Chapter 5
Chapter Five
BASTION
She smelled like vanilla and gold .
I don’t even know what that means, but it was the first thing that hit me when I walked into the dorm.
Not the sound of boxes being dragged across the wood floors, not the pastel blur of whatever blanket she’d thrown over the couch like this was a sleepover.
It was her .
Emilia Adams.
Pink-cheeked and too smiley. Wearing one of those tiny cheer skirts and a sweater so soft-looking I wanted to bite the damn sleeve just to see if it was real.
She turned when I entered, like she’d been waiting .
And fuck, she smiled .
“Hi,” she chirped, like this was a movie and she was cast as the sunshine love interest sent to melt the bad boys. “Sorry for the mess—I’ll get it sorted, I promise.”
I didn’t say a word. Just kept walking.
If I looked at her for too long, I was going to say something I couldn’t take back.
She was… bright . Loud without even talking .
The kind of pretty that made the hallway feel dim when she left it.
And worse — she was trying .
Trying to be friendly. Trying to be sweet. Trying to act like she hadn’t kissed me and my brother with the same damn mouth at a party where her boyfriend was ten feet away.
I should’ve hated her.
Hell, maybe I did .
But the thing about fire?
It draws you in even while it burns .
She held up a cookie tin like we were supposed to care .
“I brought snacks. Chocolate chip.”
God. I could feel Luca going stiff beside me.
“This isn’t your home,” he said flatly, and I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from smirking.
It was the exact thing I’d been thinking.
But of course, she just laughed.
Or maybe it was a giggle.
All golden girls laugh the same way — like they’ve never had to bleed for anything. Like the world is theirs and they’re just waiting for you to fall in line.
“I know,” she said, eyes too wide and warm. “Just trying to be nice.”
That’s what pissed me off the most.
The niceness .
She didn’t understand what this house was. This dorm.
It wasn’t for light or sweetness.
It was for survival .
The last place in the academy built to keep us sharp, violent, and untouchable .
And then came her .
In a skirt that barely covered her thighs, humming while she unpacked, sticking her little toiletries on the bathroom counter like she wasn’t trespassing .
I tossed my gym bag onto the couch and muttered, “Told you she’d unpack like it’s a makeover show.”
She turned to me, cheeks flushed, trying to keep her voice soft. “It’s just a throw blanket.”
“Good. Throw it out. ”
She flinched like she wasn’t used to being spoken to that way.
Good. Let her learn now.
This wasn’t the Adams compound. This was ours .
And she didn’t belong .
“Seriously. All I did was kiss you.”
The words stopped me in my tracks.
I turned. Slowly.
Her eyes locked onto mine, voice trembling but steady .
“I kissed you. I didn’t murder anyone.”
I stared at her. At the soft set of her lips, the proud line of her chin, the way her arms were crossed like armor over her stupid soft sweater.
And the worst part?
She meant it.
She thought this was about one kiss .
“You kissed both of us,” I said, walking toward her now. “In front of your boyfriend. You don’t think that’s poison in our world?”
“I wasn’t thinking about your world,” she snapped. “I was thinking about mine .”
That made me pause.
She wasn’t lying.
There it was again — this terrifying, infuriating truth: she wasn’t trying to manipulate.
She wasn’t calculating .
She wasn’t pretending.
She was just being .
That made her dangerous .
I caught Luca watching her from the side of the couch, his jaw tight.
He wasn’t immune either. That’s what scared me more than anything.
He was starting to look. Really look.
And so were others .
Earlier today, Cameron had nudged me in the hallway and said,
“She’s not what I expected from the Adams family. Kinda hot.”
And then Kingston, with that smug bastard grin:
“She’s sweet. I like sweet .”
No.
She didn’t get to come in here, disrupt our house, and make them look at her like that.
Like she was free game.
Like she wasn’t already wrapped around our history.
I saw the way her hair shimmered under the lights.
The curve of her hip when she bent to grab something from her box.
The glossy tint on her lips when she spoke.
I saw her.
And I hated that I did.
I hated even more that others were starting to.
When I passed her later, I didn’t look at her face.
Couldn’t.
I just grabbed a water from the fridge, slammed the door shut, and muttered,
“Good luck. You’ll need it.”
She didn’t respond .
But that night, long after she went to bed, I passed the table again.
The cookies were still sitting there, untouched except?—
Two were missing.
Luca had taken one.
And so had I.