Chapter Thirty We band of brothers
CHAPTER THIRTY
We band of brothers
I WAS SUPPOSED TO HAVE a humanities class next, my last of the day.
But I spotted Alaster exiting the dining hall not long after Vivian, Luke, and I had split up for our separate classes.
Moments later, Jojo joined him, and they entered a classroom, the lock clicking behind them with a resounding ping.
When Alaster and Jojo left, I flagged down an upperclassman who might have access to the room, pretending I’d left my phone inside it.
It took a few tries to find someone with clearance, but when I did and they unlocked the door, I waited for them to leave before starting my investigation.
Looking for traces of Alaster and Jojo in a classroom that had been used throughout the day was an exercise in torture.
I brushed my fingers along some of the desks, traced the frame of the seats, and channeled my powers, even as pain wrung through my mind and my nerves.
One of the desks had been moved awkwardly to the front.
The moment I touched it, my powers reeled me into a vision of past Alaster and Jojo in a heated argument.
“Enough is enough!” Jojo shouted. “You said things were changing at Westfield. Yet you’re letting Sigma and Theta run wild without any restrictions.”
“The president is monitoring them closely. Both societies have powerful alumni on the Board and among our donors. He can’t just strip them of their status on campus.”
“So we’re just going to wait until another student tries to jump out of a window? Or for more accidents to happen across campus?”
Alaster laughed.
“I recognize you’re upset seeing your brother and that girl like that, but compose yourself, Ojore.
This is the long game. We can’t help each other if we can’t trust that we’re able to control our emotions, even when things don’t go our way.
Besides, this is a concern for faculty. Not researchers here on school grants. ”
The dig in Alaster’s words was clear. Jojo was an outsider now, one with no claim to the Saint James name or authority in how the institution handled its goings. And like all hired hands, he needed to stay in line.
“This has nothing to do with my emotions,” Jojo said, but his voice wavered.
I didn’t let myself linger on the unspoken meaning beneath his words.
He took a breath, continuing. “I took this research job to help the students at Westfield. All of them. If that’s not what we’re doing, then I have no reason to stay. ”
“We both know that’s a lie,” Alaster said.
He tilted his head, curiosity glinting in his eyes.
“Or perhaps you may think it’s the truth.
But whether it’s the remnants of your inheritance, the girl your brother’s with, or, as you say, for the good of Westfield’s students, I’m sure we can find a reason to keep you at Westfield.
” He patted Jojo on the shoulder. “The Board and I look forward to the findings of your research,” he said.
And then he left. But Jojo remained, seething from the encounter.
Jojo pulled away from the table, and the memory faded into flashes of other students and faculty touching its surface earlier in the day.
When I returned to the present, a streak of crimson seeped from my nose. I wiped it away, making sure to use the back of my palm in case my powers went hyperactive again, just as the classroom door opened and Kasem emerged.
“You should really learn how to control your powers. Don’t go all Tetsuo on me.”
It took a moment for me to register his words, and when I did, I pursed my lips to keep from smiling.
“An Akira reference? Really?”
“Should I have gone with The Exorcist?”
“Hilarious.”
“She says without even a chuckle.”
He’d been teasing, but concern was etched in his expression.
“I’m fine,” I said. “Really, I am.” The pain was already beginning to subside.
But Kasem reached for me, brushing his thumb against my cheek.
I was already dizzy from the nosebleed, but craning to look up at him with his tall, graceful frame and searing brown eyes with the flecks of gold in them made me lightheaded and breathless.
“Be still for me?” he whispered.
I swallowed, nodding heplessly, unsure.
My heart beat a thousand miles per minute, and even the heat between us was electric, pulsing with curiosity and longing.
Since the fire at my Westfield audition, I’d been used to taking care of myself. I’d never had someone be so attentive to my needs. Not since Jojo. And even then, it hadn’t been like this.
Kasem withdrew a handkerchief from his pocket. He dabbed the blood from my nose, his touch gentle, his fingers trailing to my parted lips as he pulled away.
I drew in a breath.
My mind raced with the memory of his tongue tracing my lips and how he’d pulled me to him, kissing me, tasting me, and leaving me longing for more.
“About what happened in the dining hall,” I said, my cheeks burning. “I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry.”
“Are you?” he asked, and I couldn’t tell if he was disappointed or teasing me. “I mean, my brother was right there. Exactly where you wanted him to be, right?”
“Kasem—” I began, but he waved away the apology.
“I’m a Saint James,” he said. “People have used me for less. I grew up with them befriending me to see what they could get of the inheritance. They’d toss me aside once they figured out that, as the secondborn, I was getting nothing.
And even then, people got close to me just to find a way to Ojore.
When all that changed and I was the one named heir, I was their world again.
” He laughed. “At least you had the decency to be transparent. So be honest, Sianna. Just admit it.”
I knew Kasem was waiting for me to say it. But I couldn’t. Because truthfully, I wasn’t even sure why I had kissed him or what I’d wanted to come from it.
“You’re in love with my brother,” he observed, his voice cool, measured.
I looked away, my heart racing at the intensity of his stare.
But my silence was answer enough. And in turn, his came in the bitter light of amusement in his eyes, his laughter as bemused as it was pitying. There was a distance between us, one that hadn’t existed since we’d first met at Gus’s shop.
“Maybe I once was,” I said, defiant, angry now, at myself, at him, for his nonchalance.
“But what would it matter to you, Kasem? I shouldn’t have kissed you.
I know I was wrong for that. But you’re the one who leaned in.
Don’t act like you didn’t feel some sort of vindication kissing me in front of him. ”
“Despite what it may seem, I don’t actually get a kick out of making my brother hate me more than he does. I never wanted Westfield. I never wanted anything of his.”
“I’m not his,” I said. “I’m my own person.”
“So you kissed me for yourself?”
Against my cheeks, heat bloomed hot and scorching. “Trust me, it won’t happen again.”
Kasem didn’t look at me, which was somehow worse than when he was angry.
I tried to steer the conversation back to shore, pushing down the painful knots forming in my chest. “Look. Can we just make a plan for finding Pete or Jay or whichever one of them is here at Westfield? The sooner we break your curse, the less time we have to spend with each other.”
“You should have said that from the beginning,” Kasem said, his voice calm yet biting. “Before the expulsion, they were both Sigma. And if they found a way to sneak back onto campus, they’ll probably find a way to infiltrate Sigma events like rush.”
So then I had to do it. I really had to join Theta and somehow get Luke to follow through with rushing Sigma.
Vivian would hate it, but it wouldn’t matter at that point.
This was the best chance I’d have of trapping Pete or Jay.
Kasem and I would be able to interrogate them and get closer to figuring out how to break our bond.
It’d even mean vindicating Jojo, not that it should still matter to me whether or not he was involved in the stabbing.
“The girl who jumped from Theta House told me that Danny, her ex, was going to do some exposé on Westfield and your family. He was friends with Nathan. Did Nathan know about the curse? Did Pete or Jay, before they were marked?”
“They’ll know as much as any of Sigma’s members do,” Kasem said. “And like I explained before, I never met Danny, not outside of Sigma events. I don’t know what the three or four of them shared with one another about what was going on at Westfield and how my family was connected to it.”
“Then the answer has to be tied to what Danny found.” I recounted my conversation with Sarah to him.
“If he wasn’t really marked because of the curse, if someone connected to your family found out that he was researching their ties to the accidents on campus, then maybe Sarah’s right.
Maybe Danny’s death wasn’t an accident. Maybe it was murder.
” If Alaster and the Board would go so far as to cover up the curse’s manifestation on campus, then maybe they thought they could use the accidental deaths to bury Kasem’s family secrets.
“I saw a vision of the past, in this room. They’re paying Jojo to come up with some research to supposedly explain the accidents on campus as hauntings,” I said, making the connections.
“And then I bet they’ll just start advertising Westfield as a prestigious school with some historic, haunted buildings, and no one will bat an eye when the accidents keep happening. ”
“So you finally admit that Jojo is part of this.”
I swallowed, the vision I’d seen moments before fresh in my mind.
I was done with Jojo. Or, that’s what I was trying to convince myself of.
But if I told Kasem everything I’d seen, he’d never trust Jojo again.
I realized then that Kasem and Jojo were the same, in a way: liars, but only to themselves.
Kasem didn’t want Jojo to be behind the stabbing any more than Jojo wanted to see his brother hurt.
“I should be able to have a good sense of which members will be participating in the rush activities,” Kasem said when I didn’t answer his question. At my confused look, he added, “I’m an adviser for our chapter.”
“For someone who claims they don’t care about Westfield, you sure go above and beyond to be a part of it. Even if the Board didn’t require you to be in the accelerated graduate program, I bet you would have done it anyway.”
Jojo had done the same. He hadn’t inherited Westfield, yet he’d been entrenched in the school, despite everything.
“Oh, you know us Saint Jameses,” Kasem said. “We like to keep it in the family. Our degrees, our inheritances. Our lovely obsessions.” His gaze lingered, and for a moment, I caught it trailing to my lips before he looked away. “Our enemies too,” he finished.