Chapter Fourteen
Sky
I stand with my tray in the food hall, looking around for a place to sit.
I made it to fourth period, and that’s better than nothing. I’m so screwed though. It’s only my second day, and I’ve managed to miss half the day’s classes. My father is going to think this is rebellion when it’s the farthest thing from it. I desperately don’t want anything setting him off, but I couldn’t resist Cade’s pull. I don’t know if I really wasn’t thinking clearly from blood loss, or if I wanted to go with him. I know I shouldn’t have. After everything that’s landed me in here in the first place, I definitely shouldn’t have gotten in his car. I don’t know him, and it’s so blatantly obvious that he’s dangerous that I have to wonder if I’ve gone blind.
But Chase didn’t look dangerous.
Chase was only an inch taller than me, with hair lighter than mine and eyes that were rather dull for being blue. I was never afraid of him, not like I am of Cade. And maybe that’s what has me so entranced. Cade is the dark side of the moon, so opposite from Chase. He can’t be anything like him.
I meander through the tables, actively avoiding the place I sat yesterday. While there was nothing wrong with the girl I sat next to, I’m really not in the mood to listen to her drone on about H.P. Lovecraft. I feel so exhausted, though. I just want to sit down. I’m about to give up and find her when someone calls my name.
“Sky!”
I look around and find Ruby waving me over to the left, where she’s sitting with two other girls. I deflate. She probably just wants to make fun of letting me fall.
“Come on!” she hollers at my obvious hesitation.
I sigh. Who cares anyway? At least if I go over there, I can sit and not have to wander around anymore.
When I slide in across from her, she makes a face at my jacket. Cade’s jacket. I didn’t allow myself the luxury of changing after he drove us back. I grabbed my bag and ran to fourth period like my life depended on it.
“You’re looking a little worse for wear there, Barbie,” she says.
I narrow my eyes at her. “Gee, I wonder why.”
She frowns and leans forward. “I didn’t do it on purpose, okay?” She glances at the girl on her left, practically a carbon copy of Ruby except not nearly as cutesy looking and her blonde bob has streaks of black dye through it.
“Is that why you called me over? So you can save face? Because I’m pretty sure I counted down.”
“No. It’s Britney’s fault.”
I eye the girl next to her.
“Not her!” Ruby snaps at me. “The bitch from bonding, with the red hair.”
“How is it her fault?” I ask, and I can’t believe I’m entertaining this.
I should have just skipped lunch, but I’m pretty sure if I had gone back to my room, I would have gone to sleep and missed my last two periods.
Ruby scowls and leans back, folding her arms across her chest.
“That’s what I thought,” I say, and pick up the hot roll on my plate.
The girl next to Ruby nudges her with her elbow, and Ruby groans, throwing her hands up.
“She fucking pushed me, okay?” She huffs. “Right when I was about to catch you, she pushed me.”
I squint at her, trying to figure out if she’s telling the truth. She could just want me to tell Martha it was an accident to cover her ass. Not that I was going to tattle anyway, but still.
Her friend nods at me as if to say, it’s true, and I sigh. We’re going to be roommates for a very long year, and I’m too tired to hold onto my anger, anyway.
“Fine,” I say and rip open my roll. “But I get to keep your vape pen.”
Ruby isn’t happy about my condition, but she doesn’t fight me on it, and lunch with her and her friends is tolerable, if not enjoyable. I learn that the girl with the black streaks in her hair is named Callie, and the other with a black pixie cut is Lana.
They mostly talk about tattoos they are going to get after they graduate, but I’m only mildly listening as I eat my fourth roll. I think they bake them fresh, and I could eat another if I wasn’t too ashamed to go and ask for more.
I keep getting whiffs of something that makes my breath catch, something like nature and gun metal, and it takes me a few seconds every time to calm my heart when I realize it’s just Cade’s jacket. I keep glancing around, hoping he’s sought me out, but I don’t see him anywhere.
“So, let’s see the damage,” Lana says, stretching her arm across the table and tugging at my sleeve.
A prick of jealousy hits me at her touching something of Cade’s.
“What?” I tuck my arm in and surreptitiously try to replace her fingerprints with mine.
“Ruby said it was bleeding all over. Let’s see the carnage.”
“Oh…” I notice a twinge of pink on Ruby’s cheeks. “It’s not that bad.” I say on her behalf. I’m beginning to think she’s not as tough as she acts.
“Just show em’.” Ruby rolls her eyes.
I begrudgingly take off the jacket and twist my arm so they can see the stitches.
“Holy shit. That’s metal,” Lana says. “You could get a cool tattoo designed around that scar.”
“You didn’t cry?” Callie asks, wrinkling her nose.
“No.” I almost laugh.
I’ve been through way worse than getting my elbow split. Granted, it was never anything that made me bleed. That would ruin the Lyon’s image. But I spent a lot of time in casts.
“How are you going to get a tattoo when you would cry at a cut?” Lana teases Callie, and I tune out as I notice a figure in black.
Cade has donned another hoodie and is accepting a brown paper bag from the lunch lady. Does he not eat here? I turn in my seat, hoping he will notice me and come to sit, but he has his head down, and quickly heads for the exit.
The way something in my chest aches to follow him is painful, like an iron chain being stretched and nearing catastrophe. What is it that has me attached to him?
I’m about to turn around and bury it, along with my last glimpse of him before he rounds the door, but then someone stops him. Another student with moppy brown hair. He pants as he catches up with him, putting a hand on Cade’s back. Cade spins around, and the ire in his eyes almost makes me gasp. I’m transfixed with the way he looks down at the guy, with so much animosity—so much anger —as if ready to explode. I hold my breath, waiting for him to attack.
But then he blinks, as if he was expecting someone else, and the threat ebbs from his eyes, replaced by a mild annoyance that has him clenching his jaw.
They say something I wish I could hear. Is this guy one of Cade’s friends? For some reason, I never pictured him having friends. Demon’s don’t have friends, do they? Especially not ones that are as innocent looking as this kid. There’s no way he’s a senior.
Cade nods, albeit begrudgingly, and then turns. The guy follows, and then they are gone.
I turn back in my seat with my brows furrowed together, desperately trying to squash my disappointment that he didn’t seek me out.
“Ooh. Barbie has a penchant for bad boys, I see,” Ruby suddenly says, and I look up to see her smirking.
“What?” My cheeks burn as I realize the three of them are staring at me, and clearly saw me ogling Cade.
“He’s hot, right?” Lana says, and that surge of jealousy comes back.
“Yeah, if you want to be sacrificed in a cult,” Callie says, shuddering.
“Oh, please. You and every girl in this room would happily die if he gave the time of day.”
“Not me. I like my skin on my body. Thank you very much.”
“That’s a rumor. If he skinned anyone, he would be in prison.”
“He was in an insane asylum for half of sophomore year!”
My head spins at their rapid conversation.
“Wait—He skinned someone?” I know it’s a stupid question, but that switch blade of his flicks through my mind.
“Allegedly.” Lana looks at me. “He allegedly also tortures puppies, sells organs on the black market, and praises Satan.”
“I wouldn’t put it past him. He scares me,” Callie says.
Lana rolls her eyes. “Everything scares you.”
“No, it doesn’t!”
“What about the ladybug?”
“I thought it was a spider!”
The two of them start to bicker, and I risk a glance back at the empty door. Cade went to an insane asylum? I mean, I knew something was dark about him, but not that odious. I’m about to ask if it’s really true, and if it is, what he went for, when the bells toll.
“Let’s not make this a regular thing, ‘kay?” Ruby slings her bag onto her shoulder and levels me with a look. “I just didn’t want you to kill me in my sleep.”
I ignore the chip on her shoulder and fall in step with her as Callie and Lana go the other way.
“Did Cade really go to a mental hospital?” I ask under my breath.
She stops and slowly turns towards me. “How do you know his name?”
I don’t like the suspicious tone in her voice, the insinuation in it, and I lie before I can stop myself.
“Lana said it… I think.”
She squints at me and plants a hand on her hip, as if she knows I’m full of crap. Which I am. I just don’t know why. There’s no strategic reason for me to act like I don’t know Cade. It’s not like I don’t want to be associated with him. I’m not that low. I just… I feel like… How am I supposed to say I let the satanist give me stitches?
“Where’d you get that jumper, then?”
“Lost and found.” I don’t miss a beat. “I had blood on my shirt. Dorothy gave it to me.”
The lie comes too easy. I’m an expert at them, considering everything out of my mouth to my father had to be. But I don’t particularly like lying. It’s a bad habit I picked up to protect myself. And to sometimes elevate encounters… I don’t want to be this person, but I fear it might be too late.
“Huh,” Ruby huffs and begins to walk away.
Damn it. She knows I’m lying to her. Because I didn’t know why I was lying in the first place. I frown, realizing I’m not winning any roommate points here, and let her go.