Chapter 21 Rayne
Rayne
In my memory, Weston and I walk home together.
We’re only thirteen.
The power at Mom’s apartment got shut off, because she was only ten dollars short of the bill. The sun’s out, and it’s nearly ninety degrees. There will be no cool air, but for now, I’m fine.
Right now, I’m with my best friend.
When I leave Weston’s house that night, I come home to find a $100 bill with a note attached:
I know you need it. Just take it, ok?
When I decided to treat Onyx Society, and really all of Crimson College, like I was a king, I always pictured myself as a good king.
A worthy one.
Beloved, and respectful of the crown and all the responsibility it comes with.
But a crown means nothing if your most trusted friend isn’t there.
If he’s broken inside, and it’s all your fault.
When Weston sees us, it’s more than a Band-Aid being ripped off.
He doesn’t even fight his brother.
He looks like he’s given up.
Like the rug is pulled from under him, and suddenly, he doesn’t know where to land.
And I decide, right then, that there can be no half-measures.
Weston is hurt.
I kept something from my best friend, and even though privacy has its place, I know that I would be hurt if I were him, too.
There’s no fucking chance I’m going to let the wound fester.
I’m going to put honesty over fucking everything, the way I should have been doing the whole time.
And it’s all going to come out tonight.
“Wes, you are the first to know, and I was planning on telling you very soon,” I say to him before he can walk off into his room.
“It’s not a one-off. It’s not a fluke. I…
I’m hooking up with Hunter. I have been for weeks.
And that’s my choice to make. But I am sorry for not telling you sooner. I’m so fucking sorry, Weston—”
He walks past us, not even looking me in the eye. “Go be with him, then. We’ll probably both be dead by the end of this week, so get your fill.”
I set my jaw. “You know that’s not true.”
He heads into his room and I look back at Hunter, who is just as defeated, leaning against the wall in the hallway.
“One second,” I mouth to Hunter, before following Weston into his room.
Wes is staring out his window, with his eyes wide. “My brother, Rayne. My fucking brother. Were you doing this in high school, too? How long have you been going behind my back?”
“No, we weren’t doing this in high school. And is it going behind your back? Do I need to tell you every single thing I do, and every move I make?”
“Fucking my brother isn’t the same thing as telling me what kind of coffee you drank in the morning.”
He’s right.
I know he’s right.
But I feel my own indignant anger eating away at me, all the same.
“You’ve been like a brick wall all semester anyway,” I tell him, and I regret the words the moment they’re out of my mouth.
He looks up, furrowing his brow at me. “Excuse me?”
“Ever since this school year started, you’ve been acting different. How often do we have fun together anymore? Why don’t we have late nights up talking like we always have?”
“Maybe because you’re too busy putting your tongue in Hunter’s mouth—”
“Stop. You can’t tell me you haven’t been different, Wes. It’s like there’s this invisible wall between us. Like you’re not telling me something.”
He’s gripping the ledge below the window so hard his knuckles are white. “Almost as if my asshole of a brother joined Onyx and I don’t like it. Almost as if I know my father is going to give him everything to inherit, and leave me with nothing.”
I shake my head. “Is it just that, Wes? Or is there more?”
“You’re fucking blind, then.”
“Blind to what?”
“It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Tell me,” I roar at him.
Wes looks me in the eye. “When you first came out, and got with Mikael, I thought I was just being possessive. I saw you with him and knew he wasn’t good enough for you. When you two broke up, I realized that it was something different than that.”
My chest suddenly feels hollow.
I turn away, trying to recall every interaction I’ve had with Weston this semester.
The way it seemed hard for him to look me in the eyes, sometimes. The way he fucking hated it anytime I talked about Mikael. And the specific loathing he had when he was forced to acknowledge that Hunter was my roommate.
“How… how long did you feel that way about me, Wes?”
He puffs out a bitter laugh. “I’m not fucking in love with you. Take your ego down a peg.”
My heart still feels like it’s being twisted.
I turn around and put my hand on his shoulder, because suddenly I feel the need to comfort him, not fight him.
“Then what was it?”
“A curiosity. About men. Not just you. A realization that I’ve been blind to certain things for a long time, too. I didn’t want to ruin our friendship, didn’t want to do anything that might change it.”
“Did I break your heart?” I ask, my words barely audible.
“Again. Take your ego out back and shoot it. You didn't break my heart. I didn’t even know if I was attracted to men, but I don’t think you’re my type, Rayne.”
He gives me a long look.
And I really believe him. Wes and I are great as friends, but too similar to ever be together.
I see Weston differently now than I ever have before.
He’s always seemed so… sturdy.
Like nothing could bother him. Like he took any punches that life gave him, without faltering.
Now I see that there are facets to my best friend that I have been blind to, facets that I never got to see. Secrets he kept from me, too.
When the fuck did everything get so intense?
Weston shakes his head, scrubbing his palms over his face. “There are plenty of people I’ve been curious about, Rayne. You’re not special. For my dick, anyway.”
I let out a long breath. “I had no idea. I feel so stupid.”
“I’m not ready for anyone else to know this. I didn’t want you to be my boyfriend. I just wanted you to be my wingman.”
I nod at him. “I still can be.”
“Not if you keep secrets like this from me. I’m going to need time, Rayne. My brother doesn’t deserve you.”
It echoes what he wrote about me in the Confessional.
But he steps over toward me and comes in to give me a tight hug.
And it’s like a catharsis.
A brief moment of calm.
Because we’re in the eye of a storm that’s so much bigger than both of us.
Weston and I will be okay. Eventually.
I’ve always loved Weston as a friend, but I’ve never thought about him any other way. I’ve never even considered being attracted to him. I see him like he’s my own brother.
I feel safe with him.
Things feel easy with him. Felt, at least.
But the things that have been happening this semester are a lot bigger than that.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper.
“Don’t ever feel like you need to keep something from me again,” Wes says as he releases me.
“Of course.”
“But I’m never speaking to my brother again.”
Fuck.
I was afraid of that.
“I know you’re going to need time to process.”
“My brother will hurt you. And I know, deep in my bones, that you will regret stepping anywhere near his world. I can’t see you get hurt. The people around Hunter always get hurt.”
“He wants to help me, Wes. He wants to find the attackers more than anyone else does.”
Weston isn’t convinced. “Hunter only cares about himself. That’s how it’s always been.”
A creeping fear spreads through my veins when I see how certain the look on Weston’s face is.
“I don’t think that’s true.”
Week after week, I’ve been growing closer to Hunter.
I know Hunter.
He’s been showing me things he doesn’t show his brother, and I finally feel like it’s not stupid to build up trust in him.
But how well do I really know Hunter Knox?
Even now?
I know the dips and curves of his body.
The feel of his lips.
The constellation of freckles along his arm.
But there’s still the shred of doubt that plagues my mind when Weston seems so convinced about him. And that doubt tells me something else.
Maybe I only know what Hunter chooses to show me.
When I walk back to my room I know something is wrong.
I step along the floorboards in the hall and see a thin streak of dark red coming from the bottom of the doorway.
The fear that’s shot through my nervous system only worsens.
It’s not a lot of blood.
But it’s blood, unmistakably.
The door is only cracked open, and I have no idea who is inside.
My fear turns to pure panic.
For a split second I’m caught between two decisions. Do I run back and get Weston? Ask him to go inside with me?
Or do I go in alone?
I don’t want him hurt.
I want him as far away from any potential danger as possible.
Go.
Just fucking go.
I move quietly as I approach the door and I push it open without walking in. I look around the corner and see the pale moonlight coming in through the window.
The trail of blood is visible in the low light.
And there’s more of it.
Little streaks of blood along the floor, leading in.
“Fuck,” I whisper under my breath.
My hands are shaky now, but I have to move. I have to spring into action. If something happened to Hunter—
If something fucking happened to him, I’ll destroy whoever did it with my own hands.
I round the corner and enter the room ready to fight.
My heart pounds in my chest as I follow the blood, and my eyes go wide when I see that Hunter is alone.
Completely alone.
He has one hand holding a white T-shirt as he wraps it around his hand. I can see more blood starting to soak into the white fabric, and my heart skips a beat.
“You hurt yourself,” I say.
He looks up at me. “It was an accident.”
“You fucking hurt yourself. Get over here.”
I step over to him and pull away the shirt to see that he has a bad cut along the side of his hand. A knife is resting on the table nearby, with blood along its edge.
“I toss these knives around every day. Every goddamn day, and I’ve never given myself a scratch. I’m better than that. It… just went up in the air and came down wrong.”
He’s frustrated.
I’m fucking pissed.
“Come downstairs with me. Right now.”
“Fuck off. It’s fine, Rayne.”
“You’re coming with me to the first aid kit, and you’re putting something on that wound that’s cleaner than a fucking T-shirt.”
“I keep my knives clean, and this shirt is clean, too. I’m not stupid—”
“You are stupid, if you don’t get downstairs with me. Do it. Now.”
I step behind him and give him a shove on the small of his back. He sighs, but at least he starts to move.
“You’re like a doting dad,” he tells me.
“Move.”
I head down the staircase with him, startled by the amount of blood on the T-shirt.
We walk past Oliver and Noah as we head to the downstairs bathroom, and Oliver brings his hand to his mouth in shock when he sees the blood.
“Holy fuck. Did something happen?” Noah asks.
Hunter starts to make an excuse. “Part of my, uh, bed frame splintered off—”
“Nope. No more fucking lies,” I say. “He was playing with his knives like a goddamned idiot, and now I’m going to fix his own mistake.”
Hunter puffs out a breath. “Damn. Okay. If it’s like that, Rayne, then why don’t you just tell them about all of your mistakes, too?”
“Ignore him,” I say. “He’s fine. Or he will be.”
“Rayne’s afraid of a little blood, apparently,” Hunter mutters.
Ollie is grimacing. “It’s more than a little.”
“First mistake was trying to help you, I guess,” I say under my breath as we walk into the bathroom.
I slam the door behind us and reach for the first aid kit, grabbing the disinfectant first. I take Hunter’s arm and position it over the sink, and when I take away the T-shirt, blood drips into the white porcelain basin of the sink.
I squirt the liquid onto his wound.
He doesn’t even wince, even though I know this shit hurts like a bitch.
“Really unnecessary, Colson,” he mutters.
“Someone is out there trying to kill you. Not going to let you die from an infected wound on your hand, Hunter. That would just make it too easy for them.”
He groans. “You’re starting to sound like me. Since when do you like playing a medic?”
I work quickly on the wound.
“I’ve gotten enough injuries on the football field to know what I’m doing. For the most part, I guess.”
I can tell that the wound is shallow, and it probably doesn’t need stitches.
I wrap him in thick gauze and tape it shut around his hand.
“A+ work, Rayne. You’ve fixed me. Want a gold star?”
“You want me to smack you?”
“Wish you would,” he says with a little teasing tone in his voice that makes me rage.
I don’t even hesitate.
I reach up and smack my open palm along his cheek.
His mouth hangs open in shock as a faint pink mark appears on his skin.
“You need to start taking this more seriously,” I tell him.
“You think I haven’t been taking it seriously since the moment I knew there was a threat to you? I know the dumb jock is a stereotype, but you’re really a lot smarter than that, Rayne—”
I reach up and smack him again and I hate that it makes him smile.
What I don’t expect is for him to take his uninjured hand and bring it up quickly against my neck, pushing me back up onto the tiled wall of the bathroom.
He doesn’t crush my windpipe.
He just holds his hand against me like he’s cuffing me in place, and then leans in to kiss me.
Even when I want to shake him, his kiss is able to bring me back down to Earth.
Even when I’m so worried for all of us that I’m two moments away from panic at any time.
The feeling of his lips on mine makes it all go away, even for just an instant.
“I’ve got a lot of work to do,” he says near my lips as he pulls back a moment later. “I’m not sleeping tonight.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I’m going to find out who left those notes for the Confessional.”
His hand is gone now.
And I miss it.
When I glance up at myself in the mirror, I see a ruddy streak of blood on my neck, now. His blood, streaked along my skin because it was all over both of his hands.
“It feels impossible. It feels like we’re never going to be able to fix this. Never going to find who it is until they’re already attacking us.”
Hunter is silent for a moment.
He’s stretching out his hand, trying to get a feel for his movement underneath the gauze.
“Is my brother okay?” he finally asks.
And there it is.
A shred of proof.
Proof that Hunter cares.
That he’s not some purely cold, calculating monster. He doesn’t want his brother dead, and that means something.
“No. But he will be. Eventually.”
“Always wondered if he loved you,” Hunter murmurs, still looking down at his gauzed hand.
“He does. But I don’t think he was in love with me. Not that it matters, anyway.”
“Why doesn’t it matter?”
“Because he can’t have me,” I tell him, meeting his eyes before I leave the bathroom. “I belong to someone else.”