Chapter 41
Forty-One
Daphne
Iclearly wasn’t cut out for survival of the fittest because I did doze off.
Brooks woke me up by shaking me. “Hey … we’re here.”
I’d never heard him speak to me so softly.
I yawned loudly, stretching my arms above my head, and looked around. We were in some type of parking garage.
“Where are we?” I unbuckled my seat belt.
He ignored me and climbed out of the SUV. “We’re going to the Fawn Quarters.”
“I want to go back to my dorm.”
“Not happening. That’s the safest place for you right now.”
“It’s boring down there,” I whined. “Blair isn’t even there.”
He was wrong about it being safer too. Enzo had thought the same thing when he’d sent Blair there for protection. And what do you know? She’d gotten kidnapped.
I opened the door and nearly rolled out of the SUV. I was so tired.
The garage was empty with low lights splayed across the ceiling. Expensive cars surrounded us. They had to belong to the Night Sons. No one else, except them and staff, was allowed to have vehicles on campus. Arisono claimed cars gave students the freedom to come and go. Something she didn’t like.
Brooks rounded the SUV, shoving his phone into his pocket.
“You never answered me. Where are we?” I asked.
“The tunnels.” He started walking.
I strolled alongside him. “But the tunnels don’t lead to the Fawn Quarters.”
“My way does.”
I stopped midstep. “I want to go back to my dorm, not walk through creepy tunnels.”
I wanted to snuggle in my little alcove, close the curtains, and sleep for two days straight.
Brooks shoved the keys in his pocket. “Not happening.” He slowed his steps and motioned for me to follow him. “Now, come on, Sleeping Beauty.”
I snorted. “Ha-ha, like the princess.”
“She gets the joke.”
“You finally managed to land one.”
A hint of a smile spread over his lips when I reached his side.
It was a tired one but still there.
He scanned his ID at the door, and the lock clicked. A cold draft hit my skin when I stepped into the empty corridor. Brooks took my hand and guided me through the tunnels. All the twists and turns made me lightheaded. That was the point.
He stopped abruptly and ran his hand along the wall before finding a small button. He pushed it, and a light flashed. He scanned his ID.
Part of the wall slid open.
Of course, there are secret doors down here.
We stepped through it, and I recognized the corridor on the other side.
The Fawn Quarters.
“Your room is beside Blair’s,” Brooks explained as we passed doors.
Last time I had been here, he hadn’t exactly given me a tour. He’d shoved my ass into a suitcase.
He stopped outside one of the doors and scanned his ID again. I needed to figure out how to score me one of those cards with the same access he had.
The lock clicked, and he stepped aside, motioning for me to go inside.
My Fawn room was exactly how we’d left it.
A series of yawns left me as Brooks shut the door and opened the nightstand drawer.
He pulled out another ID badge and handed it to me. “This is yours.”
I ran my finger over the saint’s halo printed on it. “Does it have access to everything yours does?”
He plucked the badge from my hand and tapped it against my nose. “You wish, Princess.”
“You wish, Princess,” I tiredly mimicked.
He shook his head, deciding not to argue, and stripped out of his sweatshirt.
I studied the dark circles under his bloodshot eyes. Dried blood still speckled his skin from the man he’d killed on the road. He looked like he could collapse any second.
I went to the opposite corner of the room and changed into my pajamas.
“Come here,” Brooks said.
I wrinkled my nose. “Why?”
“Your fucking face.”
I touched my cheek, having nearly forgotten about the cut from the shattered glass.
He took my hand and led me into the bathroom. Quietly, he wet a cloth and cleaned the dried blood from my cheek. His touch was so gentle for a man who’d blown someone’s head off only hours ago.
When he finished with me, he wiped the blood from his own skin before stripping out of the rest of his clothes.
It wasn’t until we both slipped into bed that everything caught up with me.
I was truly living a series of unfortunate events.
I’d somehow survived my Initiation, being smuggled into the White House, sneaking into a club unrecognized, and then a freaking shootout.
This was way too much chaos for one person in such a short amount of time.
All because Brooks wanted me as his Fawn.
Brooks took the spot closest to the door, another quiet way of protecting me.
My body relaxed when he wrapped an arm around me and pulled me against his warmth.
For the first time in hours, I stopped thinking about gunshots, dead bodies, Initiations, or what might come next.
I shut my eyes but didn’t fall asleep until I felt Brooks’s breathing turn slow and steady against my back.