Chapter 15
Fifteen
Blair
“Pure evil!” a man shouts.
“The devil!” another screams.
I stand in the water, still, as rough hands wrench my arms behind my back. A burning pain crawls up my arms when old, scratchy rope digs into my wrists.
“Evil!” comes from someone else.
The moonlight shines down on us, and tears fall down my cheeks as I stare down at my wet dress.
I gasp when he dunks my head beneath the water’s surface, never knowing how long he’ll keep me under. It always depends on his mood. Shutting my eyes, I try to relax as water rushes over my face and into my ears.
I learned to stop fighting long ago because the more I struggle, the longer he holds me down.
When he pulls me up, my eyes meet his menacing ones. “Four hundred sentences, Blair,” he says in a razor-edged voice. “You need to atone!”
“Atone! Atone! Atone!” men chant around me. “Atone!”
I jolted upright in my bed with a strangled breath. Air ripped from my lungs so hard it hurt like the dream had been real and I’d just been underwater.
But it wasn’t real, Blair.
You’re not there. You’re here.
I clutched the sheets, anchoring myself to the cool cotton, and my throat felt so raw that I was certain I’d been screaming.
“Blair.”
The word cut through my anxiety.
I clapped a hand over my mouth as a shadow moved between the torn curtains around my bed.
“It’s just me,” Daphne said quickly.
My hand slid from my mouth to my chest, pressing hard against my frantic heart. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“Girl, you scared the shit out of me. I thought Enzo’s crazy ass was in here, torturing you.”
I reached blindly for the switch beside my headboard, and the chandelier above us brightened, casting a gentle glow around my space.
I couldn’t hold in my laugh when I noticed Daphne holding a pink stun gun.
“Did you bring that here to defend me?”
“Sure did.” She grinned and pressed the trigger.
The sharp crack of electricity echoed through the alcove, making my pulse jump all over again.
“The next time Enzo comes here, you need to let me borrow that,” I told her.
“You got it.” She zapped it again before climbing into my bed across from me. She wrinkled her nose with concern etched along her forehead. “You were screaming in your sleep. Like, really screaming.” She folded her legs beneath her and smoothed out her nightgown. “Nightmare?”
I stared down at my comforter, debating on honesty, and nodded.
I knew it made me look crazy. Not many things could make people scream like that in their sleep. You were either dying or remembering.
A sharp stab of guilt moved through me.
Daphne had shared so much about her life with me.
The ugly, raw parts.
And all I’d given her in return were half-truths and deflections.
Carefully chosen fragments of my life that kept the real story buried deep.
But my secrets weren’t public like hers.
The only people who knew about them were the ones who’d been there. Who’d watched and done nothing.
For fourteen years, my father, along with those around him, had told me I was evil and bound for hell before I even knew what hell was. They’d said something inside me was rotten.
While those voices were gone, I sometimes still believed them.
“Was it a nightmare about Enzo?” Daphne asked.
“Yeah,” I lied.
She reached across the space between us to wrap her hand around mine, squeezing it. “I wish I could tell you it’ll get better, but it probably won’t.” She gave my hand another squeeze. “But I’m here for you.”
My eyes widened. “It won’t get better, even after I become a Fawn?”
“Honestly, I don’t know.”
“Did Clarissa’s life get better once she agreed? Did she have nightmares too?”
“Clarissa had nightmares about a lot of things.”
“What really happened to her?”
“I’m not sure.” Daphne gave a small shrug, sadness spreading over her tired face. She looked like that question was the one that haunted her at night. “I wasn’t in the room when she jumped.”
“Did she really jump?”
Her voice lowered back to a whisper. “I don’t know.”
“Why do people suspect Enzo did it?”
“She was his Fawn, and he was making her life hell. That’s also what Jett told anyone who’d listen to him rant about it.”
“The first night, you said, ‘Ugh, blame it on Enzo’s crazy ass.’ ”
She took a second to run the sentence back in her mind. “I hold him responsible for the emotional hell he put her through. Deep down, do I think he pushed her out the window?” She shook her head slowly.
My shoulders suddenly felt a tiny bit less tense.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if Jett was involved and then blamed Enzo.
” Her weary eyes slid to the window. “We’ll never know, though.
” Her voice sounded distant, almost whimsical, like she was speaking to herself.
“I do know one thing. If I had to deal with Jett and their father on a regular basis like Clarissa did, I’d want to jump out the window too.
Clarissa was too nice for her own good.” Her voice started breaking, and she cleared her throat. “I miss her.”
I flung my comforter off my body to stretch out and hug her. “I’m so sorry, Daphne.”
In that instant, I knew I needed to be a better roommate to her. A better friend.
“Go back to sleep,” I told her with a tender smile. “No one likes Mondays, and we need our beauty sleep.”
I was already awake when my alarm blared through the room, never having gone back to sleep after the nightmare. Too many thoughts wound through my head to allow me to shut my eyes and relax.
Not only did having another dream worry me, but so did the anxiety of seeing Enzo. He had been MIA all weekend, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t thought about him the entire time.
I had so many questions.
Like now that I was his Fawn, what the hell did that mean?
I swallowed as his words infiltrated my mind. “Be good. I have eyes everywhere.”
This place felt lonely without him.
Over the weekend, I couldn’t stop myself from visiting his wing several times. I’d eyed that locked gate while wondering if he was on the other side in his room. Wondered if he was thinking of me or with another girl.
My jaw had tightened whenever I thought about the latter. My tension should’ve eased because that meant his attention couldn’t be on me.
I pulled myself out of bed and showered, brainstorming as the water fell down my body on how I’d get a new phone and laptop. I doubted my mother and stepfather knew I was without a phone, since I got more calls about my yearly Pap smear reminder than I did from them.
When I left the bathroom, dressed in my new uniform—aka Enzo’s shirt—Daphne stared up at me brightly. “I like the new look.”
The shirt was too large, so I had to knot the loose fabric with a hair tie and tucked it under my skirt. I was also wearing the necklace he’d given me.
“Let’s hope Arisono doesn’t give me a third strike for it,” I replied.
“Blair, you’re about to be a Fawn. What Arisono thinks now is irrelevant.” She scoffed. “If we’re being honest, you’ll be her superior. Fawns are pretty much exempt from university rules as well. They just have to follow the Sons’ rules.”
On our walk downstairs, Daphne rambled on about being pissed off at a professor. We split and went our separate ways, and when I got to American Gothic Lit, I took the same desk as before.
So far, no Enzo.
His friend sat beside me again, and I turned my back to him.
I was almost positive he’d taken a picture of me with his phone on Friday to show Enzo my outfit. Asshole.
Professor Nelson entered the room as other students began filing inside. To get my mind off Enzo, I started drawing in my notebook.
Drawing, not writing lines.
The moment Enzo walked in, I looked up. My pen stalled against the paper, mid-heart drawing.
It was as if my soul recognized his presence now.
Not that there was any love between us. Most definitely not.
I loathed Enzo Marchetti.
Everyone watched him cross the lecture hall and climb the steps toward me. They waited in anticipation for whatever cruel spectacle he’d put on today.
Our black shirts matched, though his clung perfectly to the lines of his hard chest, the fabric fitted like it’d been tailored to show off his every muscle. He paired it with black pants and black boots. A black bag I’d never seen him with was slung over his shoulder.
He reached our row and ran a hand across his jaw. My eyes zeroed in on his gold ring. As if they were connected, on instinct, I dragged a hand over my necklace pendant.
When our eyes met, he winked at me.
His steps were slow as he walked to my desk. My pulse stuttered as I readied myself for whatever humiliation he had planned this time.
Instead, he reached into his bag and quietly placed a brand-new MacBook and phone on my desk. He tapped the edge of my desk and dropped into the seat beside me.
Then nothing.
For the rest of class, he didn’t say a word.
It almost—no, it did piss me off that he didn’t glance my way once.
He simply scrolled on his phone and pretended to pay attention to Professor Nelson.
His silence should’ve been a relief, but instead, it irritated the shit out of me.
Out of stubbornness, I wrote all my class notes by hand and didn’t open the MacBook once.
When class ended, he stood while looking over at me and said, “I’ll be at your dorm at seven. Be ready.”
Enzo telling me to go anywhere with him should’ve been an immediate hell no.
A million red flags waving at once.
A run as far as you can warning.
But it wasn’t like saying no to him was a choice.
Deep down, I didn’t want to refuse him either.
My dread of being a Fawn was matched by an almost-obsessive curiosity about it.
The word Fawn sounded so harmless and gentle. Innocent and vulnerable.
A small, fluffy creature, driven by instinct more than understanding. One who trusted the world before realizing how cruel it could be.
From what I’d heard about how the Sons treated their Fawns, why would anyone want this? Why would families want this for their daughters?
But society had always favored wealthy, powerful men.