Chapter 24 Caz
CHAPTER 24
CAZ
Caz ducked a punch and came up swinging, hitting his opponent in the side of the ribs, hearing the curse words ring out in the gym.
“Fucking hell, what’s gotten into you?” Baron shouted from outside the ring, watching Caz beat the shit out of one of his juniors.
Caz didn’t grace him with a reply, just punched the kid opposite him once, twice, and another time for good measure before taking out his mouth guard and jumping off the ropes.
He heard Baron round the ring to walk up to him, his shiny shoes clickety-clackety on the gym floor. Who the fuck even wore shoes like that to a fucking gym?
“You wanna talk about why you almost made mincemeat out of Paul, there?” Baron leaned against the wall as Caz took a quick shower and cleaned off, uncaring of the other man. His dick was bigger anyway.
“Fuck off, Whitmore.” He donned his usual dark clothes and boots, swinging his bag over his shoulder.
Baron just smiled. “Won’t have anything to do with a golden-eyed, gorgeous girl now, would it? If not and if you’re done with Salazar, let me know, so—”
Caz had his hand wrapped around the guy’s shirt and him pushed into a wall before he could finish the sentence.
“Stay the fuck away from her,” he growled in his face, and the bastard laughed.
“Oh, you’re fucked, van der Waal.”
Caz just glared at him, feeling the rage that never quite left him burning even brighter these days.
Baron pushed him off and moved to the side. “You’re screwed if you claim her, because then they will have leverage over you, and you’re screwed if you don’t, because they would make someone else stake a claim. Such a dilemma.”
Caz didn’t want to discuss this, not with this bastard of all people. He had enough on his plate as it was.
“They know you’ve been stalking her anyway.” Baron kept speaking, pushing his hands into his pants pockets. “Scaring any guys who’ve looked at her twice. That’s all still pretty explainable, still. You could excuse it by saying you were keeping an eye on her and that would still fly. But it’s getting sticky now.” The guy sounded almost gleeful. If Caz was chaos, Baron was mania. They were both similar in a way but different in their executions.
“As I said,” Caz told him evenly, zipping up his bag and getting ready to leave. It was getting late and the gym would close in a few minutes. “She’s none of your business.”
“Oh, but she is. By the way, you know the object of your little obsession was blackmailed when she was a minor?”
Caz froze, his senses sharpening. “What?”
“I’ll let her tell you the story,” Baron offered magnanimously. “It’s quite a thrilling one.”
How the fuck did this dickhead know all the secrets around this place?
But well, that was his thing. That was why Baron was a resource, and a pain-in-the-ass ally. The main lights in the gym slowly started to go off. That was the problem with smaller towns, nothing stayed open late. Caz began walking to the exit, knowing Baron was right behind him.
Caz knew the guy suspected, or maybe even knew, stuff about him. He had since he’d received the phone call and looked into him, and Eric hadn’t been able to block him off completely, just a bit. But surprisingly, Baron hadn’t said a word to them, nor to him, just deflecting any probing questions about Caz.
Caz didn’t trust the fucker though. He was certain Baron was just keeping his cards close to his chest and biding his time, and that he would hang him out to dry like dirty laundry once it was up.
“What do you want?” Caz cut through the bullshit. He had no patience for games, not in the last two days. Since leaving Salem’s room on Sunday, Caz had pretty much disappeared from campus for two days. Was it shitty on his part to vanish without a word to her? Yes. But did he need the space before he destroyed something? Yes. He needed the space to process, to regroup, to think, and he couldn’t do that around her without telling her the whole truth.
The other man’s demeanor sobered, or as sober as Baron could be. “Just giving you a heads-up. Salazar filed the application yesterday.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
That self-sabotaging little fool.
She had no idea what she’d just done. She’d opened the season for hunters and walked into the clearing, the perfect little prey. She had made herself fair game, losing the immunity her sister had given her.
It was his fault too. He should have been more honest with her. Maybe if he’d told her the extent of everything, she would have heeded his warning better.
Or maybe not.
Maybe she would’ve run headfirst into danger because that’s what she did, with no care to her own life, with no faith in anyone, with no trust that she would be missed. He had known her long enough, observed her long enough, and heard the talk about her around campus long enough to know exactly how she thought of herself, how she wished it had been her instead of her sister who had died.
She might just get her wish now.
Running his fingers through his hair, he let out a frustrated sigh. “Why are you telling me this? What’s in it for you?”
Baron looked to the side, a frown on his face. “Believe it or not, nothing. I’m just returning a favor to someone who cares about your little muse.”
Aditi. Aditi must have asked Baron to look out for her friend, and she seemed to be the only person Baron did any favors for. Though they were careful, never together on campus or in public, Caz had kept an eye on Aditi as well after her proximity to Salem increased, and, lo and behold, found Baron sneaking off with her. Caz knew the guy well enough to know that was only happening as long as the girl was serving her purpose for him. The day she was done, he would discard her.
Caz simply gave a nod, not letting his thoughts show. If push came to shove, he would use Aditi against Baron.
The other guy returned the nod and left.
Caz walked out of the gym and into the late evening, the chill in the air getting worse and worse as days passed. He shoved his hands into his pockets and began his trek back from the main town where the gym was to the campus, mulling things over to sort out his thoughts.
Seeing her murder board, full of detailed investigation that rivaled cops he had once known, had been a surprise. He had expected something on the pinboard in her room but not what he had found, not the thoughts and notes scribbled in neat handwriting in the margins, thoughts crammed in every space she could find. He had not expected to see the intelligence in her mind and her keen eye for detail manifesting itself on the board.
People called her cold, frigid, unfeeling, and he could see why. To anyone looking from the outside, she had a chill about her, her face perpetually frozen in a stoic mask with very little give, no interest in anything around her, only her eyebrows moving or chin tilting up in a haughty manner that left anyone before her feeling like slime beneath her shoes. The only point of life in her entire body was her eyes. Only those hypnotic, magical eyes. The only visible fire in her ice.
He had thought her icy at the beginning too, just like the rest of them, but over time, prodding and poking at her just to see her react, see if she would react. And he’d slowly, between the deliberate gauntlets thrown and the determined stalking, seen her, gotten to know her, and he’d been wrong. People were wrong, they didn’t know her, not like he did.
She hid her fire from the world behind a wall of ice, burning so bright on the inside, with passion and fervor and strength unlike any he had ever seen. She had been hurt by life, rejected by the world, abandoned by the ones she’d loved, and so she’d built a shell around her so hard it looked impenetrable, making anyone who looked her way think there was nothing worth knowing there, that the wall was all there was.
But it wasn’t. It had taken him time, but bit by bit, hit by hit, he had cracked it open, split it wide enough to slip in, and found himself in the core of her—soft, vulnerable, empathetic, and so damn hurt it radiated from her until all he wanted to do was become her shell, so nothing and no one could ever hurt her again, not without going through him.
And thinking like that was dangerous.
Because while she had gambled with her life, he had gambled with his long before she stepped foot at Mortimer, for a reason not dissimilar to hers.
She had started it all for her dead sister.
He had started it all for his missing brother.
Or rather, a brother he had suspected had died but hadn’t known for sure, not until two nights ago.
His older brother who had been the only family, the only parent, the best friend he had ever had, until he had come to study at Mortimer and vanished, leaving behind nothing but a letter that had come to Caz a few weeks after, a fail-safe triggered by his disappearance. The fail-safe had led him to Eric, his brother’s roommate, the only one who had known his truth.
Caz had known for a while, in his heart, that his brother was dead. There was no force in the world that could have kept his brother from contacting him otherwise, not for so many years. That was what he had come to Mortimer to find, answers.
And that night in her room, he had found them.
The photo of his brother after his autopsy.
The injuries listed in his report.
The strange tattoo behind his ear that Salem had made a note of.
Unidentified male.
His brother.
Lassiter. Laz.
Caz and Laz, the two peas in a pod, the two sides of a coin, the two brothers for life.
Suspecting something and having it confirmed were two different things. Seeing his brother’s photo, his dead body’s photo, there on the board unexpectedly had hit him like a truck. The rage that had always gotten him in trouble, that his brother had constantly told him to keep under control, had erupted. He had wanted to rip the board apart, to scream and shout to the skies, to go out and kill the people who had done this.
Because he knew they had.
There was no way in the world his brother had jumped from the fucking lighthouse, at least not of his own free will. His letter had confirmed as much all those years ago.
Caz strolled into the street outside the campus, watching students milling around the place, like a typical weekday evening. Most stared at him, giving him a wide berth thanks to all the wild rumors about him on campus, the anger at the world he harbored in his eyes enough of a deterrent for anyone to come talk to him.
He headed for the gates, scanning the surroundings as he usually did out of habit, and suddenly stopping in his tracks at the sight inside the café.
Salem sat inside right next to the window, her hair on top of her head in her typical messy bun, curls escaping and dancing around her face and neck, glasses perched on her cute nose and an oversized cardigan tucked tight around her. A steaming cup of coffee—hazelnut because he knew that’s what she preferred—sat on the table in front of her. His eyes drank her in, missing her, the fact that he hadn’t seen her in two days and that felt like an eternity, especially when he used to see her daily.
But it wasn’t that which stopped him in his tracks.
No, it was the man sitting opposite her, too close to her, almost his age, laughing at something she said and making her crack a small smile.
That smile fell like daggers in his chest.
They were his. Her smiles. Her laughter. Her tears. Her noises. Everything.
He knew he was being unreasonable, but the idea, the sheer thought of another man seeing her softness made him see red.
She was his, and it was time the world knew that.
Changing directions, he headed to the packed café, seeing her suddenly look out the window as though sensing his mad gaze on herself like she always did.
He saw her breath catch, her eyes widening slightly, before drifting to the guy sitting opposite her.
Fuck him.
He swung the door open and turned right, students taking one look at his face and clearing a path for him as he headed straight for her table. The closer he got, the more pissed he became. He stood over them like an avenging beast, hearing the entire café fall silent and watch what was happening. Caz had never, in the time he’d been here, been public about anything. He had rejected advances of girls who’d come on to him privately, he was rarely seen in the limelight even though people watched him all the time. The closest he’d gotten to public display of anything had been in psychology class goading her into arguments just to see her reactions. But since that had been in an academic space, no one had given much thought to it, not like he was aware of them doing now.
The guy in front of her looked at him, at her, at him again. “Can I help you?”
“Yeah,” Caz spoke, his voice rough, low, almost a growl. “Fuck off.”
The guy straightened in affront. “Excuse me.”
Caz ignored him and pinned her with his eyes. The gold in hers, liquid, lustrous, luxurious, shimmered in the lights, and fuck if it didn’t hit him right in the solar plexus, right like it had since the first time he’d seen it directed at him in the darkness. He hadn’t lied to her when he’d told her her eyes could drive a man to murder, because they had, even without her knowing.
Then, she took those eyes away, looking down at the table, deliberately ignoring him.
He felt his lips twist in the smirk she hated, even as the anger inside him simmered, joined by the tightening lust.
She had gambled her life and he his, they were damned anyway.
Better to go down in glory.
Caz took hold of her hair in his fist, turning her neck and tilting her head back, drowning in the pools of gold for a second, seeing the heat flash in her eyes, before leaning over her and slamming his mouth down over hers.
He heard gasps around them, heard someone squeal, heard camera shutters going off, and he ignored them all. She made a surprised little noise that he swallowed, then stiffened for a second before slowly succumbing to the pressure of his mouth and softening for him.
Fuck.
He continued drinking from her, a starved beast falling upon a feast, a lord of barren lands sipping from the lady of nectar, a man in the shadows dancing with a woman who knew darkness, claiming her mouth right out in the open for the world to see.
His action was going to have consequences for both of them, the deadly game he had been playing coming to a head soon. But as he moved his mouth over hers, devouring her for everyone to see, he sent a very clear message to everyone watching, knowing they would be watching.
She was off-limits again.
She was his.
And coming for her would make them all understand why they’d called him Death in prison.