Chapter Six
Sky
L ook at me being a rebel. My night shorts are probably going to be filthy from sitting in the dirt, but I don’t care as I place my lips on the vape again and pull. I’m overdoing it for my first time, but it feels so good. Slow. Everything feels slow.
I lean back against the little cold stone wall behind me, and tilt my head back on its ledge. The night sky is brighter somehow, more vibrant and all-consuming. Each star might be billions of miles away, but they shine their iridescent light as if they are trying to signal me and say hello. It’s beautiful. How many times have I looked up but never really saw the universe? The busy freeway of my mind is for once a desolate highway that doesn’t distract from the scenery. Even the train in the distance sounds pretty.
I love Ruby—my roommate—for giving me her pen. She might have thrown it at me and snapped to get out of the room, but she still gave it to me, tipping me off that the old vents in the building would send the smell down to our housemother and to go outside.
Paranoia had me waiting until night though, tiptoeing through the quad and keeping my back to the brick walls, while determination had me leaving the safety of the campus until I was far enough away that I thought no one could smell it and catch me out past curfew.
The late night chill in the air doesn’t sting my skin, but instead feels like life itself is touching me. My body isn’t resisting for once and actually enjoys the sensations around me. I can’t worry about getting caught. Any punishment would be worth it for this. I can’t believe I waited so long to smoke.
I pull another hit as the breeze picks up, and I blow out, watching the smoke get whipped away, becoming a part of the macrocosm of infinity. I giggle. Macrocosm. Oh, I’m so smart. Thanks, dad, for all those extra tutors, they sure are coming in handy right now.
God, maybe he needs to get high. Maybe then he would feel that there is more to life than status and image. My mother should smoke too. It would be better than the litany of benzos and antidepressants that numb her to the point where she can’t feel that the world around her is bigger than the hell my father creates.
A leaf falls and catches in my hair, and I blink slowly at the little guy. Any other time I would pluck him from my hair just to toss him and forget him, but as I eye him now, with all his solitary existence, I think he can be a part of me for tonight. I’ll be the tree he lost, and my strands can be his leafy brethren.
“You aren’t alone,” I whisper to him, and take another hit.
I start choking when the leaf speaks back.
“Talking to yourself?” it says, but its voice is deep and… familiar. Not at all leaf-like.
Not the leaf. A person. I slip the vape around my back and whip my head around, looking for who’s caught me. Oh, no. I’m so screwed. Will drugs get me expelled? My father is going to rip my hair out if I’m sent back on my first day.
I scan the surrounding trees, their grieving branches tickling the forest floor as the moon tries desperately to penetrate their umbra, but I don’t see anyone. It’s just me, alone, in nothing but a sweater and my silk shorts, high and exposed to the elements. Suddenly, the cold isn’t invigorating, but feels like a warning. This was dumb of me to do. I’m dumb.
I shake my head, thinking I shouldn’t have smoked so much, that I should get back before I can’t get myself back, when the shadows morph and a hooded figure appears. My heart immediately gallops like a horse that just got spurred, and I hold my breath. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. But I can’t move, frozen in fear as my assailant prowls forward ever so slowly.
The hood. The height. The familiar voice.
Him.
“Oh, my god.” I breathe after a moment and grip my chest. “I thought you were a teacher or a hallucination.”
The tempting demon who rummaged through my bag earlier comes out from the shadows, taking a measured and silent step forward.
“No. I’m much worse,” he says.
I still at his words, at the haunting tone of his voice, and a chill runs down my spine. What’s that supposed to mean?
I narrow my eyes at him, but they are blurry and slow, and I don’t think they have the intended effect. It takes a second for him to come into better focus, and I note the way his gaze is hidden under his hood, the way his full lips curve up on the right, and as my eyes travel down his body, the switchblade in his palm, glinting as he twirls the tip against his thigh.
Oh, no.
That’s the first thing I think in my sluggish mind. A part of me wonders if this guy just wants to kill me or do other things too, and I’m ashamed to say that the ‘other things’ don’t scare me as much as they should—all things considered.
“Sky…” he whispers, drawing out my name in a way that the breeze takes it and runs.
“I don’t think…” I gulp, my mouth dry, but not from the vape. “Don’t think I caught your name when you stole my bag.” I try for nonchalance, some haughtiness. Maybe if he doesn’t sense fear, he won’t strike, but my voice comes out shaky.
“Cade,” he says, still twirling the blade.
I wish I could see his eyes. Or maybe I don’t. Maybe it’s better if I have no idea what he’s thinking.
“Do… Do you want a hit?” I hold out the pen as an offering, like a treat to a wild animal. He looks like the type to do drugs, but that’s judgmental of me. I don’t look like the type to be out in the middle of the night smoking pot, but here I am.
His fingers still, the knife halting, and I hold my breath. Take the bait. Take it so I can run.
“No.”
Well. Crap. I bite my lip. What’s he even doing out here if doesn’t want to break the rules?
“Jesus,” he suddenly hisses, the word coming out pained. “Don’t do that.” He hazardously presses the point of the blade into his thigh, and it quickly snaps closed.
Relief makes my body sag, and a prickle of annoyance hits me for being so on edge.
“Do what?” I ask, putting some ire into my tone.
A rumble comes from his chest like a warning.
“Exist.”
My bottom lip falls, not knowing how to take that as anything but offensive.
“What are you even doing out here?” I snap, getting to my feet and tucking the pen into my pocket. The audacity of this guy. He’s totally ruining my high.
“This is my space.”
“Right,” I snort and dust the dirt off the back of my shorts. “Just like the floor in social studies.”
Damn it, my shorts feel damp. I swivel, trying to get a better look at the damage. I’m not going to look very tough sauntering away from him with a splotch on my ass.
“Maybe next time, you’ll find somewhere else to sit.”
I clamp my jaw and narrow my eyes, spinning back to him. “I’ll sit wherever I want. You don’t tell me what to do.”
“And don’t come back out here,” he says, ignoring my fire.
It takes everything in me not to screech like a child. “I. Don’t. Have. To. Listen. To. You.”
He takes a step forward, and given his height, he’s practically on top of me within a second. He towers over me like the grim reaper, but my knees weaken for a very different reason. He smells like sulfur and metal, but with a distinct undertone of nature, even more so than the woods around us, and I like it.
I gaze up at him, only seeing his full mouth and definitely wishing I could see those eyes, the ones that burned into me in the administration building. How can he be so ominous and yet gorgeous at the same time? It feels unjust, like a butterfly with the ability to sting as a wasp.
“You will if you want to live.”
I suck in a breath, and my eyes snap to the switchblade, still sheathed but in his palm.
“Are you threatening me?”
“No, Sky. I’m protecting you.”
Why does he say my name like that? And what is it about him that has me still standing here despite the fear coursing through me?
“From what?” I ask, not sure I want to know.
His lips slowly part to reveal an irresistible smile, one that makes my skin heat and ache, and then he raises his chin, making me look even farther up and through my lashes. And then he pulls down his hood.
God, I should be afraid of him but his eyes… Strands of his dark hair slash over his tragically onyx irises like cell bars, but they don’t shield me from the way he’s looking at me, like I’m both the bone he’s always wanted, and the gum on his shoe, and it roots me into place.
We don’t move, frozen in a standoff, and I wonder if he feels it—the electricity, the heat, radiating off my body like a supernatural tendril that whispers to touch him, to touch danger. Will we clash if we connect? He’s radiating his own energy, something like a reservoir about to give, and I don’t know if the flood will snuff me out or create a lethal combination that threatens to undo not only us but everything in our path.
“Me,” he answers.