34. Zane
34
ZANE
I ’m not in the mood for the race, but it will blow off some aggression and adrenaline, so I turn up for it, despite having a pass if I want one. My lack of a voice doesn’t affect my legs, though the fatigue from all the ops can hit me hard sometimes.
Everyone is treating me with kid gloves. Even that asshole, Rossi. Anyone would think he had a heart. The guy has laid off being on my back twenty-four-seven for once, and right now, I could probably get away with coasting all year if I wanted. I don’t want. Trouble is, I don’t know what I do want.
Tired, but wired, and feeling like I want to crawl out of my own skin, I head to the table with the list of participants.
I tick my name off the sheet and grab my number, twenty-four. I stick it on my tank top and wait around for the twins. This sort of thing is my idea of hell, but I’m bored, and all of our house must partake unless they’ve been given permission not to. That means our little Venom should be here. She’s avoiding us. Lex told me what Saint did, and we’ve not had any time with her since then.
Fucking Saint can be such an asshole at times. He’d better not ruin this for us, or he’ll have my fist to talk to.
Yesterday, I saw her turn around and walk the other way when the twins were approaching her. Still, while she’s at Verona Falls, there’s no getting away from us. She can’t avoid us here. Oh, she can stick with her new gal pal clique, but at least we’ll get a chance to fuck with her.
She turns up with only five minutes to go. Her new friends are off to one side. Angelica looks like she’s dressed for an Instagram picture. Faith is limbering up, and Jarena daydreams in her own world as usual.
Vani seems to be reading every damn name on the list. I sidle over to her, being quiet as I approach.
It’s in alphabetical order, you don’t have to read every name . I shove my phone under her nose with the note written on it.
She turns and shoots me such an angry glance that I almost take a step back.
“Leave me alone, Zane,” she whispers. “I mean it. All of you.”
Then she goes back to running her finger down the list of names. What is she looking for? Is this to do with Reagan? Lex and Saint told me about the folder, but we still haven’t had the chance to ask her why she took Reagan’s file. I’m not sure we want to open that can of worms. When our name is associated with Reagan’s, things tend not to look good for us. What happened had almost ended our time here at Verona Falls. I guess we have Nathaniele to thank for smoothing things over with the family, but he only did that to save Verona Falls’ reputation. It wasn’t to help us.
But now Vani is here, clearly poking into things again, and it leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth.
Keep your friends close and your enemies closer…Is that what she’s thinking, too? Has she heard something, and that’s why she’s letting us get away with messing with her?
Her dark head is still bent over the list.
Is Vani looking for Reagan’s name? She won’t find it here.
“Hey, venomous one,” Saint says as he approaches us. “Your hair is giving extra Medusa vibes today. Nice outfit, too.”
She ignores him, continuing to read the names and then standing straight. “Huh?” she says, more to herself than us.
“You can see your panties through your shorts,” Saint taunts. “Don’t you own a thong?”
A few of the guys standing around snicker. I smirk, too, but I’m still thinking about how she’s definitely looking into Reagan, and I want to know why.
“I am all out of thongs,” Venom says clearly, looking right at Saint. “Can I borrow one of yours? After all, your clothes have more frills than mine.”
Then she sends him a fake, simpering smile and sashays over to her new friends, an extra sway in her lush hips and ass. Well, damn, Venom has sass. Her ass is spectacular in those shorts, and Saint’s right, you can see her panty outline. I kind of like it.
The race begins, Lex joining us at the last minute. The gun is fired, and off we go.
I can outrun any of these motherfuckers in a sprint. My muscle mass gives me that burst of strength needed for speed. I’m not as good at endurance events, so I pace myself. Anyway, I’m enjoying hanging back and running behind Venom so I can watch her ass jiggle. My mouth is watering at the show she’s giving me.
“Like the view?” Lex chuckles as he pulls up alongside me.
It’s nice, I sign.
“Come on, you pussy-ass motherfuckers. At this rate, the Devils will beat us, and if our time sucks, the Preachers will win overall like last fucking year.” Saint speeds by us, shooting us daggers.
The Preachers aren’t in our house, but they are our rivals, the way the Devils are. They are different from the Devils though in every way. They don’t go to the bar, and they don’t fuck with the girls. They are weird and quiet and isolated, and yet they often excel at nearly all the competitions. The fights. The races. They even won the aptitude tests at the start of last year. I don’t give a fuck, but it eats Saint up if he isn’t the best at everything.
That guy needs to chill sometimes.
Lex speeds up at his twin’s words, but I hang back and let them run ahead. Screw this. It’s kind of hot for the time of year, and I still haven’t returned to anything like full fitness after my latest surgery.
After about ten minutes, I round a corner and my heart stutters. There are the three bitches, as I think of them. Angelica, Jarena, and Faith, but where is Venom?
Did anyone tell her not to get separated from the girls on this run? She’s new and might not know all the unspoken rules of this place. The faculty might officially be in charge, but they don’t make the rules. It’s as if the building itself does.
I glance back at Verona Falls through the trees, standing guard, as permanent as time itself. This place has a culture all its own, and there are traditions that will never be written down but might as well be carved in stone.
One of them is that girls should never become isolated on the cross-country run.
The tradition is based on a Verona Falls urban legend that I’ve often thought about. I wonder now how true it is.
The legend goes back in the 1920s. At the time, the college accepted men only, but they decided to accept a small group of women. They were from some of the less traditional clans and families, and they came here to get an education but also, so the tale goes, to find husbands.
They were from lesser families, the story says. Not like today, when some of the women, like Camile, come from the most feared families of all. We have screwed with Camile a bit just to fuck with her, but even we wouldn’t do anything more because her father would burn down the college if he heard a whisper of anything inappropriate. He’s a fucking madman.
So, back in the day, six women joined the college, all without the protection that would have been afforded them if they’d been from the families at the top of our world’s hierarchy.
Things went okay, as they were basically kept sheltered, until the cross-country run. The story goes that the day of the run, the women somehow got separated, and a run turned into a very different kind of sporting event. A hunt .
The women were chased down one by one and deflowered, and the college was mired in scandal. The legend we all whisper to one another says that the men who took part were all beaten so badly they couldn’t walk for weeks. Then they each had to marry one of the women. The college was males only again until after the Second World War.
Now, I doubt it was half that bad because things get embellished. It’s like Chinese whispers once stories like this get passed down through time, but the fact remains that something happened. Something terrible that meant the hallowed halls of Verona Falls didn’t admit women again for decades. It has lingered in the very air itself, as people talk about the cross-country run and the women promise to stay together.
So, where the fuck is Venom?
As I think about the old legend and then Venom alone, vulnerable, and ripe for the taking, my cock stirs. We don’t do things that way anymore, but there’s a part of me that wishes I could go club her over the head and drag her back to my cave like some Neanderthal.
She’s so damn delicious, and her stupid father’s man warning me off was a red cape to a bull. He knows nothing about me, and if I had a kink—which I don’t; I just like fucking—then it would be doing what I am not supposed to.
Tell me no and watch me do it .
I hear a sound. A muffled cry. What the fuck? I stop running and tilt my head, listening.
It’s to the east. I turn that way and run fast, sprinting. I burst into the clearing in time to see some first-year douche with Vani up against a tree, his hands up her top.
Rage consumes me. It blinds me. I shout a silent roar as I rush him, hitting from the side and taking him to the ground.
I punch him in the face so hard his nose bursts like a berry. Blood splatters us, and he screams. I hit him again, and he turns over and tries to crawl away. I kick his ass and laugh as he goes face down into the dirt.
Three more kids appear, all skinny little fuckers. Freshman dicks who are definitely upper-class mobster kids, because no way would anyone who actually has to fight for anything be so skinny. I bet their daddies are white collar criminals, and these dicks won’t have a chance in hell of surviving the next three years.
I hold my hands up and beckon them toward me. I’m in the mood to take them all.
They shake their heads, and two grab their friend, hauling him up.
“We’re sorry, Zane,” one of them says, voice shaking.
They know my name, but I don’t know them.
I point to Vani and then kiss my mouth to my fingers, indicating speak , then point to her again. Speak to her , I’m saying.
They turn to her, and the same guy says, “Sorry, miss. Really sorry. He won’t do anything like it again.”
They start to drag their friend out of the clearing. I let them because my blood is up, and as I stare at Vani, her chest heaving, I’m suddenly in the mood for something other than fighting.