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Again, I look around, my heart sinking, though I do everything I can to hide it. I’m trembling, alone, searching the room and hoping someone, anyone, agrees to partner with me. But all I get are cold looks or even colder laughter. It’s like everybody got together one day and decided not a single part of my life should be easy.
Do not give them the satisfaction.Angrily blinking back the tears threatening to fill my eyes, I stand along with everybody else when we reach the end of the hour. “Good luck with your project,” one of the guys mutters on his way past me. There’s high-pitched laughter in response to him bumping against me hard enough to make me stumble against a desk.
Professor Morgan’s bald head snaps up when I murmur his name on reaching his desk. “I’m sorry to be a pain,” I mumble, feeling about an inch tall. How pitiful is this? I couldn’t even find a partner.
“Yes, Miss…”
“Oh. Sorry. I’m Wren Delaney.”
If he recognizes the name, he doesn’t show it. “Miss Delaney, what can I do for you?”
It’s funny how being stared at and ridiculed for so long means I can barely handle it even when somebody is staring atme the way he is now, with concern and genuine interest. I feel myself shrinking under that gaze and wishing I could melt into the floor.
There’s no way to admit this so it sounds better than it is. “… I couldn’t find a partner for the project,” I admit with a sinking heart.
His face scrunches up like he’s confused. “There’s an even number of students in this class. Everyone should’ve been able to partner up with somebody else.”
Yeah, but you don’t know me. In his mind, it’s that simple. He can’t figure out why I couldn’t do something as easy as finding a partner. He doesn’t know what it’s like to be me. Nobody does.
“I… I mean, I tried…” This sounds so pathetic. The tears I’ve been fighting are threatening to overflow because, dammit, it isn’t fair. I didn’t do anything to deserve this hatred.
“Well, Miss Delaney, as I explained to the class, this project will comprise a large percentage of your final grade.”
“I know. I’m not sure—I mean, maybe there’s something else I can do? Another way to present the project, maybe?”
A third voice joins in. “I can solve your problem for you.”
Oh, no. My blood runs cold at the sound of a deep voice coming from directly over my shoulder. The hair on the back of my neck stands up and I’m pretty sure the devil himself is behind me, taunting me while pretending to do anything but.
Professor Morgan’s gaze darts away from me and lands on the demon standing behind me. It’s interesting the way his expression shifts, brightening. “Briggs. You weren’t able to find a partner, either?” he asks with more than a little disbelief in his voice. After all, Briggs is practically a god in this town. A member of one of the five families that run Wicked Falls and probably have since the beginning of time.
“I’m afraid not.” I can feel the warmth coming off Briggs’s body as he steps up closer, his breath hitting the back of my neck and making me shiver in discomfort. “I guess you didn’t check with everyone, Wren, or else you would have a partner now.”
I’m going to die. I’m going to absolutely die. But what I am not going to do is cower in front of him. I’ll be damned if I let him know how I’m shaking inside. That’s why I’m able to turn and slowly lift my head, letting my gaze meet his. Forcing myself not to blink or to shrink away.
There is a sinister gleam in his green eyes, and something terribly wicked in the way his full lips tip upward in a cold, nasty smirk.
“Then that settles that,” Professor Morgan announces behind me. “You can go through the list of possible books on the class site and have your subject chosen by the next class.”
I barely hear him over the way my heart pounds sickeningly, making blood rush in my ears while Briggs and I engage in a staring contest whose stakes are too monumental to be believed.
Something tells me I am in much more trouble than I ever could have imagined.
2
BRIGGS
The symbol of everything fucked up in my life can try all she wants to escape, but it’s no use. She’s going to figure that out before long.
“Where do you think you’re going?” I ask once we’re out of the classroom. What, she thought she could get rid of me? She doesn’t know me very well. But she will.
The worst part is the way she pretends not to hear me. Just like she pretended not to care when I stared at her through class. I barely have the first fucking clue what Professor Morgan said, and frankly, I don’t give a shit. I couldn’t when she was sitting there, practically stinking up the room. She might as well be wearing a sign saying I don’t belong here.
“I’m talking to you.” I quicken my pace to catch up with her. Grabbing her wrist, I tug her back and spin her around. The sound of her dismayed little groan when I cage her against the cold, brick wall is like a drug. It lights up all the parts of me that are cold and dark, parts of me that might as well have died the day my mother decided to swallow a bottle of pills.
Because of the filthy, disgusting slut who birthed the trembling little nothing in front of me. Just the thought of whatthis girl’s bitch of a mother did to my family makes me see red. Blood rushes in my ears. My heart’s slamming against my ribs. I want to hurt her. Nothing else will satisfy me.
“What do you want?” She’s staring at my chest, gritting her teeth. Is she frustrated? Poor baby. She has no fucking right to be.
