10. Chapter Ten #2
“No, Kade can’t take you anywhere,” Malcolm said. “Besides, the Dean-o’s off campus for the rest of the week.”
My mouth dropped open as an electric panic buzzed in my veins. “What do you mean he’s—”
“I’m going to be late,” Malcolm said, walking around me.
He blocked the door with his body so I couldn’t see the code as he punched it in, then he quickly left.
So…I was a prisoner, and the warden was AWOL? Fucking fabulous.
I darted my gaze around, as if suddenly a skylight would appear in the ceiling, with a rope ladder dropping down for me to climb up and out. My gaze landed on the end of the hallway.
I nearly did a little jig. The hidey hole Connor had convinced me was my “room” until I bitched to Dean Bennett.
Inside that horrible little space was a door to the outside world.
If I hadn’t thought of it until just now, I bet none of them had, either.
A way to slip out when none of them were looking.
The high tide of claustrophobia I felt rolling in ebbed a bit.
“I’ve made a decision,” Kade announced.
Oh, goody.
“Congratulations. You win,” he said flatly.
I turned towards him, but he still sat facing the TV.
“I win…what?”
“Malcolm.”
I laughed the most humorless laugh in the history of humorless laughter. Like put me in the Guinness Book of World Records already.
“I win Malcolm? And what exactly is the prize?”
“I’ve been jealous as hell and taking it out on you,” he muttered, “but…I won’t give you a hard time anymore. He obviously wants you.”
I held my breath, waiting for him to go on, a feeling in my bones that there was more.
He sniffled. “It wasn’t me, you know. In the library. I’ve been a real jackass, but I didn’t attack you, Tuesday.”
The way he said it, quiet and raw… No mockery, no sneering. Words, stripped bare. It almost sounded like the truth. Almost.
I strolled over and perched on the ottoman, one knee pulled up to my chest. Did I believe him? No. Not really. But if he was actually trying to call a truce, I’d be a fool not to listen.
"Do you even like him?" I asked, watching him carefully.
He scoffed, shaking his masked head.
“It’s not about liking him.” He dragged a hand down the white face of that mask, then let his head fall back against the couch. Like he was just…tired of it all.
A weird feeling grew elbows in my stomach. I didn’t like it. I could relate to Kade. And no, I didn’t like that at all.
“So you know he’s a vampire,” he said.
I stiffened. That was not the direction I’d expected this conversation to take.
“And how do you know I know?” I asked.
He blew out a breath that made the black cloth part of the mask around his neck flutter. “I was listening in the other night, before I interrupted you two.”
My blood ran cold. The whole conversation between me and Malcolm rewound and played back in my head.
If he was listening in, then he knew I was asking about the Lifewell.
I swallowed. Filed that little fact away for later. Because if he knew I was asking about it and hadn’t done anything with that info when he seemed pretty out to ruin me, then I had no reason not to ask him what he knew about it.
He exhaled, and this time it sounded shuddery. “He tried to turn you.”
Something in his voice made my skin prickle.
“It’s actually disturbing how jealous you sound about that,” I muttered.
Kade didn’t answer right away. Instead, he lifted his head and studied me for a long beat, as if weighing his next words. I couldn’t see his eyes, but I could sure as shit feel them.
“I had a deal with Malcolm,” he said.
That prickle slipped beneath my skin, leaching into my bones.
“What…what kind of deal?”
“If I did everything he wanted—anything he wanted—for the entire semester, he’d turn me at the end of it.”
“So…calling him sir, blow jobs whenever he wants them…”
“And so much more.” Kade shook his head. “It’s a thing he does. Every semester, he picks some guy. Makes the same deal. I knew I wasn’t special."
His voice had gone flat. He stared at his lap, as if studying his hands, his fingers twisting together.
“But then you showed up, and now he’s lost interest in my services completely.”
I blinked. “Why the fuck would you want to be a vampire?”
He went quiet for a long moment.
“Because I’m nothing,” he finally said, his voice so low I almost missed it. “The Powered are special. I wanted to be special too.”
The Powered?
My throat tightened. Fuck. I hated that the pain in his voice kicked at my sympathy reflex. Hated that I almost—almost—cared.
Hurt people hurt people.
That was something Mom always said. Something she probably got from Dr. Phil reruns. I always thought it was a BS excuse to let the douchebags she typically dated get away with psychological warfare.
But now it rolled over in my head like out-of-control dice, and I didn’t know where they would land.
“That’s probably why Malcolm is so enamored with you,” he added, raising his head. “He thinks you’re not just a human.”
I opened my mouth to argue, to insist that I was just a human…but…why?
If it made Malcolm’s rejection easier to take… If it made Kade back the fuck off me…why not let him think whatever he thought?
“Why do you wear the mask?” I asked before I could stop myself.
He shrugged a single shoulder. “It was one of Malcolm’s conditions.”
Something about the way he said it made my stomach twist.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Another beat of silence.
“He told me I didn’t deserve to be seen. Called me a butterface.”
A rush of heat filled my chest. A sharp, angry heat.
“Malcolm pulls that same bullshit with me.” I clenched my jaw, grinding my teeth together. Then I leaned forward, closer to him. “He’s always very quick to tell me how sick looking at my face makes him. Am I a ten? No. But am I pretty? Hell yeah.”
Kade gave me a slow once-over, like he was really looking at me for the first time. “You’re all right.”
I smacked his arm.
And just like that, the tension between us…became something else. Something I couldn’t name, but something had certainly changed.
“I know I told you everyone fucks everyone here, and we don’t really do labels,” he said after a moment. “But before Malcolm, I’d never been into guys.”
I arched a brow. “And what? Now you’re strictly dickly?"
That made him laugh. Actually laugh.
The genuine sound of it made me smile.
“Nah,” he admitted. Then his gaze felt heavy. Dark. “Yeah, I’d still suck Malcolm’s dick if he wanted me to, deal or no deal. But what I really want right now?”
The atmosphere shifted. The anticipation—hot, electric, inevitable, like a rubber band straining not to snap—rubbed against my skin.
Kade leaned in slightly, just enough that I could feel the heat radiating off him.
I clenched my thighs together.
Then, casually, like he wasn’t setting off fucking fireworks in my bloodstream, he said, “Tuesday, I want a do-over with you so bad, I’m about to bust a nut just thinking about it.”