happens is that as soon as my hand makes contact with him, there’s a fluttering in my stomach that causes my fingers to clench tight, wrinkling the fabric of his Whitehall Academy dress shirt.
Chasm pauses and looks down, a frown tracing his mouth that seems impossible to interpret. Is he upset that I’m touching him? Is he upset that he likes me touching him? It could be either/or in this case. I pretend like I’m not feeling anything at all and attempt to drag him toward the door anyway.
“I was just congratulating Little Sister here on her first day at school. Impressive, for someone who comes from nothing.”
“If you came here to insult me, it won’t work.” I yank on his arm, and he takes a small step forward, either by choice or because I’m just strong as hell, I’m not sure.
“Won’t it, though?” he asks, and then he leans down and whispers something in Korean in my ear. The temptation to kick him in the nuts is strong. “Don’t think I haven’t heard you watching your shitty K-dramas in here. Shall I play the hero and save you from Parrish’s wicked claws?”
“Get out of my room,” I grind out, doing my best to drag him out the door. I need time to prepare myself for Tess. There’s just no way I’m lucky enough to escape a first day of school grilling. Chas just laughs again as I finally succeed in shoving him into the hallway. As I go to slam the door on the two of them, I notice the way Parrish and Chasm are looking at each other, like there are a million unsaid things they’re playing at right now.
I shove the door closed and flick the lock with a groan, turning around and putting my back to it. My eyes stray briefly to the bloodied sheets in the corner, but I don’t think twice about it. I haven’t had an easy month; there’s no lack of reasons that I might’ve been confused this morning.
Tess never comes by to ask how my day went; she doesn’t even bother to text me.
So much for building a mother-daughter relationship.
There’s a breeze teasing chilly fingers across my skin, and my bed feels wet. At first, I just assume that I’ve overfilled my menstrual cup again. But as I crack my eyes open, something strange happens. I find myself lying on my side in the woods.