Chapter 33
Amy
We more or less closed the place down.
Last call comes and goes. The high-top girls peel off one by one.
Monica ends up leaving last, with a glance at Saint that doesn’t get returned, and by the time the bartender starts stacking clean mugs, it’s just us.
Rose and Garret argue about the side bet he definitely lost, Azriel collects jackets, and Saint heads out back without a backward glance.
I caught the exit in my peripheral vision a minute ago.
One second, he was at the wall. The next, he was walking toward the back. The whole time, he just observed. Like he was studying everyone.
We go out the back, through the fire door past the restrooms, because the front is a bottleneck of people waiting on rides, and Garret says the back alley cuts straight to the east gate.
The night hits clean and cold, that 1 a.m. air that smells like rain that hasn’t decided yet.
The alley is amber-lit and empty. Dumpster, fire escape, somebody’s bike chained to a drainpipe with more chain than bike.
“I’ll take you to your dorm,” Azriel says to me, unlocking his car. “It’s on my way.”
“It’s not on your way,” I say, even though I don’t know where he stays.
“It’s on my way if I take you.”
Rose snorts. Garret slings an arm around her shoulders, and the two of them drift ahead, their voices dropping into something private.
Then the mouth of the alley fills with the sound of a loud engine.
Twelve cylinders idling somewhere between a growl and a verdict. Headlights sweep the brick and the SVJ slides across the alley entrance like a checkmate, matte black drinking the amber light and giving nothing back.
It stops. Perfectly. Blocking the whole exit.
Garret says something that ends with dick.
The tinted window comes down maybe four inches. Enough for the light to blanket the darkness inside.
“Get in,” Saint demands in a hard voice.
Two words. Pitched under the engine so it lands on me and nobody else, except everybody else heard it, because the alley is a tin can, and Saint has never once needed volume to be loud.
Azriel exhales through his nose. “Saint.”
He says nothing.
The window doesn’t move. The car doesn’t move. I don’t move either.
Here is the thing, and I have exactly four seconds to think about what I’m going to do.
I had a plan. The plan involved cold air from a walk, and at the last minute, Azriel’s easy company. The plan was good. The plan had self-respect in it.
I hesitate.
And the car door opens.
It scissors upward, because of course it opens upward, and of course this ridiculous car must have cost a fortune as Saint unfolds out of it to his full height in the narrow alley.
The amber light finds his face, highlighting his angular jaw and full lips.
His hood is down, and his eyes are set on me like the rest of the alley is a rounding error.
He comes around the front of the car. Unhurried. Every step a countdown, the way he moves when he wants me to see exactly what he’s doing.
He stops and opens the door and holds it. The dark leather inside is inviting in like it has a secret to tell.
“I won’t ask again,” he says, quietly leaving no room for negotiation.
It’s not a threat. Saint doesn’t issue threats. Threats are for people who might not follow through. It’s worse than a threat. It’s an order.
Heat climbs my neck. Not all of it is anger. That’s the part I’ll be dealing with later, in my notebook, in two columns.
I look around the alley. Rose, one eyebrow at maximum altitude, fighting the corner of her mouth.
Garret studies the chained bike like it’s about to be on an exam. Azriel with his hands in his pockets and his jaw tight, caught between brother and his ego and losing both jobs at once.
A couple of students are at the alley mouth now too, phones half-raised, because a Lamborghini with its door up at 1 a.m. is content.
I could make this a scene. I have years of training in standing still while a man waits for me to fold.
But every camera in this alley would make me a story by morning.
The scholarship girl and the lost son of Kenyan, arguing in an alley. I’ve been a story before. I didn’t like the edit and the last thing I need is for Roman to find me here.
I cross the space.
My heels are loud on the asphalt. I stop in front of him, close enough that he has to look down and I have to look up and neither of us pretends to be annoyed.
“This conversation,” I say, low, just for him, “is going to cost you.”
Something moves behind his eyes. Not triumph.
He’s too unhinged for triumph.
“I’m looking forward to it,” he says, before I slide inside the car.
The seat takes me like it was measured for someone and decided I’d do.
The door comes down with a sound like a vault sealing, that engineered thunk that costs more than tuition, and the alley disappears behind tinted glass: Rose’s grin, Garret’s laugh finally escaping, Azriel watching the car with an expression I file away to think about later.
Saint gets in. The engine breathes.
Inside, it’s all dark leather and carbon fiber and his citrus scent. The quiet is smothered by the sound of the powerful engine.
I hold my breath, that makes my ears pulse.
He doesn’t drive off yet.
His hand sits on the steering wheel. The streetlight cuts a line across his knuckles.
“Four days you haven’t cared if I made it home. Why now?” I ask, eyes forward, voice level. “Don’t you have a party to plan for?”
The pause has weight.
“I know,” he says again. Lower this time. “But I want to talk.”
“Talk,” I repeat.
“I will in a minute. Put your seat belt on so I can drive.”
I do as he asks. The SVJ pulls out of the alley with a growl that sets off a car alarms two streets over.
He drives like he fucks—with purpose.
After two minutes, I realize he has no intention of taking me to my dorm as he passes by the building.
I should protest and tell him to take me back, but I don’t because the truth is, I feel safe with him for some reason.
If he wanted to hurt me, he would have already.
I’m not sure what angle he is playing at, but I have no choice but to find out.
The silence continues to stretch between us.
I’m tempted to play something on the radio but don’t want to touch his car.
Instead, I look out the tinted glass window, and when the pressure builds and I can’t take it anymore, I blurt, “What do you want?”
“I already told you. To talk.”
“What do you have to tell me that you couldn’t in person or through a simple text? I mean, it’s not that serious. There is nothing between us, and nothing you could possibly want from me that you can’t get anywhere else.”
He glances at me briefly. “You’re talking about sex.”
I snort. “What else could it be? Of course I’m talking about sex. You got what you wanted.”
He chuckles darkly. “And you think that is all I wanted? You honestly think that I was lying to you when I said I was going to fuck you.”
“I’m sure Monica wouldn’t mind, and that is not because I’m jealous or anything,” I lie, finally admitting to myself that it bothers me.
I hated the thought of him with her. Or with someone else. The thought that he invited her and not me. That he still wants her around.
“Are you?”
I look at him. “Am I what?” I play dumb.
He switches gears. “Are you jealous, Amy?”
“Jealous of what?”
“Of me fucking someone else?”
I clench my teeth because I would die before I admit I’m jealous.
He’s gorgeous, and the mysterious part of him would draw any woman with a pulse, but I would prefer to bite my tongue than admit it.
How could I? What would that mean with everything I know about him?
He doesn’t want me in a healthy way. He wants me in the way I secretly crave but cannot admit, not even to myself.
“What reason would I have to be jealous? I’m Prey just like she is.
Isn’t that how it’s supposed to go? As long as there is consent, anything goes.
We have no say in the matter. Anyone who isn’t Prey with a larger bank account at this school can hunt us.
And if we open our mouths, you send us back where we came from in pieces. And that is if we make it that far.”
“Something like that,” he replies. “But those rules don’t apply to you, Amy.”
My stomach drops. The tiny hairs on my arms rise in warning. “Why?”
“You’ll see.”
“What will I see, Saint?” I ask, trying to hide the terror in my voice.
What the fuck does he mean by I’ll see?
“How the rules apply to you. And did you actually think I was done with you? That me fucking you softly was the way it was gonna be?”
That was soft?
“I’m confused.”
He laughs. “It will become clear to you soon enough.”
And that’s it. That is all he says, leaving me in the dark with whatever he meant as he pulls up to a drive-through and orders us both food before taking me back to my dorm like it was nothing.