12. Zane
CHAPTER 12
Zane
We head out into the courtyard.
It’s quiet at this time, with most of the students in the cafeteria getting lunch. Those few students who are sitting around, eating a sandwich or just hanging out, spot us coming and quickly gather their belongings and scamper off.
They can sense trouble.
We reach a sheltered part on the other side of the central fountain. It’s not overlooked here, and we’re hidden behind an old stone wall—like the kind I imagine might be found in an English country garden.
We come to a halt, and Vani spins to face us, her back to the wall.
“What do you all want?” she cries. “I wish I’d never gotten involved with any of you.”
Saint purses his lips and shakes his head. “You don’t mean that.”
“Don’t I? It’s just been drama after drama ever since I met you. I ask for a little space after I’ve been through something traumatic, and you can’t even give me that. I was just sitting at the lunch table eating with my friends, and I couldn’t even do that without you making a scene.”
Lex’s eyes narrow. “Those girls are not your friends. They’re a bunch of absolute bitches.”
She throws up her hands. “Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you? After all, they’re the ones who told me the truth about what happened to Reagan.”
I slam my fists together in a punching motion, making her jump, and slip the small pen and notepad out of my pocket, and then scribble something down.
I push it toward her.
It is not the truth.
She presses her lips together and lifts her eyes to mine. “Why should I believe you?”
We hold each other’s gaze for a beat, each of us challenging the other. I wish I had my voice so I could fight our case, but right now it feels like she’s reading my thoughts from eye contact alone. I can’t pretend I’m not pissed that she believes everyone else over us, but then that goes two ways.
How much can we trust our little Venom?
Saint glares at her. “Because we haven’t lied to you. Not ever.”
“We’re not even supposed to be talking about Reagan and what happened,” Lex says. “You know this. Rossi could kick us all out.”
“Doesn’t that strike you as being strange?” she throws at him. “A girl kills herself, allegedly, but we’re not allowed to talk about it? Why? Wouldn’t most colleges use it as a learning point, give the students a safe space to talk about something as serious as suicide? Not hush it all up.”
Saint gives a throaty laugh. “This is hardly a normal college, Vani. I thought you knew that.”
“Maybe you’re right, but it still seems to me that the enforced silence means there’s more to the story. How do I know Rossi isn’t protecting you?”
I shake my head and write, Why the fuck would he do that?
“I don’t know,” she exclaims. “How the hell should I know anything that goes on around here? I’m constantly left in the dark.”
Lex lifts his square jaw and pulls his shoulders back. He asks her the question we’ve all been thinking.
“Why are you even here, Vani? What the fuck does Reagan have to do with you?”
Her gaze flicks between us, fire in their dark depths. “Why the fuck should I tell you anything? It’s not like you’ve been honest with me at any point.”
I sign something to the twins, and Vani’s gaze narrows.
“What did he say?” she demands.
Saint lets out a sigh. “He said we never lied to you.”
“No, but you never told the truth either.”
She crosses her arms over her chest, and it highlights the wound on her arm. The sight of it does something strange to my stomach, and I find it hard to breathe.
“Maybe we should ask Jarl Olsen why you’re here,” Saint throws in.
She flinches. “Jarl Olsen? Why would you ask him anything?”
“I’m sure Reagan’s father knows you’re poking around.”
Her jaw tightens. “He doesn’t know anything.”
Lex arches an eyebrow. “You expect us to believe that? There’s a rumor that we were responsible for her death, and Jarl Olsen won’t be able to confront us directly, because Rossi paid him enough to ensure he won’t be causing trouble on campus. What better way to look into things than send some hot little thing to get under our skin and ask some questions at the same time?”
“That’s crap. I’ve never even met Jarl Olsen.”
“Bullshit,” Saint coughs behind his hand.
“It’s not bullshit!” she insists. “In fact, I don’t even want Jarl Olsen to know I exist.”
I sign, Why not?
She hesitates, seeming to understand what I’m asking. What the fuck is she keeping from us? If it’s not that she’s been sent here to spy on us, what is it?
Saint picks up on the moment. The conflict in her gaze, and the tight set of her mouth.
He stares at her. “Don’t want us to speak to Jarl, then talk to us.”
It’s a risky move, but she clearly doesn’t want him to know she’s here. Perhaps even less than she wants to talk to us. Which is the lesser of two evils for her?
Her face twists and she glances at the ground before looking back at us, her gaze halting on me, glassy as she speaks. “Reagan was my sister. My half-sister.”
The look on both the twins’ faces are mirrored—wide eyes, mouths open. Of all the things we’d expected to hear, it hadn’t been that.
What? I sign. How?
“Jarl Olsen was… with …my mom. She got pregnant, and he got rid of my mom and took the baby. He threatened her, told her that if she ever tried to make contact with her daughter, he’d kill her.”
“Kill the baby?” Saint checks.
She nods.
I shake my head in dismay and scribble down, Sick fuck.
“I still don’t understand what you’re doing here,” Saint presses. “Did you think you’d find her and become best friends? She’d never met you before.”
She nibbles the inside of her cheek, as though considering what to tell us. “My mom died, and on her deathbed, she told me where I could find Reagan. I didn’t even know I had a sister before then. I mean, I’d always hoped for one when I was little. It is lonely as a girl in the club, but it never happened, and then I found out this amazing thing—that I had a sister. How could I not come?”
“But why all the secrecy” Lex asks. “Why not just tell us?”
“Because I didn’t want it getting back to either Jarl Olsen or my father. My dad didn’t know about Jarl Olsen and what he did to my mom, and she was terrified that if he ever found out, it would start a war. And she didn’t want Jarl Olsen to find out about me in case he decided to…do something.”
Do something? I sign.
She ducks her chin, as though she’s ashamed and can’t make eye contact with us. “In case he hurts me just because I’m my mother’s daughter.”
I catch my breath. Would that happen? It must have been years ago that Jarl Olsen had anything to do with Vani’s mom.
But now he’s lost his daughter…what if he decides he can take his revenge on Vani? Mess with her somehow?
I decide then and there that Jarl Olsen will never learn about Vani’s existence. Not under my watch
She swipes at a tear. “I never once thought that Reagan might be dead, though. Maybe it was na?ve of me, but I thought she might have moved schools or even countries, but I’d believed we’d meet one day.” The muscles of her face tighten. “But then I was told she’d died, and that you three had something to do with it.”
I shake my head. We didn’t.
She stares between the twins. “Whose car did she fall on?”
“Mine,” Lex admits.
“I heard you were more worried about your car than Reagan the day she died.”
His jaw drops. “What the fuck? No, I wasn’t. I think I yelled something like ‘holy shit, look at my car,’ meaning, ‘look at what’s just happened,’ but of course everyone took it the wrong way. It got twisted to mean that I was worried about my car, when that wasn’t what I meant at all. I mean, I was pretty upset about?—”
I jab my elbow into his ribs as an indication that he needs to stop talking while he’s still ahead. I’m worried about how he planned on ending that sentence.
She presses her lips together and shakes her head. “I still don’t see why I should believe you. Honestly, the thought of the three of you with my sister makes me want to throw up, and the possibility that she died because of you…”
I scribble furiously on my notepad and shove it at her. Reagan was nothing like you. She was shy and quiet and wasn’t even interested in us. We weren’t into her either. We had no reason to want her dead.
Her eyes skim across the paper, and she lifts her chin to look me in the eye. “Then why was everyone making it sound like you did?”
“Because people wanted to fuck with us,” Saint says. “You’ve been in this place long enough to know everyone has an agenda. Taking us down a peg or two works for certain people.”
She arches her brow. “Accusing someone of murder is hardly bringing them down a peg or two.”
“Not murder. Just the reason she threw herself off the tower.”
Her eyes pop open at his turn of phrase. “ Just the reason?”
“We made an easy scapegoat,” Saint growls.
She lets out a breath that comes from deep within her lungs and covers her face with her hands. “Fuck. I don’t know what I’m supposed to think. None of this is easy for me. I know you all think I’ve come from this crazy background, and maybe I have, but my dad sheltered me, too. I’ve never even lived away from home before, and now I have to deal with dead sisters and crazy men in the woods, and being obsessed with you three?—”
She seems to realize what she’s just said and clamps a hand over her mouth.
“I mean, not obsessed in a good way. Very badly obsessed.” That doesn’t come out as sounding any better and she cringes. “I just think about you a lot, that’s all.”
Her face is beautifully flushed, and it’s clear she’s wishing the ground would open up and swallow her. I want to glance over at the twins, see if their reaction to what she’s just said is the same as mine, but I don’t want to take my eyes off her pretty face.
“Hang on a second,” Lex says suddenly. “Does this mean you believe us when we say we had nothing to do with what happened?”
Her gaze flicks to the ground and she scuffs her foot against the cobbles. “God, I don’t know…I’m not sure what to think right now.”
He points at her. “You want us to believe your story, no questions asked, but you won’t believe ours?”
“I just need some time?—”
But Lex is on a roll, and now he directs his questions at us. “How the fuck do we know she’s telling the truth? That she’s Reagan’s sister? They look nothing like each other. That could all be a cover story. We have nothing to say she hasn’t been planted here by Jarl Olsen, just like we thought. She could still be here so he gets his revenge. All we have is her word.”
“She was my half-sister,” Vani insists, “and I’ve never even met Jarl Olsen, and I hope I never do.”
“Lex,” Saint says, “genetics are strange things. Plenty of people who are related don’t look the same.”
Lex throws a strange smile at his brother. “Unlike us, right?”
Saint shakes his head. “We’re twins. It’s not the same, and you know it.”
“I’m not lying!” she says.
“How come you get to say you’re not lying, and we just believe you, but when we say it, you call bullshit? Somehow, this doesn’t feel like a fair exchange.”
There’s a distinct lack of trust between us, and that’s bad. The atmosphere has grown chilly between us.
I sign to Lex. Maybe we all need to take a breather.
But he shakes his head. “No, wait a minute. Think about it. Why is it one rule for us, and another for her? She says she came here looking for her sister, but she never even mentioned Reagan’s name to us.” He refocuses his attention on Vani. “You never asked us anything about her. Hell, you didn’t tell us the truth either, even when we caught you sneaking around and stealing files and spying on people.”
“I had to find out what happened to her,” she says. “She was family, and I’ve barely got any. It’s just been me and my dad, but you wouldn’t understand. You’ve got Saint. Then to find out she’s dead and … and you…” She seems to choke on the words, as though she can’t get them out.
Lex’s eyes harden. “So you say.”
I exchange a glance with Saint, wondering if he’s going to get control of his brother, but Lex has a point, doesn’t he? Why should we believe her, just because she says this is her story? Are we being blindsided by those big brown eyes, and those huge tits, and her curvy hips? If she was more like her sister, would we be having this conversation right now, or would we just be saying ‘fuck her’ and stay the hell out of her way?
How much is our desire to get our dicks wet clouding our judgement?
Except it’s not only about sex, is it?
When I’m with her, I’m no longer fixated on my future and how I’m going to spend it without a voice. The anger I’m constantly battling quells for those few minutes or even hours. She doesn’t look at me with horror or pity or disgust. For the most part, all I see is desire. She wants me, as I am. Voice or no voice.
But what if what Lex is saying is true? What if she is a plant, sent here by Jarl Olsen? How dangerous would it be to let her into our lives any further?
Not that we did anything wrong. That’s the most frustrating part of it. Anger toward those stupid girls who fed Vani lies rises inside me. It’s as though they’ve sunk their hooks into Vani and are now doing everything they can to poison her against us. Why can’t she see that they’re influencing how she thinks? If Vani had never met them, we wouldn’t be in this position now.
I grit my teeth and write down what I’m thinking. You need to stay away from Angelica and her friends.
Vani reads it and raises her eyebrows. “Why do you think you get to tell me who to be friends with? Isn’t that classic abusive behavior? Lie and isolate and intimidate?”
A muscle beside my eye twitches. When have we done any of those things?
“You know,” she throws at me, “I was hurt yesterday, and all you could think of was shoving your cock in my mouth. That’s not exactly caring, is it? And then I go back to my room, and Lex makes out like he’s going to take care of me, and all he wants to do is fuck me in the shower.”
“What the fuck, Vani?” Lex exclaims. “You were into it.”
“Was I into it when I was crying?” She spins toward me, her eyes shimmering behind a pool of tears. “Was I into it when I couldn’t breathe, and I was on my knees in the dirt?”
My jaw drops open. Is she seriously accusing us of what I think she is?
I sign, Fuck you, Venom.
“He says fuck you,” Lex translates, “and actually, you can take a ‘fuck you’ from both of us, too. Don’t even make accusations like that unless you plan on backing them up.”
Tears stream down her face, and she shakes her head. “I was just trying to say you’re hardly caring people, are you? The only reason you’re into me is for the sex.”
This hasn’t gone the way I’d hoped it would at all. I reach for her, but she shrugs me off.
“Like I said, all I want is some fucking space. I need you to leave me alone. All of you. No more intimidating me in class, no more dragging me away from my friends in front of everyone.”
A low growl rumbles from Saint’s throat. “No. You’re ours.”
I wish I had my voice so I could say the same.
But she shakes her head. “The only person I belong to is myself.”