Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
LANA
C onsidering we’re in college, this place has a seriously bad case of high school mentality. Ever since the other students started to pick up on Cole’s little… fascination with me, things have escalated.
It’s gone from people whispering about me, wondering who I am, to them outright hating on me just because their precious pretty boy Cole Aston has something against me.
I woke up this morning determined to forget all about him and last night in the forest, wanting nothing more to do with him.
And not just because he drives me to the brink of insanity every time I see him, but because he’s going to get killed if he keeps going the way he is, so I figured the best way to keep that from happening would be to forget his existence.
The last damn thing I need is him dying. And not because I necessarily give a fuck about him, but because the death of someone like him would garner attention, and that’s the very last thing I need.
Except, when I was walking to my first class this morning, I noticed notes taped to the sides of buildings, lampposts, lockers, you name it.
When I got a closer look, it turned out that those notes were actually printed cutouts of me on that damn website before I’d had it taken down.
I was planning on confronting him about it, since I figured he would have stopped with this petty shit by now, but then I overheard a group of girls.
Apparently, it was some guys in freshman year who had put them up, trying to get an ‘in’ with the popular guys on campus since it’s clear that they don’t like me.
And it didn’t just stop there. Nope, I’ve had things thrown at me, people say shit to me, and a few of them even tried tripping me up as I was walking.
If I were anywhere else, I’d have slammed those assholes against the wall and dug my blade into their side, but I’m attempting to keep a low profile, and I don’t think that’s the way to do it.
Though, I wouldn’t exactly say I’m doing well at staying in the shadows in this godforsaken place.
Luckily, I shouldn’t be here for much longer.
It was never the plan to stay here for long, this was just the first step.
This was just the place I was supposed to come to for a little while if I ever needed somewhere to keep me protected.
And while I have been safe here, I know it’s only a matter of time before trouble follows me.
And while I might not give much of a fuck about the students that go here, I don’t want their deaths on my hands.
I know now that my whereabouts is out and that people can find me, but this place just so happens to be one of the most secure places in the country. Well, one of the most legally secure places, and it’s my last option until I can find a way to end this once and for all.
The pounding in my head only intensifies as the day goes on and the students get worse in their attempts to single me out.
I don’t care about them. I know I don’t belong here, and I wouldn’t want to.
I’m nothing like them, I don’t have the wealth or the status that they do.
They haven’t seen the horrors of life that I have.
They’re lucky in their naivety, and I’ll let them continue to live in their delusion of the world being a nice place to be, since they’re better off being none the wiser.
Finally seated in my last class of the day, I sit in the back of the lecture hall, hoping and praying that Cole will be his usual fashionably late self and stay far away from me.
But of course, hope is a bitch, and he walks in just after the bell goes, heading directly for me and ignoring all the students ogling him and whispering to themselves about why he would be coming to sit by me again.
“What do I have to do to get you to stay the fuck away from me?” I ask through clenched teeth as soon as he takes his seat next to mine.
“Really, little menace? I thought you’d have missed me,” he says with a mock pout.
“I’ll miss you when I’m dead.”
“By the way you’re going, you’ll be dead by the end of the week, so I guess you’ll be missing me sooner rather than later,” he says with a grin, and I glare at him before focusing on the laptop in front of me.
Cole continues to talk throughout the class but I tune him out, not having the energy to spar back and forth with him today.
The professor is just wrapping the class up when a man I’ve never seen before enters through a side door, garnering the attention of everyone in the room.
He clears his throat, glancing around nervously as he’s stared at. “Dean Barraclough would like to see Miss Lana James,” he announces, and I sigh.
Figures the dean would pull me out of class in the most public way possible.
“ Y ou’re supposed to be lying low,” Dare muses from behind his desk.
He’s a complete contrast here to how I’ve always known him.
Growing up, I’d always seen him in full combat gear, his tattooed arms on full display and usually covered in blood.
Here, he’s known as Dean Darren Barraclough, who wears tweed suits and sits behind his mahogany desk all day.
“Have you met the assholes that you call students, Dare? I don’t know why you and Dad thought it would be a good idea for this place to be my contingency plan when I’m nothing like the people here. How the fuck am I supposed to blend in when they’re them and I’m… me ?”
“First of all, you’ll call me dean when on campus.
And secondly, you’re meant to blend in,” he says with a pointed look before waving a hand towards his godawful attire.
“You’re meant to play the part, Lana. I don’t think I’ve seen you in anything other than black hunting attire since you’ve arrived. ”
“Fucking ridiculous,” I mumble under my breath before sitting up straighter and steeling myself to have the conversation he brought me in here for.
“So, have you heard anything? Was it just the one of them, or should I expect more guys to come looking for me? Do we know if it’s the Richardson’s who are sending them directly, or is it just from the hits that were put out before? ”
He sighs and rakes a hand through his graying hair.
“For now, I think we’re okay and I don’t think Callum Richardson knows where you are yet.
But keep your guard up, keep an eye out, and don’t forget your training.
You might be safe right now, but I don’t know how long that’ll last. These people…
they have power, sunshine, and while it’d be easy to just kill them…
we can’t afford the attention. We can’t afford for the company to become public knowledge.
Not for their sake, but for yours and what they’ll do to you if they’re exposed. ”
Sighing, I slump back in my chair and glance around the room.
It’s plain. Boring. None of what’s in this room shows who Dare really is.
He’s changed his entire life so that he can fit into a place like this.
I’ll never be able to shed the skin of my past, but the least I can do is make an effort to not stick out so much.
I don’t care about the company or any of those men, but I do care about Dare, and I want us both to live.
I want us both to stop having to live a lie.