Chapter Nine #2
Everest rolls his neck and pushes to his feet, his stance strong and proud. “I will vouch for Megan’s recovery.” A small scoff escapes my throat. Forget the vase, I’ll just launch myself onto the sharp end of a fire poker and be done with this volatile life I lead.
Dean Colt decides she’s satisfied with Everest’s claim, sealing my fate with a simple ‘very well’, and we’re both instantly dismissed.
I’m in the hallway, a hand banded around my upper arm before my brain has caught up with itself.
Blinking up at Everest, I find myself in a similar position to the neighbor I nearly knocked down the stairs, except that curiosity is the last thing on my mind.
“You’ll vouch for me. Are you freaking serious?!” I rip my arm from Everest’s hold and swing for him. He anticipates my reaction, knocking my wrist aside mid-air and crowding me against the nearest wall. The one right next to the Dean’s office door, evidently.
Everest’s forearm slams the wall beside my head, palm flat against the plasterboard, not quite touching me but so close I can feel the residual heat from his skin as it radiates through the space between us.
His body follows the motion, looming in close enough to swallow the oxygen between us like he’s entitled to it.
“From where I’m standing, there is no one else around here willing to give you a chance at redemption,” he growls with irritating confidence, the kind that makes it sound like he thinks he’s doing me a favor. “You should be thanking me.”
“Thanking you?!” I choke on my laughter.
“It’s your fault everyone is treating me this way!
Do you know that I didn’t even make it into class this morning?
So many people stopped me to ask why I put their precious Everest in danger, or to accuse me of starting that fire myself for attention.
I had enough when Cynthia Farndon spat on me, and went straight back to my room. ”
The air thickens, charging with electricity that prickles my temples.
I can practically taste the static dancing across the tip of my tongue as I inhale sharply through my nose and clench my fists at my sides, nails biting into my palms. I didn’t mean to blurt all of that to Everest freaking Calloway.
I should have confided in Thiago earlier instead, but I didn’t want him to think less of me.
He believes me to be so tough. Not Everest though.
He’s a wrecking ball that smashes straight into my psyche every time we have an interaction.
“Why couldn’t you just let me fade into the background?” I whisper harshly, the words slicing like razors between us. Everest doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t even blink. Instead, he lowers his head slightly, close enough for his breath to ghost over my cheek.
“You don’t belong in the background, and you don’t get to disappear a second time.” I suck in harshly, the air sticking in my lungs like jagged shards of glass. My head swims with the to and fro, making me dizzy with a mix of piqued interest and fury.
Everest is a viper, always poised to hunt for weakness.
Every word he says is a calculated strike, meant to wound.
He lures people in with crumbs of compliments that they’re expected to collect like miniature trophies, then he attacks.
Using insults as weapons, targeting the self-esteem of others in an attempt to make himself seem better.
Popular. Whatever students our age usually care about.
I wish I could say I was above his tactics, but Everest can detect my touchy subjects as if they’re posted above my head.
Even though it wasn’t by choice, I left Hollowbrook without notice before, and now he’s forcing me to live in it.
To face it, day after day, where he’ll be reminding me how insignificant I am. He won’t let me escape again.
“I hate you,” I narrow my eyes, seething beneath the surface. It’s a wonder why I haven’t shoved him out of my personal space yet. A soft chuckle strokes my ear, a stalemate taking place in the hallway.
“I know,” Everest agrees, and something in his admission seems all too pleased about that. He wants my hatred. Thrives on it. This little game we’re playing, tiptoeing on the dangerous verge of flirty rivalry is more than likely what gets Everest out of bed in the morning.
He shifts even closer, still not touching, but every inch of him saturates the air around me like smoke.
Coiling, intoxicating. Heat seeps from his body, a fresh mineral scent from a recent shower filling my senses.
His green eyes flick down to my lips, something dark glinting behind his small smirk, like he knows exactly what he’s doing, and worse, that it’s working.
“Hell no,” I curse. Finally coming to my senses, I shove Everest’s chest, and he takes a willing step back, laughing under his breath like he’s indulging me. “We’re not doing this.”
Everest tilts his head, and that infuriating grin deepens.
“What is this, exactly?” His tone is one of pure mockery, a lazy drawl that oozes too easily from his slanted mouth.
My jaw clenches. He’s toying with me, tricking me into a situation I don’t want to be in.
Rage is easy. It’s becoming second nature, but this is far more complicated.
“You don’t get to invade my personal space whenever you feel like it,” I hiss, but it doesn’t land the way I need it to. Not when I’m half a breath away from panting. It takes all of my control to stop my chest from rising too fast.
Everest leans forward, his hands slipping into the pockets of his leather jacket. Tilting his head, that familiar sarcasm I’m used to comes out to play. “I don’t need to come near you Faker,” he says softly. “I already know how soft those lips are.”
My breath catches. My cheeks burn so hot I could set fire to the damn hallway. His expression flickers into something hungrier and far darker, like he’s feeding off the tension snapping between us.
“You promised,” I grit out through my teeth.
I know it’s foolish of me to think Everest would respect this one boundary we’ve skated around for years, but aside from calling me Faker, it is the first time he’s broken the truce we made.
It was a mistake. A stupid, drunken mistake that began our rivalry, and it’s been long since buried beneath layers of animosity.
“Maybe I’ve changed my mind,” he shrugs, eyes never leaving mine.
The wall’s still cold behind me, and the absence of his body heat is almost enough to make me shiver, but I force myself to lift my chin and straighten my spine.
This is a challenge I can’t and won’t back down from.
Slowly licking his lips, Everest toys with his tongue between his teeth, seeming to choose his next words carefully.
“I don’t think you understand that whatever my parents want, they get. If they want us to stand on a plinth and wave the Vultures flag together, then that’s what we will do. Whether I need to blackmail you to get there is irrelevant. This is happening.”
My nostrils flare the way they do when I’m irritated, and I clench my jaw so hard it aches. There is no way I’m rolling over just because Everest wants to keep up his perfect son act. That is his problem, not mine.
“You think threatening me is going to make me play nice?”
Everest exhales a laugh under his breath without a trace of actual amusement present.
“No. I know threatening you will make you dig your heels in, but I also know you hate being underestimated. You hate losing. And you hate the idea of the Vultures winning without you. Isn’t that what yesterday’s display was about? ”
I can’t deny it, so I say nothing. In fact, why am I even standing here and entertaining this? As if my legs have been reactivated, I peel myself off the wall and start walking down the walkway. Unfortunately, I’m not alone.
“Fine,” Everest says coolly, adjusting the collar of his jacket.
He rakes a hand through his hair, a clear sign that he’s quickly becoming exasperated.
“I won’t bring that up again, but we are going to be co-captains, and I fully intend on winning this season.
That means showing up and working together. ”
Everest reaches for my wrist and tugs me a step back before we round the final corner to the main reception.
Twenty more paces and we’ll be out in the public eye where he does not want his peers seeing him beg.
Actually, I like the sound of that. His gaze lowers again, this time to the neckline of my sweater, but it’s controlled now.
“And keeping our hands to ourselves.”