Chapter 22 Hunter
Hunter
Things were never simple, really.
But it seems like they were.
In my memory.
The fire inside me was just too much—the rage, the pain, the all-consuming desire to inflict pain in a world that only hurt.
My whole world was hostile.
And I wasn’t afraid of fighting back.
In the flames there was too much feeling, too much emotion, too much reality. Raw like an open wound. A fire that burned.
And so I snuffed it out.
Until my whole world was covered in ash.
Cold.
Lifeless.
It was easier when I was completely alone, but now I see there’s still an ember smoldering in that fire.
A red little ember, ready to catch kindling.
Ready to erupt into flame and consume me whole.
I drop my binoculars, leaning my head back as the first snowflakes of the season fall along my face.
It doesn’t even feel cold enough to snow.
The air is still, especially here in the cluster of trees at the top of the hill above Red Row.
I have a perfect view of the back and side of the Double Daggers house, and over the past two hours, I haven’t seen a goddamned thing.
I raise my binoculars again, looking all around their yard and in through the large back window of their house. A few snowflakes hit the glass, making blurred spots in the image.
It’s like every member of Double Daggers has a squeaky-clean public image and not a shred of dirt on him.
I’ve researched their online presence for the last three days, and it’s turned up nothing. Double Daggers have been a secret society for longer than Onyx, and by all accounts, they should have more skeletons in their closets. But they don’t.
Luros is only more of the same.
The girls have a sorority that’s meant to help them succeed in the world, and all of the information I can find about them practically makes them look like saints.
The guys in Onyx, especially Roman and one of his buddies, love to talk about the past “wars” between the three secret societies, but I can’t find anything on that, either.
I know I need to talk to Roman.
But something about him makes me uncomfortable, too.
I left London to escape a crime family, and I’m not exactly in the market of getting within an inch of another one. I work better alone.
The snowflakes are getting fatter and wetter now, and I’m getting nowhere trying to spy on Double Daggers. I drop the binoculars again, stuffing them into my black backpack and standing up.
When I check my phone, Rayne’s message gives me a dull ache in my chest.
Tell me you’re okay.
Every time I hear from him I feel like I’m holding my breath. Like I’ve been holding my breath for so long that my lungs are starting to burn.
Actually, it’s more like I can’t fucking breathe.
It’s bad to want things.
It’s a mistake to get close, or let anyone in.
And Rayne’s so far behind my walls that it’s starting to feel like he belongs there.
I’m never okay. Want to ask me a different question?
I want to ask you to stay close to me every moment of the day. Now I know why you felt the need to stalk me to protect me.
I don’t need anyone’s protection but my own.
I caught you off guard with a slap. Better not let an actual attacker surprise you like that.
You’re mouthy ever since you admitted you’re mine.
Going to punish me?
Quit distracting me.
If we’re going to die anyway, I want to go out like this.
A moment later I receive a photo from him. He’s just gotten out of the shower, with water droplets still clinging to his skin. His cock is hard and he has his hand around the base of it.
So fucking hot. Gives new meaning to the phrase die hard.
Fuck. Don’t make me laugh when I should be worried for my life.
Trust me, Rayne. That’s the time when you need to laugh the most.
My cock is yours when you get home.
I love the photo he sent me.
I love his goddamn texts.
I love the way he makes me smile and I fucking hate the way that means he has control over me.
I grip my phone so hard in my hand my knuckles turn white. I want to toss it into an incinerator right now, but a more honest part of me knows that it wouldn’t make any difference.
Phone or no phone, I’d still find my way back to Rayne.
And the way he worries about me is probably the worst of it.
No one worries about me. They worry for me. They worry that I’ll hurt them.
And everything is better that way.
I shove away the feeling, stuffing it into the dark recesses of my mind like I’ve always done. Lately it seems impossible to do anything I used to do, though, and that threat of an inferno inside me is only getting worse.
I need something else right now.
An actual distraction.
A real friend. Because apparently I’m no good at being alone anymore.
I pull out my phone again and text Briar, instead.
Are you free right now?
Briar: Just got out of my Chemistry lab. Need caffeine. Meet me at the Kettle?
I’d like an IV injection of black coffee. See you there.
I take off down the hill and onto Red Row, heading out toward the main part of campus.
The snow flurries fall neatly through the air, and there’s no wind at all.
The campus is beautiful in the snow.
Or it would be, if it didn’t feel like a fucking battlefield.
Outside the Kettle I find Briar leaning against the stone wall.
“You look stressed,” I tell her, seeing her expression knit into a frown as she looks down at the notebook in her hands.
“Isn’t that everyone’s way of telling somebody they look like shit?” she asks, shoving the notebook into her backpack.
“You don’t look like shit. Your hair looks cool.”
She has her hair up in a messy bun on top of her head, with little wispy tendrils coming down in front of her face.
“I need to go back in time and tell myself not to major in Biochemistry. I want to be a doctor, not a laboratory scientist. If I see another amino acid molecular diagram I’m going to lose my mind.”
“One day, maybe you’ll be able to save a patient by knowing what the structure of an amino acid molecule looks like.”
She snorts, tossing her backpack over her shoulder.
We head into the Kettle, grabbing sub sandwiches and cups of soup before heading toward the back wall. Snow falls past the windows outside and I slurp chicken soup like it’s liquid gold.
“You know how athletes guzzle Gatorade after a tough game? That’s you with that chicken soup right now,” Briar tells me, watching me polish off the whole cup.
“I was outside for a couple of hours in the cold.”
“What were you up to?”
I put the cup down on the wooden table, looking down and wishing there was double. “Had to take care of some things,” I tell her.
It’s my default answer.
Even with Briar, I’m not exactly an open book about what I do.
She knows nothing about my time in London, and I don’t share details about the research I’ve put into trying to find the person who is after Onyx Society members.
I look up at her finally, watching as she just nods and takes a big bite of her sandwich, and a strange feeling curls through my chest.
Guilt.
Is this what guilt feels like?
Briar has been the first person who’s tried to befriend me in years, and still, I give her nothing.
What. The fuck. Is happening to me?
I pick up my sandwich, then put it back down again. “I, uh,” I start to say. “I’m trying to help the Onyx guys figure out who’s fucking with them.”
“The stuff with James and Ethan?” Briar asks.
“And some other things. Yes,” I finally tell her. “It pisses me off, knowing there’s someone out there who just thinks they can get away with this.”
She nods. “And I’m sure you don’t want your brother in danger, even if you don’t get along with him.”
I clench my jaw for a moment. “I would kill for Weston, even though he makes me want to backhand him a lot of the time.”
“I’d do the same for my brother. I love Kai, though. It isn’t hard to care about him.”
I let out a long breath. “I’m not used to it.”
“What?”
“Caring about people. Never thought I’d let myself do that again.”
She tucks a strand of her hair behind her ear. “After… after what happened to your sister?”
I nod, looking out the window at the snow.
I’d given Briar the short version of what happened to Lune, and luckily she’d never given me any pity-looks or treated me differently.
“Well, I fucking hate feeling powerless. Whether I care about the guys in Onyx or not, I won’t let someone trample all over them. Especially Rayne.”
“Because Rayne’s special?” she teases.
“He isn’t like the other guys in Onyx. He came from nothing, and he deserves the life that Onyx and Crimson College can give him.”
Briar lifts her eyebrows. “Hunter, I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you give someone a compliment. Other than me, when we’re fencing, of course.”
Heat creeps up along the back of my neck.
“I fucking hate Colson,” I tell her.
Except for the fact that I don’t.
“Right.”
“But he’s still the most deserving person in Onyx. Probably in this whole school.”
She’s clearly trying to hide a smile as she takes another bite of her sandwich.
And the tornado of frustration that built up inside me earlier is back now, whipping through me even worse, this time.
Solve the fucking problem that Onyx has, and it ends there.
Fuck Rayne senseless when he begs.
Take his cock because it’s perfect. But getting attached in any other way is not an option.
I’m the kind of person who is fuckable, not lovable.
I’ve known that for a long time.
And there’s nothing wrong with that.
I won’t feel a goddamned thing when all of this ends. When, inevitably, Rayne finds a guy who is actually a match for him.
Colson will miss my cock forever, no doubt.
When he fucks the guy who eventually becomes his picture-perfect husband, probably someone kind, and sweet, and good for him…
I hope he remembers what I felt like.
Or how the back of my knife on his chest only made his cock harder.
I can never have Rayne, but my mark will always be etched onto him, long after this is over.
And for now, my only objective is to protect him, Wes, and myself, at all costs.
“You heading home for fall break next week?” Briar asks, pulling me out of the silent storm in my mind.
Home. Have I really ever had one of those?
“No. I’ll be here,” I tell her. “You?”
“Same. Not worth the zillion-hour long flight to Hong Kong.”
“Weston and Rayne aren’t going home, either,” I say. “I’ll come over to Luros and watch spooky movies with you. Onyx House is going to be weird and fucking awkward without a buffer between those two.”
“Are they fighting?”
Shit.
I’d forgotten Briar knew nothing about what happened.
My chest tightens. “Worse than fighting.”
“Sounds like drama.”
“Weston saw Rayne kissing someone and he was pissed about it.”
It’s the truth, even if it’s leaving out the fact that I was the one he kissed.
Her eyes go wide. “Do you think Weston had a secret thing for Rayne?”
I shrug. “Nothing serious, but he was at least a little curious.”
“Damn.”
“He isn’t happy about it, but Weston’s always been weird about Rayne. Might just be a possessive best friend thing. Who the fuck knows, when it comes to Wes?”
“Kind of cute if he did have a secret crush on him, though,” Briar says. “Maybe they’ll end up together.”
I bring my arm down too fast and the empty ceramic soup cup clatters off the table, falling onto the floor as the metal spoon clangs out, too.
Eyes around us briefly turn, and that heat at the back of my neck is all over my body now.
But for some reason I want to toss the cup against the wall now. Smash it to pieces.
Maybe take out my throwing knives and sink those into the wood, too.
But instead I just grab the cup and spoon, putting them back on the table.
Restraint.
My least favorite fucking thing.
“Weston and Rayne will not end up together,” I tell Briar as I stand up from the table, wrapping my sandwich in its paper again and taking it with me. “I have to get back to Onyx House. Some of the guys are going to that dumb fucking Daggers party tonight, and I don’t want them going without me.”
“Wish I could come, too. Got a hot date with my Biochemistry homework, unfortunately.”
I wave as I walk off through the dining hall.
I’m letting things get to me.
I need a fucking release.
And if Rayne has to go to this stupid fucking party tonight, at least I’m going to be there to watch him.