AllFreeNovel
Share Us
We’re both floating, still connected, neither one of us wanting to let go.
“I love you,” I say. “I want you to know that. Now, tonight.”
She looks at me, searching my face.
“Is that true?”
“It’s the truest thing I’ve ever said.”
“I’ve never been in love before,” she says. “But I don’t know what else to call this feeling.”
She kisses me again, hungry as ever.
I don’t care if this is wrong.
I don’t care that I have no right.
I need her, and I love her.
I walk backto my dorm room. It’s so late that Leo will likely be asleep already. I’ll have to creep in without waking him.
I sneak through the common room first, though Kenzo is snoring so loudly on the sofa, I doubt anything short of a vuvuzela would wake him.
I pass Hedeon’s door. On impulse, I press my ear against the wood, expecting to hear long, rasping breaths.
Instead I hear . . . nothing.
He’s probably just deep asleep. Maybe with the blankets over his head.
Still, I can’t help the cold dread that seeps into my lungs. The sense that I did something wrong . . . and now I’m about to be punished.
I shouldn’t have met up with Nix. I shouldn’t have fucked her again. Karma demands payment.
Hurrying back to my room, I rifle through my drawers as quietly as possible, searching for a lock pick. Leo is asleep on his back, arms and legs sprawled wide, paddle-sized feet hanging off the too-short bed.
At last, my fingers close around the silver pick. It glitters in the dim light, pointed as a knife.
I hurry out of the room, slipping down the dark hallway once more to Hedeon’s room. Trying not to let the pick scrape in the lock, I jimmy the tumblers until the door pops. I crack it open, hoping I’m about to see the slumbering lump of Hedeon in his bed.
Both beds are empty.
Panic rising, I run to the bed and yank the blankets back like Hedeon might somehow have flattened himself to the width of a pancake. The bare mattress blazes back at me.
Now my heart is really racing. I have to find him. Right this fucking second. It might already be too late.
I sprint down the stairs of the Octagon Tower, flushed with dread, paranoid that an alarm might start blaring across the empty campus any second. Like a flood of burly grounds crew might come pouring in from every direction.
I’m running for the Keep. I don’t know where Hedeon went, but I have a pretty good idea where the Chancellor should be. His private quarters are on the top floor, next to his office. I know he’s here tonight—I’ve been checking his berth regularly to make sure he hasn’t snuck off the island in his private boat.
I run up the stairs of the Keep, making a swift detour out of the stairwell on the second floor as I hear someone coming down. I’m hoping it might be Hedeon chickening out, or the Chancellor strolling down, safe and sound. Peeking out, I see Professor Lyons instead, slipping out of her white lab coat and folding it over her forearm as she descends the steps. She must have been working late, probably mixing up one of her custom chemical compounds for an upcoming class.
I wait until she passes, then sprint up the remaining flights.
I only slow when I reach the luxurious oriental carpet running toward the Chancellor’s office. My feet pad silently along, the wall-mounted sconces casting distinct pools of light onto the floor, with dark wells between.
I plan to creep up to the Chancellor’s apartments. Until I hear a sudden scuffling and a crashing sound that brings me sprinting through the doors at top speed.
Hedeon and Luther Hugo are grappling in front of Hugo’s immense fireplace, silhouetted against the roaring flames.
