The problem gnawed at me. For all I knew, Cade was locked away down there, just one simple door standing between me and him.
When I’d put the vacuum away, I came back to find one of the other girls struggling to mount the shield back on the suit of armor she’d polished. I leapt to take some of the weight while she maneuvered it into the right position. I’d seen her in class before but hadn’t caught her name. Which one of the roses I’d checked yesterday evening had she been tied to? I couldn’t remember.
“Hey,” I said casually, hoping my help would have bought me some good will. “Have you ever seen any signs that there are students living at the school who sleep somewhere other than the dorms?”
She looked me in the eye for the first time then, swiping a stray lock of hair back from her eyes. “You’ve really got to give it up already.”
Her tone set off a spark of irritation in my chest. “I don’t really think that’s up to you. Why should you care anyway? It was just a simple question.”
“I care because I’m sick of your stupid face,” the girl shot back. She grabbed her polishing rag and stalked off before I could come up with a remotely appropriate response.
All right then. Someone had a stick or three up her ass.
The girl who’d been cleaning the other suit of armor had taken off too. The one with the wood polish appeared to be just finishing up at the top of the bannister. I stepped back from the armor to take in the space and make sure we hadn’t missed anything—I’d prefer to skip any future migraines unless they were for a good cause, thanks—and a familiar voice reached my ears from down the hall past the cafeteria.
“Give me a break, man.”
That sounded like Ryo. Frowning, I eased over to the stairs and peeked over the now-lemon-scented banister.
It was my formerly friendly punk dude—and the jerk he’d defended me from before. Ryo and Jenson were standing just past the arched entryway beyond the row of portraits, Ryo’s shoulders tensed and Jenson with his arms crossed over his narrow chest.
“Is it a difficult question?” the taller guy said in the companionable tone I’d heard him turn on for plenty of people other than me. “Or are you not so gung-ho about the whole ‘working together for the greater good’ thing after all?”
“I’m doing my part,” Ryo said. “Even though it feels like shit. How much have you changed your tune?”
“All it took for me was a little tweaking. No big deal. Forgive me for asking.” Jenson held up his hands with a slanted smile and sauntered away.
Ryo ducked his head and muttered what sounded like a curse. My hand tightened on the banister as I watched, debating whether to approach him. A trickle of shamed heat washed over my skin when I remembered the last time we’d spoken. Him telling me how he liked me so much that he had to kick me to the curb and encourage me to get the hell out of here, to give up on the whole reason I’d come here at all.
Another voice traveled like a ghost from the more distant past, somehow managing to sound sweet and mocking at the same time. Things were never meant to keep going like this, Baby Bea. I thought you knew that. You’re my sister. You really want me to forget that, throw away everything else we’ve got together?
No, I’d said, every time, again and again. Of course not. Because what else could I say? I should have known. Sometimes people needed you in certain ways, and sometimes they didn’t, but that had nothing to do with the love and loyalty that was always there.
That back and forth wasn’t anything like this situation with Ryo anyway. There’d been no love or loyalty between us in the first place, just two people indulging in a little mutual chemistry. Or what I’d thought was mutual, anyway.
He exhaled slowly and turned to head toward me, and that made up my mind. I slipped down the stairs to meet him by the portraits.
He stopped in his tracks, his eyes brightening and his jaw clenching at the same time. “Trix.”
“Hey.” My tongue momentarily tangled. I didn’t need to get flustered over this guy. There was a perfectly quick and simple way to see if I should bother talking to him at all. “Have you gotten over your heroic impulses? I think we left a little business unfinished in the carriage house.”
A flicker of what looked like hunger passed through his expression. For a second, I thought he’d give me his easy smile and motion for me to follow him outside. Then his stance went as rigid as it’d been when he was talking to Jenson.
“It wasn’t just an impulse,” he said. “And I was telling the truth. The most important thing to me is seeing you out of here safe. I was an idiot before.”
A little of my earlier annoyance flared inside me. “An idiot for wanting to make out with me?”
“No. Well, maybe. For putting that first. Trix…”
I groped for something else to say that might knock him out of this ridiculous mood he’d gotten stuck in. “I found out about the roses. I’ve seen Cade’s—and yours, and, well, everyone’s. It’s so crazy. Just having someone to talk to who isn’t going to laugh in my face or turn their back on me would be nice.”
Ryo’s mouth tightened. He glanced away, his eyebrow ring glinting in the chandelier’s light. Apparently he couldn’t offer even that much. Well, I guessed that was all I needed to know.
“You have to see,” he started, and I was already shaking my head.
“I do, and I wish I didn’t. So glad I could help you get your rocks off while you were up for that.”
I turned my back on him before he could do the same to me again with another half-assed excuse. That was the way you had to handle things if you didn’t want to get stomped all over. Nothing had really changed. My whole life, I’d been able to count the number of people I could count on with one finger.
But what if that person hadn’t been right to count on me?
Chapter Twenty
Jenson
Somehow or other, the burned Violet had gotten her hands on what looked like a genuine joint. She had the balls to smoke it within view of the school’s front doors, leaning back against the brick wall as if she hadn’t a care in the world. As if the wounded side of her face and the back of her hand didn’t glower nearly as starkly as the red end of the rolled paper between her fingers. It was a bit of an odd sight.
I’d never been one to let an opportunity pass me by, though, and Violet hadn’t been that tough a nut to crack. Even if “nut” was a pretty accurate word to describe her. I’d figured out pretty quickly that her sense of humor had a dark streak that ran as deep as the Mariana Trench, and she got a lot more offended by people pussyfooting around her obvious scars than showing they weren’t fazed by the things.
I meandered over with a grin already in place. “Playing with fire, huh? Haven’t you had enough of living dangerously? Or are you waiting to see if you can get both sides to match?”
Violet let out a bark of a laugh and switched the joint to her other hand. “Of all the things that scare me these days, I think you can safely assume flames aren’t one of them.”
I propped myself against the wall a couple of feet away from her, giving her the personal space I figured she needed. “Where’d you score that anyway?”