Chapter 7 Isolde
I don’t sleep that night, not after Rhett Grey leaves his fingerprints all over my fucking soul.
He doesn’t even slam the door—just slips out, silent, leaving me coiled in my own sheets and shame, the world oscillating between rage and need and humiliation.
I stare at the ceiling until dawn fillets the horizon, then spend an hour lying perfectly still, listening to my pulse punch out the memory of his hands on my wrists, his voice in my ear, the hot ache between my thighs.
It takes another hour before I can move without shivering.
I drag myself to the bathroom, shut the door, and peel off my pajamas.
The bruises stand out like proof. Finger marks, vivid and purple, ringing both wrists.
A splotch on my throat, perfectly thumb-shaped.
I turn my head left, right, watching the blood rise and settle, remembering each mark like a badge.
My face is the worst: eyes swollen, lips chewed raw.
My hair is a mess, knotted and slicked with sweat, but I don’t have the energy to fix it.
I splash cold water over my skin until my teeth chatter, fighting not to make a sound.
I use the towel to muffle a scream, but it’s thin and animal and makes me want to laugh until I break.
There’s only one thing I want now: answers. And not the kind you find in files or rumors or the stupid little notes I leave myself, but the kind that bleed out when you press hard enough.
The kind that only Rhett can give me.
I dry off, pull on black leggings, a hoodie, and a windbreaker that will hopefully keep the freeze off my bones. I lace up my boots, double-knot the laces, and don’t bother with makeup. I want the world to see the damage. I want him to see it, too.
The campus is a ghost town at 8:30 AM on a Saturday.
The path to the greenhouses runs along the back side of the quad, behind the maintenance sheds and the abandoned tennis courts.
There are rumors about the old glasshouses—stories about secret parties, acid trips, freshman hazing gone wrong.
The only part I care about is that it’s private.
Hard to get to. Nobody goes there except people who want to hide.
I also know he’s out there somewhere watching. Since I don’t have his number to text him like a civilized person, stalking will have to do.
I’m not even through the gate when I feel him watching.
It’s not paranoia. It’s instinct, the sharp, electric sense that someone is fitting a scope to my forehead from somewhere in the hedges. I keep my pace steady, resist the urge to look back.
The greenhouse itself is a corpse. Half the glass panels are gone, the rest spidered with frost or shattered by storms. Inside, it smells like rot—wet earth, dead vines, mold, and the old metallic sting of rusted frames.
A jungle of broken pots and collapsed shelving fills the north wall, all of it choked with black moss and the twisted skeletons of what once passed for life.
Guess there’s no need for the rich to garden when they can afford whatever the fuck they want.
I step in, boots crunching on gravel and bits of broken glass.
The fogged-over roof lets in just enough light to make the dead plants glow from below.
I scan for hazards—trip wires, booby traps, the standard Westpoint fuckery—but there’s nothing.
Only the slow drip of condensation, and the silence of the dead.
I pick a bench at the far end, the stone still damp from last night’s rain. I sit, plant my hands on my knees, and stare at the warped reflection of myself in a waterlogged planting tray.
I wait. And wait. And wait some more.
He makes me wait twenty minutes.
When he appears, it’s sudden and theatrical, like he’s materializing from thin air just to flex.
He’s got his hands in the pockets of his coat, blonde hair perfectly tousled and still damp from the shower.
His lips are upturned and there’s stubble growing over his chin.
His green eyes burn right through me, the color almost radioactive in the haze.
His coat is tight around his shoulders and for a moment, I want him to slip it off so I can see the muscles strain against his shirt.
For all intents and purposes, he’s hot as fuck and I should want him to want me, except for the tiny fact that he’s a fucking murderer.
He leans against the door frame, backlit by the hard white of the morning. “There are easier ways to get my attention than trying to force me to follow you,” he says, voice perfectly calm.
I don’t rise, don’t flinch. “I figured you’d like the chase.”
He grins, but there’s no humor in it. “You could have just asked.”
“Didn’t think you were that easy,” I say.
He shrugs and pushes off the door, walking toward me with a measured pace. His boots make no sound on the gravel, but his presence is loud enough to fill the room.
He stops a few feet away, studies me with the focus of a biologist dissecting a frog. His gaze lingers on the bruises at my throat, the marks on my wrists. I keep my hands in my lap, fingers threaded, refusing to cover up.
“What do you want, Isolde?”
The way he says my name makes me want to scream. It’s raspy and low, and deep and sexy. It does things to me that I don’t want. I swallow it down, let the silence breathe for a few seconds. “I want to know why.”
“Why what?”
“Why you do it,” I snap, sharper than intended. “Why you hurt people just because you can.”
His smile doesn’t waver. “I don’t hurt people. You just think I do.”
“You killed my sister.”
He laughs, soft and incredulous. “Still on that, huh?”
“I saw the files. I know about the Hunt. I know you’re a monster, but I want to know why.”
He walks forward and then crouches down, leveling his face with mine.
The sunlight through the fractured glass paints his skin in a mess of shadows.
“Because it’s what I am,” he says. “Because someone has to be the predator. Why does anyone do anything at this place? Because it’s the only way to matter. ”
“Bullshit,” I say. “You matter without the violence. You could have done anything.”
He straightens, brushes imaginary dust from his knee. “Not anymore.”
“Why me?” I demand. “Why Casey? Was it just the Board, or did you actually want to?”
He sighs, like he’s bored of the conversation already. “With Casey, it was… complicated.”
I glare. “Try me.”
He steps forward, close enough now that I can smell the cinnamon gum he’s chewing, the cologne. His hand comes up, slow and deliberate, and he brushes a strand of hair from my face. I slap his hand away.
He grabs my chin, fingers digging into my jaw. “You want the story, Issy? Fine. Casey was picked for the Night Hunt. Smart, loyal, meek. She was supposed to be mine. Forever.”
“Did she even have a choice?”
“She hated me at first. Much like you do now. But she grew to appreciate me. Except on the night of the Hunt. Then she got scared. I almost caught her. Almost completed the ritual.” His voice drops, almost a whisper. “But she freaked out and ran. It was wet. Slippery.”
I twist my head, break his grip. “She ran because she was scared of you.”
He shakes his head. “No. Because she was scared of what she’d become if she stayed. She wanted out. But there’s no out, not for people like us. Not once you’re chosen.”
I swallow. My hands shake, but I keep them visible. “So you chased her.”
He grins. “I always catch what I chase.”
“But you didn’t,” I say. “You let her die.”
The words hang in the air. He blinks, once, slow. “That’s not how it happened.”
“Tell me,” I say. “Tell me everything.”
He stands and paces, like a caged animal. “She was at the riverbed, by the cliffs. She said she wanted to talk, but I could tell she was panicked. Her hands were shaking. I should have known then.”
He stops, looks at me, and for a moment there’s something human in his eyes. “She ran. She was faster than I thought. I chased her. She slipped on the moss.”
The silence is brutal.
“I tried to catch her,” he says, voice raw for the first time. “But she fell too fast. Hit her head on a rock, died on impact. I did CPR, I tried so hard, the Hunt stopped and I carried her back, but she was already gone.”
I want to believe he’s lying. I want to believe he’s making it up just to fuck with me. But he’s got a far away look in his eyes. Like he’s remembering.
I don’t look away. “You’re not sorry.”
He laughs, ugly and wrecked. “Would it help if I was?”
“No,” I say, standing. “Nothing helps.”
We’re so close now I can see the tiny flecks of gold in his irises. For a moment, I just see a scared little boy.
“You’re just going to keep doing this,” I say. “To me, to every other girl the Board throws at you.”
He leans in, lips just above my ear. “Only to you, if you let me.”
I step back, fists clenched at my sides. “I’m not my sister.”
He grins. “No. You’re better.”
I want to hit him, but I want him to hit me more. Instead, I push past, heading for the door. His hand catches my arm, just above the bruise, and for a second he holds me there, neither of us moving.
“Issy,” he says, and the way he says it is different, almost gentle. “Please… I didn’t kill her.”
I rip my arm free and keep going. The cold outside feels like freedom.
I walk for an hour after leaving the greenhouse, long enough for the sweat to dry and the bruises to settle into new colors.
My brain keeps replaying the last five minutes with Rhett—his voice, the way it cracked on my sister’s name, the way he made her death sound like an accident he was sentenced to relive.
The version of me that used to cry in the shower would probably want to believe him. But that girl is dead, floating just beneath the skin, and I’m not sure I’ll ever see her again.