Typical fucking Mounty bullshit, always an answer for everything. This is how she’s fooled Avery into believing her, but I’m not fucking falling for it.
She stares at me for a second longer before scoffing and storming out of the storage room right as Harley strides past. He frowns at her and then when I step out after her, he scowls at us both like he’s caught me with my dick in her, the jealous asshole. He opens his mouth, no doubt to make an idiot of himself, but the Mounty cuts him off with a snarled, “You need to keep him the fuck away from me until he decides to get his head out of his ass.”
I leave them both to make eyes at each other, calling out over my shoulder to her, “Stay the fuck away from my friends, Mounty.”
I get through the rest of my day with nothing but my fucking terrible mood to keep me company. When I find Harley still following the Mounty around like a lost puppy and Avery jumps to her defense, there’s no stopping me from tearing into her again.
She always fights back, no matter what angle I take, but this time she looks ready to kill me.
Good.
It’s only Avery’s words that snap me out of it and put a whole new bloodlust into me.
If she hadn’t helped me Rory would’ve raped and beaten me. He might’ve killed me, Ash.
I will kill that worthless cunt.
When Avery finally coaxes me into leaving with Blaise to head down to ballet, I head straight for the chapel where the fights are being held for the night. I need someone to bleed tonight. Whether it’s me or some chump I’m beating the shit out of, I don’t care. I just need the blood. The moment I arrive, the air disappears from the room, sucked out by the fucking terrible mood I’m in. I strip my blazer off and roll up the sleeves of my shirt in the quiet of the room. No one dares to speak a word, not even when I turn around, ready for a fight.
Everyone here knows what happened to Devon so there aren’t any immediate takers.
Fucking pathetic.
I point at Sebastian and watch as he gulps. “Get in the ring.”
There’s a small reprieve in sadistic messages with my old number cut off but, in the quiet void, the demons that play out in my head get louder.
The good thing about rooming with Blaise and Harley is that neither of them ever say a goddamn word to me about the sleep paralysis, even when Harley has had to shake me out of the grips of them. He barely fucking sleeps, only ever passing out when he’s too drunk to remember the nightmares that plague him.
Blaise is morose and probably on his way to becoming an alcoholic, so he’s just as fucking bad.
I sleep like the dead, except for when this fucking bullshit happens.
Neither of them look at me when I finally pull myself out of the icy grip of the demon sitting on my chest, wearing my father’s face and rummaging around inside me. The worst of these dreams are when he tells me that, under my skin, Avery and I look exactly the same. That he’s already pulled her skin back— layer by layer— cracked open her rib cage and burst her beating heart open in his fist.
I’ve seen him do that to a girl before.
I’ll never fucking forget it either.
I pull a tank top on but I refuse to grab pants for the quick trip over to my sister’s room. I’m not going to get another fucking second of sleep without seeing her with my own eyes and knowing that the nightmares are nothing but my own trauma feeding me the worst possible thing that could happen, over and over again.
“You heading to Aves’?” Harley mumbles, his nose in a textbook. Blaise has headphones on with music blaring and one of his lyric books open in front of him. Obviously it’s not a good night for any of us.
“I’ll sleep there. Make sure Morrison goes to bed sometime soon, he has a pop quiz tomorrow,” I murmur back, and Harley nods absently.
Avery is the caregiver, not me, but I’ve been listening to him freak out about it for fucking days and it’ll only get worse if he falls asleep in class… again. Fuck, last year he spent more time asleep on his desk in history class than he did in his bed. With any luck, Harley will get high with him and they’ll both get some fucking sleep.
I doubt it, but one can hope.
I grab my new phone, just in case, but I don’t even bother with shoes. Avery will be horrified but I feel antsy, like there’s something crawling under my fucking skin, and I just need to get over to her.
There’s no one in the halls on the way over there; not a single teacher comes out to see who’s walking around, and though I don’t attempt to be quiet, my bare feet don’t make a sound on the polished oak floors.
It both pisses me off and eases some of the panic in my chest that the Mounty had extra locks installed on the door. I have to knock because Avery won’t give me a key now that she has a roommate, something else I’m fucking livid about.
There’s never been a locked door between us before. There’s never been a need for it, neither of us have ever given a shit about privacy and the only person in our family that I’d gut for walking in on her is Blaise, and he’s still fucking freaked about me thinking he’s into her.
The idea of either of them being interested in each other is fucking laughable, but I’d never tell him that.
It’s too funny watching his panic.
The door opens a fraction and it takes my eyes a second to adjust but when they do, I find the Mounty staring at me like I’ve shown up on her doorstep dressed like the fucking Devil himself.
“Yes?” Her voice is barely more than a squeak and it irritates me.
Why is she acting like this? Why the fuck is she being all meek and weird when normally she’s nothing but acerbic wit and fire?
“I’m not here for you,” I snap and I nudge her out of the way with my shoulder. She grumbles under her breath but doesn’t bitch me out for it, just locks up and climbs back into bed.
Avery is alive.
Alive and asleep, completely unaware of my panicked searching for her.
I climb onto her bed and the movement wakes her up. She looks pissed for a second but the moment her head clears and she sees me, she knows. I glare over my shoulder at the Mounty because I don’t want her listening in but she slips a ratty set of headphones into her ears and turns her back on us both, the closest to privacy she can give us without leaving altogether.
I want to argue with her and tell her to fuck off for the night, but Avery tugs on my hand until I lie down with her.
“Tell me. Tell me everything and get it out.”
I shake my head. “I can’t. You don’t need to know the details. Just… just let me sleep here.”
She nods but her hand stays tucked in mine and even though I can tell she tries to stay awake with me, when I’m calm and quiet she slips back into sleep. I move to the couch a few hours later, when it’s clear I’m going to sleep too.
I don’t want to hurt her in my sleep if I lash out.
Chapter Seven
Blaise
The problem with Hannaford being one of the most prestigious and exclusive schools in the world is that the faculty has to keep the families of the students updated about behavior and grades at all times.
Avery can keep my records clean about my behavior, but I’ve never let her touch my grades.