Chapter Thirty Nine
“Erm, what’s going on in here?” My voice sounds smaller than intended, thin against the darkened lecture hall.
The only light comes from a harsh beam fixed on the front desk, leaving the tiered seats swallowed in shadow.
The silence makes my footsteps louder as I approach, each one echoing like a warning I’m ignoring. The strangeness doesn’t stop there.
Clay is in Hargreaves’ chair, hunched over a laptop that isn’t his. He doesn’t acknowledge me, just keeps typing with sharp keystrokes, his face drenched in light and resentment.
“Rhys text me to meet him here.”
“And like an obedient assistant, you came running.” Clay responds without even lifting his eyes but it’s the slice of his words that give me pause. A coldness washes over him and my eyebrows pinch together.
I’d actually marched here intending to tell Rhys to stop treating me like one of his cronies.
Although, I must admit the tiniest part of me had been curious, wondering what stunt Rhys was pulling this time.
But whatever words I had planned die instantly on my tongue as I step closer, rounding the desk to see ‘student profile deactivated’ splashed across grayed out screen as Clay pushes to his feet.
“I don’t understand,” I shake my head slightly. Clay stares at me, vacant of the warmth he was starting to drip feed me. There’s no fleeting smile or gentle brush of companionship, but a storm swirling his black eyes.
“How could you?” Despite having my receivers on, I have to watch his lips since his voice is so low. Dangerously low. Suddenly, he swipes a stack of textbooks to the floor by my side with a roar. “I trusted you!” I flinch and cover the sides of my head with my hands.
“I don’t know what—”
“Don’t play ignorant, Harper.” My name isn’t just a name anymore. It’s a verdict, a curse spat into the air with enough sharpness to make my ears ring. I’m being blamed for something I can’t comprehend. My chest feels tight, my pulse a hammer in my throat.
“Clay, talk to me. What happened?” I reach out, desperate, my fingertips barely brushing the fabric of his sleeve before he recoils as if my touch is toxic.
“You happened. You used me. You broke me.” His words drip like acid, each one eating into me until I can hardly breathe. “I hope you got whatever it is you wanted.” Leaning over the laptop, he clicks a tab open and shoves the screen back towards me.
The image burns itself into my eyes instantly.
Locker doors slick with red, the purest of red glistening against the metal.
Streams trail downward to the floor, pooling under a black jacket laid out like a corpse on the bench.
Jeremy’s name stitched across the back, defiled by the word smeared in white across it. MURDERER.
My throat closes and my heart twists so violently it feels like it might rip in two. Who would do this? How could anyone desecrate the dead like that?
“You can’t believe I had anything to do with this?
!” My voice breaks, my eyes already stinging, tears prickling at the edges as I whip toward him.
I need him to see it, to see the horror on my face, the ache in my chest, the proof that I couldn’t, and wouldn’t, ever be part of something so monstrous.
“I know the pain of loss better than anyone, Clay. I would never—”
“I don’t believe you.” Any speech he can manage is guttural, shredded with betrayal.
“Only a handful of people know about my past, and you are the only one I’ve told willingly.
Did you even wait before running to Rhys?
Did you two laugh in bed whilst I was trying to protect you? Fuck. How could I have been so stupid?”
The injustice snaps inside me, my grief twisting into fury. How dare he. How dare he think I would trade his secrets, the ones he’d bared like raw wounds, the ones I held with trembling hands, knowing how much it cost him to share them.
“Now hang on a second,” I start to shake with barely restrained rage. “I opened up to you too. Do you think that was easy for me? What would I have to gain by betraying you?”
Clay’s chest heaves, his eyes wild as he paces, raking a hand through his blond waves. He’s on a path of self-destruction that I can’t seem to slow, never mind stop. He’s not listening to me anymore.
“I’ve been asking myself the same question all damn day,” he growls.
“At first I thought maybe Rhys hurt you, blackmailed you, but you’re not scared of him.
You stand up to him every chance you get and I defended you like a fucking idiot.
So, it must be something else. His body.
His money. Either way, you threw me under the bus. And I will never forgive you for this.”
The words gut me, a clean slice straight through my chest as if he’s aimed. My mouth falls open, though no sound comes out. He doesn’t see the heartbreak tearing through me. He’s too far gone, drowning in his own fury and dragging me under with him.
I turn back to the laptop, that cursed image still splattered across the screen.
My hands tremble at my sides as fresh tears blur my vision.
Anger spikes through the heartache, hot and uncontrollable.
To mock the dead like that is to rip open the grave and force the soul to relive its pain, and for Clay to think I could ever, ever be capable of that… it’s unbearable.
Rhys set me up. That’s all I can think to make sense of the chaos happening around me.
He had the means, the time, the desire to cause destruction wherever he goes.
Somehow, and for some reason, he’s hellbent on forcing a wedge between Clayton and me.
If only he wasn’t too blind with grief to see it right now.
“Rhys is a leech,” I hiss, every word sharp as broken glass.
My fists tighten, nails biting into my palms. I’ve had enough of being accused, of being hunted, of being treated like a pawn in his sick game.
“He drains the life from everyone around him because he has none of his own. I would never betray you to someone who survives on the weight of a name he didn’t earn.
Stripped of it, Rhys Waversea is nothing but a tattooed shell without a soul, and he knows it. ”
Slow clapping echoes around the curved walls, ricocheting from so many directions I can’t tell where it’s coming from, like the space itself is mocking me.
Clay remains frozen beside the professor’s chair, his eyes dark and unreadable.
I raise my hand to block the harsh light cutting across the room and see a shadow striding toward the front.
The spaces between the ink on Rhys’s skin catch the beam, angels and demons staring at me as he steps in beside Clay, a predator walking into his prey’s trap.
“I had my doubts, but you were right, Clayton. Utterly heartless. Deal’s a deal,” Rhys says, sliding an off-white slip of paper into Clay’s pocket. Clay doesn’t respond, eyes still fixed on me, and my stomach twists as the reality of what’s happening sinks in. I’ve been deceived by both of them.
“Guess you win, Wavershit. Enjoy your consolation prize,” Clay mutters, and I feel something crack inside me, sharp and cold like a bolt straight through my chest. He turns and leaves, the darkness coiling around him like an old friend, leaving me standing in the hollow ache of my own disbelief.
Tears spill over, uninvited and unstoppable, as the loss I wasn’t prepared to feel claws through me.
I storm forward but Rhys steps into my path.
Rage boils over and I throw my fists into his chest, each strike a physical translation of the wrath ripping through my chest. He meets my force easily, pushing me back every time, my shrieks of frustration resounding against the walls, each shove louder than the last.
On the fourth, Rhys’s hands curl around my waist and pin me against the nearest wall, his grip bruising, his fingers biting through the cotton of my t-shirt. His teeth brush my jaw with the slightest hint of threat, a tension so palpable it makes my blood run hot and my chest tighten.
“You know violence gets me off,” he whispers, teasing me whilst twisting the knife further. “No matter how much I want to destroy you right now, if you hit me again, I will hate-fuck you against this wall and leave you writhing in a heap of pleasure on the floor. Then walk away for good.”
My stomach lurches, torn between revulsion and the smallest flicker of desire I refuse to acknowledge. Anger wars with fear, with the deep, shattering sense of helplessness I hadn’t felt in years. This isn’t about him, it’s not even about me. This is about Clay.
“You promised! You promised your revenge schemes wouldn’t hurt anyone. That you’d leave him alone.” I choke out, a sob catching in my throat. Rhys rumbles with laughter.
“Let’s not try to shift the blame here, Babygirl.
” Rhys spins me around, using a hand on the back of my neck to force my face into the laptop screen.
I can’t bear to look, my eyes scrunching tight.
“I have to say, nicely done. A little harsh, even by my standards, but I didn’t know you had it in you. ”
“Me?!” I twist free, shoving Rhys a step away from me. I can’t think when his hands are on my body, his push and pull, hot and cold routine scrambling my thoughts. Rhys yawns and stretches indicating that he’s bored.
“Who else would have been able to get close enough to steal the bag of blood from my freezer?”
“You’re the one that took it!” I scoff so hard, it scratches my throat. He’s beyond ridiculous.
From the moment I stepped on campus, I’ve had no agency, no control over anything.
Not Rhys, not Clay, not the chaos that has swallowed me whole.
And now, in his twisted logic, I’m the puppet master?
My fingers curl into fists, knuckles turning white, as my chest tightens with the need to reclaim what little I can.