Chapter 25
Aston
The haters will say that what happened today was contrived.
I, however, say #blessed.
His question rings out into the silence, echoing across the cavernous room as I process it.
Just to be certain, I tap my chest with the tip of my fingers and ask, “Who, me?”
He looks over his shoulder, searing me with a glare. “No,” he says drolly, “I’m talking to the other lunatic in here who has this annoying habit of doing stupid, illegal shit to trap me in a room with him.”
Yikes… Someone’s feeling sassy today.
Guess he wasn’t hoping to run into me after all… Frowning at the thought, I look down at my feet.
With a harsh exhalation of air, he slams his hand against the wall—no, the light switch—killing the fluorescents. Then, he reaches for the door, only to falter with a short derisive huff. “Figures.”
“What’s wrong?” I whisper.
“Lock doesn’t work on this door.”
“Oh.” A beat passes. I blink stupidly at the floor. “That’s not good, is it?”
Footsteps draw near, coming to a halt in my line of sight, inches away from where my own Oxfords point. He says nothing for a long moment, clearly waiting for something. His attention tugging on my gaze like magnets, until I have no choice but to peer up at him.
If he’s concerned about the fact there’s no way to keep whoever is responsible for the lockdown out of here, he doesn’t show it. In fact, his face—his eyes… they reveal nothing.
Literally.
I can’t even say they’re carefully devoid of any emotion, because to claim it’s done carefully implies it’s done with willful intent.
Something tells me that’s not what this is.
Something that has a whole lot to do with that weird prickle in the back of my mind, the one that’s been there since last Monday, urging me to run.
This time, though, there’s no accompanying knife sailing toward my head.
No heightened emotions.
And it makes me brave.
More like stupid…
Straightening to my full height, I tilt my head curiously, eyes scouring his like they’re searching for jewels in a barren cave. Something sparkly that breaks up the blackness. But the deeper I look, the more that darkness seems to stretch—vast, endless, and utterly empty.
A tantalizing chill skips merrily down my spine as a smile twitches along my lips.
The fear is still there, yes, teasing at my awareness—at my pitiful sense of self-preservation. But I find that it doesn’t hold a candle to the relief I feel at finally being the center of his attention once more after days of being neglected, abandoned like a piece of yesterday’s trash.
He stares at me for a long beat, before abruptly turning away without a word. He crosses the room and takes a seat on the radiator, the very same one I usually chill on. Like that day he barged in here while I was helping myself to a little mid-afternoon snackie.
Hands planted on either side of him, he stares down at his dangling legs. Unlike when I sit there, though, his feet scrape the floor—a soft scuffing sound that fills what would be silence otherwise.
Nudging the tip of my tongue between my teeth, I make clicking sounds as I slink my way over to join him.
His head shoots up, a glare halting me in my tracks. There might as well be a neon sign flashing over his head that says, Not another fucking step.
“Right…” I whisper soundlessly, creeping backward, hands raised in a show of surrender.
I don’t stop until my back hits the wall. Sliding down to my haunches, I hug my knees, staring at the silhouette now haloed in light, thanks to the glare of daylight behind him.
Moments pass without either of us speaking. I keep waiting for the door to blast open—my imagination getting away from me, now that I no longer have Vale’s close proximity distracting me from what’s going on outside this bathroom.
I’ve yet to hear a scream or a gunshot or an explosion.
It’s just…quiet.
Unsettlingly so.
“So…” I say, dragging the word out. “How are you?”
Nothing.
O-kay, I mouth. I clear my throat, about to mention the sweatpants I stole, when I think better of it. It’s not as if I have any plans to return them, so why draw attention to it?
Instead I ask, “Did you get my text?”
Again, no response.
“I know you put that kid up to it. Were you worried I wasn’t coming back?”
Seconds pass, and just when I’m about to say to hell with this lockdown and take my chances, Vale speaks. “More like hoping for confirmation that you weren’t, so that I could stop looking over my shoulder every second of the day and get on with my life.”
I barely have a chance to gloat—take that, Eden! I knew Vale was behind it—when what he said fully registers.
It stings, sure—if what he’s saying is even to be believed, that is—but ever the eternal optimist, that’s not what I focus on.
“Well, shucks, Vale. I had no idea how much my presence weighed on you. And here I was thinking all my effort wooing you was for naught.”
“Oh, is that what we’re calling it?” He scoffs lightly. “And it’s kind of hard to ignore someone who’s lurking around every corner, stalking my every move, and doing stupid shit like drugging my boyfriend to use as bait to lure me out.”
“Ex,” I grit out. “He’s your ex-boyfriend. Something you forgot to mention last week.”
He grunts. “You thought we were still together, and yet that still didn’t stop you. So, really what difference would it have made if I told you?”
None. But I don’t say that.
Silence pervades once more, tense and heavy, made more so by the fact that there’s been no indication as to what’s going on beyond these four walls.
And the more time that passes, the more acutely aware I become of the fact that for all intents and purposes I’m stuck here. In this too-small room that didn’t feel so small earlier, or any of the other times I’ve been here before.
If anything, the knowledge that we can’t lock the door sets me even more on edge. At least if I could lock myself in here, like we were instructed to do over the loudspeaker, I’d feel a little more in control.
The irony of it all doesn’t escape me.
A forced proximity situation like this is what wet dreams are made of after all—something I’m sure I’ll be grateful for later.
Right now though? Right now, I can’t help but acknowledge just how easily this would-be fantasy could fracture into a nightmare.
Not because of Vale, but because of whatever threat Parent Trapped us.
I grip my ankle, plopping down on my ass, exhaling in relief when I feel the hard line of my knife tucked safely in my sock.
A knife won’t do you any good if there’s a gun.
I squeeze my eyes shut, count each breath, knowing eventually the seconds will run out and the world will resume spinning and I’ll no longer be confined to this room. This wall. This…
Well, shit on a stick, is it possible to feel claustrophobic from within your own body? Yes? Great. Then I can’t be held responsible for what I blurt loudly into the room.
“I’m sorry!” The words leave me in a crackled rush, my eyes flying wide open, mouth opening as if I could somehow suck the words back.
Something plummets in my stomach, bringing a wave of nausea, when I find the windowsill empty.
“Vale?” I mutter numbly, eyes darting around so fast, everything’s a blur.
Oh, no. He was never even here, was he? Oh, fuck. Fuckfuckfu—
A throat clears, much closer than it should be, and I whip my head to the side, eyes skating up the long legs of the figure leaned against the wall, standing between the door and my crouched form.
Oh.
When did he move?
A shaky breath leaves me.
“Why are you sorry?”
I blink rapidly. What? Then I remember.
“For…for ruining things,” I say, the words stuttering out before I even realize what it is I’m saying.
He shifts his weight around. He starts to say something but hesitates. “What are you talking about?” There’s something about the way he asks this—almost a…wariness. But it’s hardened, like he’s bracing himself for something, rather than nervous.
“L-last time. In the locker room. I…I don’t know what exactly made you snap—” Liar. I flinch, wincing as a sharp pain in my head momentarily blinds me.
Fabric rustles. Heat washes over my shoulder.
Giving myself a little shake, I inhale sharply. “I’mjustI’msorry,” I say in a single, nonsensical rush. “I can be…pushy sometimes.”
He makes a sound between a grunt and a snort, and now I’m the one snapping my head back to look at him. “Did you just laugh?”
“No,” he says, his voice as flat as his expression.
Hm, maybe I just imagined it.
Just like I must’ve imagined him moving even closer to me.
“Why are you standing there?” I finally ask, frowning. My gaze drifts past him to the door, and a fluttery feeling has my stomach swooping, and not with dread this time.
My mouth opens and closes a couple times, but something holds me back from asking what I really want to know—if he moved for me. To protect me. To reassure me.
Did he sense me tweaking out?
Surely not…
I glance at his face, not even surprised to find him looking pointedly away from me. Other than a slight tensing to his jaw and neck tendons, he looks as relaxed as ever with his arms crossed and his head tipped back, gaze aimed at the ceiling.
Vale mutters a curse, shifting around restlessly.
He keeps cutting looks to our only exit—well, aside from the windows, that is.
But it’s a three-story drop, so it might as well not even count.
I can practically hear the thoughts swirling around his head.
The way he’s probably debating just bolting, like I was before—the lockdown and whatever caused it be damned.
While a small part of me shrinks at the pitiful feelings that knowledge evokes…
The rest of me is, well, a gooey sentimental mess.
Because a small part of him clearly can’t leave me. And that’s a win if there ever was one.
“What’s wrong with you?” he demands out of nowhere.
“Um.” Crap, did I zone out again?
Was I thinking out loud again?
He makes a vague gesture at the empty, gray-hued bathroom. “You’ve got me trapped in a room with you—”