Chapter Twenty-One
TWENTY-ONE
It was impossible he’d gotten away with it.
He kept waiting for Thomas to bring it up, or a teacher to pull him into a dark room where a detective would step out of the shadows, handcuffs ready, the accusation written cold in their eyes: Murderer.
Andrew couldn’t stop thinking about it as he slipped into one of the halls dedicated to independent study, textbooks crowded in his arms and a sweater on under his blazer because he was cold, always cold.
His hair was swept back in a deep, honey wave, and he looked a shy and lovely boy, not one to sacrifice a teacher.
take Clemens as the tithe take him take him take him
He had to stop thinking about it. He should think, instead, of Thomas’s scabbed-over lip, how he kept worrying it in class until it split afresh and lined his chin with a perfect paint stroke of vermilion.
Yesterday’s violence felt like a fever dream, but a bruise ghosted Andrew’s knuckles in the soft shape of Thomas’s mouth.
He should stop thinking about Thomas’s mouth.
Finding a free table in the study hall proved harder than he anticipated, especially since most of the seniors had clustered in groups of two or three, their books and laptops taking over whole tables.
Tall mahogany bookshelves divided the room, desks and students sequestered between them, and with the dark wallpaper and ornate carved cornices and bronze chandeliers, the whole room felt oppressive and airless.
But he couldn’t keep hovering, awkward and alone, while he waited for Thomas to be released from art class.
Not to mention how much work he had to catch up on.
He was failing classes; they both were. Sleepless nights full of monsters weren’t conducive to Wickwood’s rigorous academic schedule, apparently.
Hiding in a corner was about to be his best plan, when he rounded a shelf and pulled up short.
Dove stood at the end, dust motes dancing above her head in the light like a crown of feathers as her long, elegant fingers trailed over book spines.
The pain of their last conversation—their fight—came back with the brutal swiftness of a knife sliding into his lungs.
He wanted to go to her. He wanted to walk away.
She looked up as if she could sense him hovering, anxious and jittery, and the dismissive way she turned away to continue searching for a book made heat flare in his chest.
He hurried over, trying to balance his armful of slipping textbooks and still look stern. In control. But when he opened his mouth to speak, she got in first.
“Do you hear what they’re saying about Thomas?”
Andrew blinked. “No? Who’s saying what?”
Dove gave a dismissive snort, as if of course he couldn’t be relied on to know what was happening around him. “That he killed his parents.” She pulled out a book, inspected it, then slid it back into the shelf. “And Clemens. It’s all over the school.”
A wave of nausea turned over Andrew’s stomach, the pain in his ear suddenly spiking as if the vine had sprouted a fresh tendril to worm deeper into the soft tissue behind his eyes. He pressed a thumb to his temple.
“Maybe you could talk to Thomas…” But he trailed off, ashamed of the feeble attempt.
“Also, here. I went over your story for you. I would suggest rewriting the whole thing.” She unfolded a paper from her pocket and smacked it atop his pile of books.
He flinched in surprise and then frowned as he glanced over the page soaked in red strikes and circled spelling errors.
It was unmistakably torn from his notebook, but more than that, he recognized the story.
The woodcutter who’d stolen an enchanted tree to burn for his fire and had then been encircled by the rest of the walking forest to be punished for his sins.
But he’d wedged this page in the window for Thomas to find. How could Dove—
“I—” he started, but Dove cut him off.
“I can’t just keep correcting your work again and again,” she said. “Especially when you make the same mistakes. Use a dictionary or, like, your brain.”
Tears rose hot and wild in his eyes, and the battle to hold them in, to hold his voice steady, was nearly lost. She was never like this with him, abrupt and curt, going heavy with a red pen—she always used purple—and she never corrected his stories.
These were part of him, sacred and personal and quiet, and to strike out whole lines with a little penned-in comment of cliché and melodramatic felt like the cruelest blow she could deliver.
With an abrupt jerk, he twisted away from her and strode off between the shelves. Dove had the gall to look annoyed, her arms folding and her mouth pursed in a tense line.
“You’re seriously leaving me again?” she said. “Are you about to cry? You have no right to be—”
He whirled on her. “Just shut up.”
Hurt flashed in her eyes, and he couldn’t take it. He—a coward, not a prince like Thomas—fled around the shelves until he couldn’t see her anymore.
He must have yelled a lot louder than he meant to, because several students looked up as he rushed past their tables, their expressions ranging from annoyed to bewildered. He probably looked unraveled and wild, one of those students already cracking under the weight of senior year.
He was saved when he caught sight of a table at the far end of the hall, shoved tight in a corner and ruled by the vehement presence of Lana Lang stabbing at a laptop while Chloe sat next to her underlining notes with pastel highlighters.
Perfect. If Dove followed, she wouldn’t continue the fight in front of a junior she barely knew—though she was acting so erratic and vindictive, maybe she would.
Maybe she wanted him to cry where people could see and snicker and roll their eyes at his uncontrollable emotions.
Punishment for a crime he still didn’t know he’d committed.
He dumped his books on the table and dropped into a chair across from Chloe before remembering he hadn’t asked if they wanted him here, if he was taking someone else’s seat.
Chloe looked up in surprise, her highlighter dashing an unintentional line across her page, while Lana paused her argument with the laptop to eye Andrew suspiciously.
He busied himself arranging his books and then quickly swiped his sleeve over his eyes.
“Are you okay?” Lana said, cautious.
“Yup.” He snatched for his biology notepad, flipped to a random page, and stared at it. “I’m just waiting on Thomas, then I’ll go.” What else would he say? My sister was mean to me … Sure, and sound like a whining baby.
“You can stay.” Lana exchanged a quick glance with Chloe, who shrugged. “It’s just that someone yelled two seconds ago and it sounded like … you.”
He decided not to answer and then wondered if that made him seem more guilty.
“Also.” Lana dragged out the word as she slowly shut her laptop. “Did Thomas get into a fight? Because his face is totally busted. I haven’t noticed anyone else looking like a lowlife brawler, but I can’t imagine he took a punch without swinging back.”
Andrew’s bruised knuckles tightened into a fist under the table, the cut of Thomas’s teeth on his skin hidden from her perceptive eyes. “He didn’t.”
Lana raised one eyebrow, but Andrew didn’t have a lie prepared, his pounding headache liquefying all common sense. He shouldn’t have sat here, he should’ve hidden in the bathrooms or gone to the nurse’s office for painkillers or—
Chloe’s fingers appeared at the top of his biology notepad and she carefully tugged it out of his grip, flipped it, and then slid it back. When he looked up, she gave him a reassuring smile.
Shame flushed his cheeks. He’d been staring at it upside down.
He was losing it.
He needed Thomas, needed their lungs sewn inside each other so he could remember how to breathe. He needed to take words from Thomas’s mouth and put them in his own so he had something to say.
Laughter burst from around a row of shelves and he stiffened as a group of seniors strolled into view.
Of course it had to be Bryce Kane, flocked by his vultures.
Andrew squeezed the edge of the table so hard his knuckles went bloodless, hoping they’d walk past, but their exaggerated whispers were hard to ignore.
Thomas Rye killed his parents.
He has a temper, have you seen it?
Did you know he hated Clemens?
Suspicious, right?
Especially after what happened with him and Dove Perrault.
Bryce’s eyes lit on Andrew’s table, and it was like he could taste vulnerable meat, ready for mincing. A wide grin spread across his face as he sauntered over, his shirtsleeves cuffed and hair swooped back at a rakish angle.
“Hello, girlies.” He grabbed the back of Andrew’s chair and leaned in, his weight heavy and suffocating as he hovered way too close. “Getting in some hard work before the next attack?”
Andrew could feel himself being squeezed thin as paper, panic tapping the insides of his teeth as Bryce kept getting closer and closer.
“What ‘attack’ are you talking about?” Lana snapped. “Get a life and get out, Bryce.”
Chloe gave Andrew a sympathetic look of misery, but even she was shrinking beside Lana. Apparently only one of them had any guts, and they were both going to leave Lana to do the dirty work.
Until Thomas chose that moment to show up.
He materialized like flame struck from a match, his scowl already monstrous as he adjusted his grip on his notebooks, as if he was considering using them to rearrange Bryce Kane’s face.
Lana rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “Here we go.”
“Hey, President Asshole,” Thomas said, all teeth, “how about you get off Andrew before I throw you off.”
Bryce straightened with a magnanimous smile, spreading his arms wide as if about to greet an incoming friend. His vultures sidled closer and Andrew was suddenly aware of how few teachers were in this room.
“Tommy,” Bryce said. “Want me to get off him so you can get on? We were just talking about you. Wanted to check in and see if you’re all cut up about Professor Clemens … unless you were the one who cut him up in the first place.”
Lana smacked her palm on the table. “That’s so inappropriate. Clemens’s death was an accident.”
Bryce gave a dramatic shrug, clearly playing it up for his audience.
“Was it, though? I saw Perrault with Clemens that day. Looked like they were headed to the principal’s office.
So like, it makes sense.” He swept a hand through his perfect hair and shrugged.
“Perrault gets in trouble, Rye takes revenge. But I mean, what did you even do, Andy? Offer to blow the professor for better grades now that Dove’s not doing your homework?
Poor Rye was getting jealous about being left out. ”
His vultures smirked, a few holding back laughs, feeling safe behind their leader with his dashing smile and his rich boy family name. He was as tall as he was untouchable, and they thrived under his daring.
“You know what?” Thomas’s face burned. “Shut the fuck up.”
Bryce whistled. “There’s that temper. Keep it up, Rye. Confirm what we know you’re capable of … Murderer.”
Thomas moved.
Panic seared Andrew’s vision, and he thought the world would invert and he’d fall over the edge of oblivion.
He tried to get out of his chair, fumbled, his limbs suddenly too long and slick and unwieldy as he grappled against gravity.
Chloe made a small noise of distress, but it was Lana who rose like a phoenix lit in bold flame.
She must’ve started moving before Thomas did, and she grabbed the back of his shirt and dug her heels in, holding on like she’d just wrapped her fists around a hurricane.
“This is for Dove,” she muttered. “You’re not getting your ass expelled for fighting on my watch.”
It gave Andrew time to stumble out of his chair and slide between Thomas and Bryce.
“Kinda surprised with this threesome.” Bryce waggled his eyebrows. “But I guess if Lang only does girls and Andy’s pretty much one—”
Lana’s fury rolled over her face in a tidal wave. “It’s incredible how you think being a bigot is still trendy or that no one will report your asinine comments. Because I will. There’s zero tolerance for bullying in this school.”
Bryce smirked. “Zero tolerance for murder, too.”
Thomas tried to lunge, but Lana grunted as she held on while Andrew put both hands on his shoulders and pedaled him backward.
“That’s your comeback?” Lana’s serrated smile could have flayed skin. “No defense for how you’re obsessed with talking about the supposed sex life of minors? Aren’t you already eighteen, Bryce? It’s looking a bit predatory now.”
His smile dropped. An ugly purple flushed over his face and he moved toward her. “Slander me again, Lang, and I’ll—”
Chloe popped out of her chair, voice artificially cheerful. “Oh, I think Ms. Bevan is coming over.”
The threat of anyone with authority seeing the ugly side of the school’s golden boy had Bryce rearranging his simmering rage into a sneering smile.
He swept past, pausing only to pat Thomas on the head, each thump harder than the last, then he took off with his vultures in tow.
Andrew’s bones felt like dust, his lungs full of feathers, and he was sure Lana had done the true work of holding Thomas back.
He was a wisp of cloud barely gripping a comet.
With the coast clear and no teacher appearing, Lana released Thomas’s shirt and he stumbled forward only to be caught by Andrew.
Lana gave Thomas a scathing once-over. “You need to cool it.”
A muscle flexed in Thomas’s jaw. “If he touches Andrew again, I’m killing him.”
“Or maybe don’t talk like that?” Chloe said, small and timid. “After everything…”
Thomas didn’t even spare her a glance. “I hate this school. I hate all of them. Everyone pretends to be so perfect and clever, so bursting with ‘potential,’ and all they do is layer money over their shit. This school grows foul, poisonous spores and calls them roses.”
Andrew plucked at Thomas’s sleeve. “It’s okay.” It barely made it out of his mouth, the words breathless, too thin to offer comfort.
But Lana watched Thomas with something almost curious behind her glower. “I mean, you’re not wrong. Who hit you, by the way?”
Andrew shoved his hands in his pockets, but her eyes tracked his quick movement and he wished he’d done nothing.
“I’ll tell them you said thank you,” Thomas said, cold.
Lana rolled her eyes. “Whatever. I’m reporting Bryce Kane. Some people get high off making other people feel worthless. They’re monsters.”
Something flickered behind Andrew’s ribs.
They knew how to deal with monsters.