Chapter 13
The midday sun beats down on the campus courtyard, but I feel like I’m standing in a freezer.
“Everything is under control,” I say into the microphone, flashing my most practiced, cheerful smile. “The damage to the East Annex was minimal. Structural repairs are already underway, and our residents—both human and animal—are perfectly safe.”
Liars go to hell, right? Because my pulse is an erratic thrum, hammering against my sternum with a frantic, desperate rhythm.
My skin stings where the glass sliced me, and I’m covered in enough tiny bandages and white plaster dust to look like a half-finished mummy.
Behind the stage, Monica is sitting in the shadows with a bandage wrapped around her head, looking like a disgruntled pirate. I still have to figure out a rehearsal space for her band, and more importantly, I have to find Gerald.
My poor, judgmental turtle is out there somewhere in the debris, and the thought makes my throat tight.
I’m being used as a PR shield. The Vice Principal persuaded me to go through with this speech—originally meant for a completely different occasion—just to manufacture an atmosphere of calm.
Most of the students are still oblivious to the biker raid. The truth is being carefully hidden to keep the peace.
The crowd seems to buy the act. I’m the friendly, sociable biology nerd. I’m the one who makes people feel safe.
Then, I see it.
Across the avenue, the massive white-and-blue team bus pulls to a halt. The hockey team is back.
My stomach drops into my shoes.
They lost their away game yesterday, and Devlin is going to be in a foul mood. I haven’t texted him.
I haven’t told him that while he was playing on the ice, I was jumping through a window to escape a fire.
At least I can be sure he won’t recognize me from this distance.
From where the bus is parked, I have to be just a wheat-colored blur to him. It’s way too damn far for a positive ID.
The microphone screeches—a sudden, deafening feedback loop that makes the front row wince.
My voice booms through the speakers, unnaturally loud for two heart-stopping seconds, before it regulates.
Oh… no.
I see a figure break away from the bus.
It’s him. Even from this distance, the way he moves is unmistakable—the broad shoulders, the predatory stride, the black hair falling over his forehead.
He freezes at the edge of the road, staring at the stage. Then, he starts running.
I stumble over my next sentence. “We… we expect the… uh, the community center to…”
Devlin doesn’t use the stairs.
He leaps onto the stage in one fluid, terrifying motion, his face a mask of such raw, unbridled fury that the student council president actually shrieks and backs away.
“Why the hell are you covered in wounds?” he growls.
Before I can blink, his hand is a vice around my elbow. He’s dragging me off the stage, away from the shocked gasps of the student body.
“Sorry, there’s an urgent emergency!” I squeak into the mic just as he hauls me behind the heavy canvas of the backstage tent.
“You’ve completely lost your mind!” I exclaim, my breath coming in short, panicked bursts.
He pins me into the corner of the tent, the fabric muffled against my back. He gives me a gentle shake, his fingers digging into my arms.
“What happened? Speak up right now!” His eyes are glassy, frantic—he looks like a man on the edge of a psychotic break. “You’re covered in fucking wounds from head to toe.”
My anger evaporates instantly. He looks so… broken by the sight of me. I soften, reaching out. “Calm down, Devlin. Relax. I’m absolutely fine! You can see for yourself. They’re just minor scratches. The bandages just make it look worse than it is.”
He doesn’t listen. He scrutinizes every inch of me, his breathing heavy and ragged.
I carefully place my splayed palm on his chest, right over his thudding heart, hoping to ground him. He looks down at my hand, staring at my pale fingers against his dark shirt like I’ve just performed a magic trick.
“Tell me,” he orders.
“Bloody hell, I can’t believe you dragged me off the stage in front of everyone,” I mutter, but his eyes narrow, a growl vibrating in his throat. “All right, all right!”
I explain it. The motion sensor. Monica.
The motorcycles. The fire. I downplay the danger, making the jump through the glass sound like a clumsy trip rather than a life-or-death leap.
“Monica saved me, really. But we didn’t find Gerald.
He must have escaped. I’m going to look for him as soon as I’m done here. ”
Devlin’s breathing hitches. He looks like he’s about to explode.
“Devlin, come on. You just got back,” I say, trying to change the subject. “Maybe I’ll make you some tea in my room? It’s quiet there.”
“Tea,” he repeats, the word sounding like a profanity in his mouth.
“Well, yeah… tea. I’m not allowed to have a coffee maker, which is stupid because the twins on the third floor smoke weed all day and nobody says a word—”
He squeezes my shoulders again, a sharp sound of distress leaving his throat.
I squeak in surprise, and he recoils immediately, his face ashen. He thinks he hurt me.
“I’m not in pain!” I start to say, but he cuts me off with a roar.
“I left you for two days!” he shouts, the sound echoing through the tent.
“I assigned a wrestler—a fucking wrestler—to watch you every evening! And you manage to get caught in a fire and a biker attack in the middle of the night? You jumped into a pile of rubble and didn’t write a single word to me? ”
I gap at him. “The wrestler? Well then… He didn’t tell you anything? He didn’t notice I’ve been covered in bandages since yesterday?”
Devlin’s eyes turn into black slits. “No, he didn’t. How lovely that I come back to find you on stage looking like you’ve been through a meat grinder!”
“Quiet! Everyone can hear you!” I stroke his hands, trying to soothe the tremors I can feel under his skin. “I’m not beaten up. I’m fine.”
“You’re going to stay at home,” he says, his voice turning into cold, hard steel. “For a very, very long time. Until the last scratch has healed. No more heroic deeds. Ever.”
“No, I won’t!” I bristle, my own temper finally flaring. I bare my teeth at him, then reach up, grab him by the hair, and pull his head down.
I kiss him greedily, desperately. Devlin responds instantly, but he staggers back, his arms hovering around me as if he’s afraid that touching me will make me shatter.
I catch his hands and press them against my body to show him I’m solid, and that’s when I feel it.
He’s vibrating with a raw, violent energy. When I reach for his hands, they’re trembling so hard it’s terrifying, like an arctic chill has settled deep into his bones and he can’t find his way back to the heat.
“Devlin,” I whisper against his lips.
He captures my mouth again, his touch reverent, his fingers smoothing my hair with a terrifying gentleness. “Fucking shit, Val,” he wheezes. “I can’t see you like this. For fuck’s sake.”
“I’m okay, Devlin. Stop it. The only thing that’s ‘for fuck’s sake’ is that Gerald is missing. I’m going to find him.”
“No.”
“What do you mean, no?” I pull away. “He’s scared! He needs his medicine! I have to find him before it gets dark.”
“I said no. You’re going to get better.”
I stare at him, seeing the wall he’s built up.
Without a word, I turn and stomp out of the tent, heading straight for my room. I grab the turtle’s medication and head back out to the ruins of the East Annex.
Devlin is there. He doesn’t speak. He just follows me, a silent, brooding shadow as the sky turns grey.
A light drizzle begins, then a downpour.
Then the thunder starts to roll, shaking the very ground.
I search for hours, calling Gerald’s name into the mud and the ash, my clothes soaked through, my bandages peeling off in the rain.
I can hear Devlin behind me, his teeth grinding so loud it rivals the thunder.
Finally, exhausted and shivering, I turn to him. “Fine. You win. I’m knackered. You go rest after your game, and I’m going to bed.”
He sees me to my door, silent and grim. I slam it in his face. I don’t care if he knows how to get in. I need to collapse.
I fall onto my bed fully clothed and let the darkness take me.
A crack of thunder shakes the windowpane, jolting me awake.
The door creaks open.
The sound of the rain outside intensifies, pouring into the room.
A silhouette stands in the doorway, illuminated by a sudden, jagged flash of lightning.
Devlin.
He’s soaking wet, his clothes clinging to his frame, water dripping from his chin.
And in his hands, he’s holding a small, wet, shell-shocked Gerald.
“Have you been looking for him all this time?” I ask, my voice barely a whisper. “In the storm?”
Devlin doesn’t move. He stands like a statue in the middle of my room.
When he finally speaks, his voice is a guttural vibration that makes the hair on my arms stand up.
“I should have known I was doomed from the moment I first saw you, that day in the rain,” he says.
“I didn’t even know what the feeling meant.
It was incomprehensible, this fever I couldn’t break.
Not a day has gone by since where the thought of you hasn’t been tearing me apart. Your eyes… they haunt me. Always.”
I sit up, my heart hammering against my ribs. “When Sasha introduced us first time… it wasn’t raining.”
Devlin shakes his head, his eyes fixed on me.
“No. I saw you before that. We were driving away from the house, and you had just come back. It started to rain. You pulled your hood down and tilted your head back to look at the sky. Then you turned, and I saw your eyes. It seemed like you looked right through the car window at me.”
He bows his head slightly, his voice cracking.
“And I suddenly thought… I’m no longer alone on earth.
I didn’t have to be the ‘only one’ anymore, ‘always alone’ anymore.
Because there’s you. It killed something inside me and gave birth to something new.
Even if I never spoke to you. Even if I never touched you.
It was enough that you existed. There was just so much life in your eyes.
The emptiness inside me… it was fading away. ”
Tears are streaming down my face now, hot and silent.
The depth of his isolation and the sheer weight of the obsession he’s been carrying… it’s so overwhelming.
“I used to dream about you,” I whisper. “Even when I thought you hated me.”
Devlin looks at me with a harsh, desperate resolve. “Do you think… you’re ready to be with me?”
“Devlin,” I breathe, “Yes.”
I take Gerald from his frozen hands, setting the turtle in a temporary basin with some water.
When I turn back, Devlin hasn’t moved. He’s shivering now, his eyes dark and glazed.
“Let’s get you warm,” I say, stepping toward him. “You need a shower—”
“No.” He catches my gaze, his eyes looking drunk with need. “I can’t take it anymore. I won’t be able to stand it if I don’t touch you right now.”
I rush to the door, slamming it shut and clicking the lock. Before I can even turn around, he’s on me.
He pins me against the wood, his mouth crashing into mine, his tongue invading with a frantic, possessive heat.
He grabs both of my wrists, pinning them above my head, forcing my body to arch against his wet, cold clothes.
“Devlin,” I moan, the electricity of his touch making my vision blur.
He’s overflowing with a desperate, life-altering energy.
He grabs my ankles, hoisting me up and throwing me onto the mattress, and then he’s piling on top of me, his weight the only thing in the world that feels real.