Chapter Sixteen
Ryo
Trix frowned at the row of windows along the north side of the school. She bobbed up on her toes to peer through one, but she didn’t look any happier about it than before.
“It’s too dim to make out much,” she said, dropping back down and sweeping her orange waves back from her face. “And it doesn’t look like there’s any way to get in through those, short of breaking the panes—at least from the outside. Do you know if the windows open at all? Do the professors air their rooms out in the summer, even?”
“I can’t remember,” I said, which was true but also only a portion of the truth. After my first few months here at Roseborne College, I’d started to realize that the season never really changed. It was always this damp, gloomy New England mid-spring. I couldn’t say I missed the snowy Pittsburgh winters a whole lot, but every now and then I still got a pang of homesickness for those bright summer days when the sun baked you where you stood.
There were certain comments that just wouldn’t come out, though, even if I’d thought it was a good idea to say them. They could form in my head, but there was a barricade somewhere between my brain and my throat, let alone my tongue. We weren’t allowed to explain or discuss what we’d determined about the college’s workings with any specifics, even with other long-time students. This place liked to leave us in the dark in more ways than one. The newbies eventually figured out the basics for themselves.
“I don’t think trying to sneak into their space would be the best idea anyway,” I added, hoping I didn’t need to say more than that. Trix had faced the staff’s punishments already. And they had an uncanny ability to know when certain boundaries were crossed, at least within the school building. Out here in the open air, I felt safer—but only a little.
“I know.” Trix’s hands clenched as if she’d have liked to give the brick wall a punch or two to express her frustration. Instead, she let out the emotion with a rough sigh and turned to face me. “Have you ever noticed the dean or any of the professors carrying a key? On its own, or a whole ring of them, or whatever?”
I raised my eyebrows. “They’re not going to be keen on you going in with a stolen key either.”
“I’m not thinking about the offices. There’s—” She cut herself off with a wary glance toward the building that told me she’d also learned to be cautious of how much the staff might perceive even when they weren’t present. “There’s something else I’d like to check out. I think it must be particularly important to them. Of course, who knows in this crazy place?”
“It’s definitely got no shortage of secrets. But no, I haven’t noticed any special keys.” I wasn’t sure what the “something else” she was talking about could be, but chances were it would get her into more trouble rather than less. I hadn’t even been completely convinced by Elias’s certainty that Trix could get free of Roseborne if she tried. The chances of her beating the staff at their own game seemed a thousand times less likely.
But of course that didn’t stop her from giving it her all. This girl had nothing if not an iron will.
Case in point: At my remark, her mind had already leapt to another mystery she’d clearly been stewing over. She tapped my chest. “You said you have counseling sessions, right? I went into the room this morning—it was pretty barren. What, do you just sit in that chair and one of the professors talks at you?”
“Something like that.” My gut tightened. If the room’s effects were a conversation, then mine in there were always disorientingly fraught. I tried not to think about it at all when I didn’t have to.
“Which professor handles the counseling? I didn’t see any of them going in or out.”
I wasn’t sure how much I could manage to say about that. “I’m not sure,” I said tentatively. “The way the sessions are set up, we don’t really see them while it’s happening. It might be more than one of them handling it.” I assumed someone made an executive decision about what to throw at us any given day. The imagery I got always seemed to be whatever would hit me hardest right then.
How much did they glean from our assignments and our classroom behavior, and how much were they outright reading our minds? Who knew?
Trix’s forehead had furrowed with confusion, and I didn’t want to dwell on this subject. Trying to shed light on the school’s strangeness was only going to make her more invested, lead her down those dangerous paths. Whatever Elias said, it was a hell of a lot better for me to distract her than to play along with her sleuthing.
“They’re nothing all that special, really,” I added, and grabbed her hand. “Come here.”
I tugged her over to the old carriage house that stood across the lawn from the main college building. Way back in Victorian times, the structure could have held three carriages plus horses in its stalls. These days, from what I’d seen, it wasn’t used for much of anything except on rare occasions. Which made it perfect for a brief escape from the school’s prying eyes.
Trix followed me with a quizzical expression, but as I kicked the door shut behind us and nudged her up against the wall in the shadow-strewn space inside, a spark lit in her eyes. When I kissed her, she looped her arms around my neck and pulled me closer.
Being this assertive didn’t come naturally to me, but she liked it when I took a commanding air—it brought out something more urgent in her too. I liked that, even if my own enjoyment of the moment shone only faintly through the numbing layers woven through my body. When I kissed her hard, she kissed me back in kind. When I dipped my hand up under her shirt to cup her breast, she swayed into me with an eager hitch of breath and a fumbling to lift up my own shirt for her access.
She came alive, lit up with desire I could appreciate even if from a sort of distance. I could do that for her. I could bring something good into her existence, focus on someone’s happiness other than my own for once in my miserable life.
“I guess this is your way of telling me you’re tired of all the lurking and speculating?” she said with a chuckle.
I pressed my mouth to her neck, drinking in her spicy, citrusy scent and the thrum of her pulse. “All work and no play isn’t good for anyone,” I murmured. “I consider it my duty to help you switch things up. No point in getting bogged down in frustration.”
“So you figured you’d offer different sorts of frustration?” Her laugh turned into a gasp when I pinched her nipple.
I slid my other hand down her leg and tucked her thigh against mine. One little heft against the wall and I could have her flush against me, my hardened cock against her sex, just a few layers of fabric between us. “Who says you have to be frustrated?”
“You’re getting ambitious today,” she teased, but from the way she yanked my mouth back to hers, she didn’t mind at all. She traced her fingers over my chest, streaks of muted heat, and I wondered how far we might lose ourselves this time. Distant or not, I wanted it all. I wanted everything. I—
Fuck.
Was I thinking about her happiness more than my own? Or was this just a Russian doll of selfishness, the veneer of a larger purpose hiding something so much smaller and pettier. I wanted to feel her bucking against me; I wanted to know I’d taken her mind away from her quest with these temporary pleasures. What did she really want?