“Wow, you really know how to sap the fun out of life, don’t you devil boy? Tree humping is my favourite activity,” I deadpanned and Kyan snorted a laugh, earning him sharp glares from Saint and Blake.
“What? That shit’s funny.” He shrugged, a smirk dancing around his mouth and I couldn’t help but return it.
Saint caught my chin, forcing me to look at him again and his frozen touch cut a path through my flesh. “You’ve got work to do, Barbie doll. Move.”
He caught my hand, turning and tugging me along behind him. His fingers locked around mine like a vice and I wondered if he’d ever held hands with someone before – discounting any dead bodies he’d dragged along to their graves.
I didn’t argue. I needed to keep up the obedience act for the rest of the day. Hope burned in my heart like a beacon at knowing I only had a few more hours before I could make it out of here with Sneak and Bait. I just had to hold out a little longer.
Saint led me down the path ahead of the other guys, taking a right turn as we walked along by the lake. From a distance, we probably could have been mistaken for a couple taking a leisurely stroll. But up close, you’d see the murder in Saint’s eyes and the tension in my posture. There was certainly no romance here. Unless you counted Saint’s ongoing love affair with cruelty.
He turned suddenly to the left, making me stumble as he took me down a small track onto the narrow lakeshore. The stones shifted beneath my feet as he dragged me along then paused at the water’s edge. A shiver ran down my spine as I remembered the other night and my fingers involuntarily tightened around Saint’s hand.
He turned to me with a vicious smile, releasing my hand in an instant. “Scared, Barbie?”
“No,” I said immediately, my spine straightening as I felt Blake and Kyan closing in behind me. You should never turn your back on a wild animal, and right now, it felt like I was about to be pounced on and torn limb from limb by two of them.
Saint laughed hollowly then reached into his blazer pocket, taking out a deck of cards. He slid them out of the pack, shuffling them between his fingers and I swallowed as I waited for him to explain what we were doing here. He liked to torture me with menial, bullshit tasks, and I suspected I was about to be faced with another one.
Blake’s breath fluttered against the back of my neck and the heat of it sent a wave of warmth rushing down my spine.
I wanted to step forward to gain some distance from him, but I knew doing so would reveal how much he was affecting me. And I couldn’t let that happen.
“You’re going to play a game,” Saint said and I folded my arms as I waited for him to go on, my heart clenching tightly in my chest. “It’s called fifty two pick up.” He turned to the water, holding the edges of the pack between his fingers until the deck bent and the cards exploded from his hand, over half of them scattering in the water. They immediately started floating away and for a second my lungs wouldn’t work.
“Pick them all up and return the pack to me at dinner,” Saint snarled, invading my personal space and lowering his head so he was nose to nose with me. I could almost smell the charred lump of coal that took the place of his heart. “If even one is missing, you’ll be punished. And I’m not beyond putting you over my knee in front of the entire school, Plague. Remember that.” He shouldered past me, making me stumble back into Blake who immediately shoved me forward again, and I slipped on the wet stones and crashed to my knees. My skin split in several places and I hissed as pain spiked across my shins.
A thousand curse words wrapped around my tongue and I battled with all the might of an army to stop them from spilling out.
Keep quiet. Obey. Buy your chance at freedom!
I heard them walking away and glanced over my shoulder as they made it up to the path. Saint straightened his blazer as he headed off and his two lapdogs followed.
The second they were out of earshot, I let my tongue run wild, calling them every colourful insult I could come up with as I shed my blazer and kicked off my shoes.
Assbaguettes, cocksnorkels, muffwaffles, twathats.
I had to go after the cards furthest out in the lake first or I’d end up swimming to try and find them. And after the dream I’d had last night of drowning in this dark water, I was not gonna let it get to that.
I left my shirt and skirt on the shore then stepped into the water, gasping at how fucking freezing it was.
I growled under my breath, forcing myself to move deeper and deeper as my legs became more and more numb. I snatched cards out of the water with violent swipes, clasping them in one hand as I started counting them in my mind.
The only thing that kept me going was my plan for tonight and I pictured being in Sneak’s mom’s car, holding the vision in my mind’s eye.
Tomorrow they’re gonna find out I’m gone and be humiliated. The whole school will know I got away. That I was undefeated by the so-called Night Keepers.
When I’d plucked forty three cards out of the water, I waded back to shore, shivering and frozen to the bone. I picked up the last of the cards on the beach, stacking them together and breathing a sigh of relief as I finished the task they’d set. It had taken me ages and more than one student had stopped to gawk at me or take photos. They’d all received my middle finger and as many cuss words as I could fit into a sentence before they made it out of earshot. I may not have been able to throw shit at the Night Keepers, but every other dickwad in this school was fair game.
I pushed my feet into my shoes, shrugging on my blazer and balling up the rest of my clothes in my hands. I was dripping wet and didn’t see the point in putting it all back on. I was going straight to the shower where I’d stand under a burning hot stream until I could feel my body again.
Tonight, Tatum. Just hold on until tonight.
***
I let Mila head to dinner before me then spent the next fifteen minutes frantically packing a bag. There was no way I could bring my suitcase tonight, but I was willing to abandon clothes in favour of my freedom.
I put the essentials into my backpack then headed out of Beech House, waiting until the coast was clear and jogging around to the back of the building. I hung my pack up in a tree out of sight then hurried back to the path with my heart in my throat.
Luck was on my side, because no one was around and my plan was coming the hell together. I’d left a note for Mila tucked inside her English textbook to say goodbye. I didn’t wanna tell her the truth and get her in trouble with the Night Keepers if they thought she knew. And she wouldn’t open that book until third period tomorrow. By then, I’d be long gone. And that note would serve as evidence that she never knew a thing about my escape plan.
I made it to the Redwood Dining Hall with a goddamn skip in my step, but had to school my features into downtrodden misery as I pushed my way inside.
That’s it Tatum, keep giving them the sad eyes and they’ll think you’re just a poor little bird with a broken wing, unable to fly. But I was gonna fly bitches. And I was gonna kick a few heads on the way out too.
I’d put on a short little black swing dress that showed off my cleavage - and my scraped up legs – and my feet were clad in white canvas shoes. Not the sort of outfit anyone would suspect me to run anywhere in. But guess what losers? I was going to run into the night like a fox in the shadows. I’d also parted my hair into pigtails to finish off the innocent yet hot look I was going for, aiming to distract hard tonight.