8. Liath #2
Shit. Nuala knew me as Liath. One wrong word from her and my cover would be blown wide open in the middle of the hallway before I’d even lasted an hour.
I ducked my head and kept walking, peering up through my hair as if that could somehow hide me.
Keep walking. Just keep bloody walking.
Nuala tilted her head, and certainty lit her whole face. She started toward me, weaving between the mingling students like she was following a scent trail, until she cut into my path.
Shit. There was no way to avoid her.
“I knew it,” she said, her voice bright and way too loud, making my skin tighten. Her smile stretched too wide, showing too many teeth. “It’s me, Nuala.”
She stopped too close. Citrus and jasmine clung to her clothes, and the scent chimed through my head in bright, tinkling notes that only made my nerves jump harder.
“You helped me escape Magdalene,” she said, still smiling like the memory excited her. “Looks like you got out after all. God, I’m so bad with names…”
Her hand rose before I could dodge it. Cool fingers brushed the corner of my eye, light enough to look harmless and intimate enough to make my stomach turn.
“Irish for gray,” she said softly, repeating the words she’d said when she first met me. “Liath!”
Pure panic grounded me to the floorboards as sweat slicked my palms. I flicked a glance around the corridor, measuring distance and witnesses, trying to see whether anyone close enough had heard the name that could ruin me.
“You’ve got the wrong person,” I said quickly, forcing my voice to stay steady. “I’m Rua. I-I’ve been in Romania on an exchange program.”
Nuala blinked once, slowly, as if I had become the strange one. “What?”
Fear climbed fast and cold up my spine. Nuala didn’t sound suspicious. She sounded confused. Confused people kept talking.
“Don’t know who this Liath person is. Sorry.” I veered around her and hurried on. “I’m late.”
But Nuala fell into step beside me, refusing to let the moment die. “Hang on a minute.”
I needed a cover. A distraction. A way to get her off my back.
Lorcan. Standing by a set of lockers.
I cut sharply in front of him before I could think the decision through.
I regretted it instantly.
His friends went quiet all at once, the shift sharp enough to feel rehearsed. One lad knocked his shoulder into another and grinned. Another bent his head, muttering something low that made the third huff out with a laugh.
All three of them looked me over with the same ugly curiosity.
My cover suddenly had an audience.
“Lorcan. Hey. Hi. I, um…” I scrambled for something plausible. “I wanted to ask you something.”
Lorcan leaned back against his locker and turned to his mates. “See? Told you she’d corner me before lunch.”
One of the boys snorted. Another let out a low whistle. The third gave me a slow once-over and grinned like he’d just won a bet.
Lorcan looked back at me, icy eyes cool with cruel amusement. “What is it now, Rua?”
Embarrassment rushed hot over my face. Every instinct in me screamed to turn around and keep walking, to leave him and his smirking mates to their own bullshite.
But Nuala hovered just behind my shoulder, waiting. I could feel her there like a knife at my back.
It didn’t matter how much of a dick he was being, I needed to keep the conversation with Lorcan going long enough for her to give up.
“I, um, need to borrow your notes for next period,” I said. “Anatomy.”
Lorcan did not answer straightaway. He let the silence sit there between us just long enough for my pulse to climb higher.
“You mean neurobiology.” He let that correction hang, then turned to his friends and added, “Romania clearly didn’t improve her memory.”
Keeping his stare fixed on mine, Lorcan swung open his locker door and pulled out a set of papers covered in elegant script. Of course this asshole had perfect handwriting. He held them out, and a part of me softened. Maybe he wasn’t so bad sometimes.
Then he lifted the notes above my head and let go.
The papers smacked into my hair and cheek before fluttering around me in a slow, useless drift.
“Oops,” he said.
His friends all laughed, the sound scraping over my skin.
Embarrassment and hatred flared hot in my chest, sharp enough to make my grip tighten on my books.
His eyes flicked over my shoulder to where Nuala stood and something sharpened in his eyes. Shit. He understood exactly why I had come to him. I was avoiding her.
Panic hit hard and fast. If Lorcan questioned her, if Nuala said my real name here in front of them, the whole thing was finished.
He closed the gap between us and leaned in close enough that his voice brushed my ear.
“Using me as cover?” he murmured. “You’re making mistakes already.”
Heat prickled up the back of my neck, half panic and half the sick, unwanted awareness of him standing that close.
I had to get the fuck away.
I cut past Lorcan and kept walking, using speed as the only defense I had left.
“Hey, wait up.” Nuala followed, her footsteps quickening behind me as she tried to keep up.
I turned the corner and slipped through the first door, the dimness inside looking quiet enough to hide in.
I pressed my ear to the closed door and stood there listening, holding my breath as her footsteps passed outside.
Thank God.
I turned and sagged against the wood.
Then I froze.
Metal morgue benches were laid out in rows under the gloom, the air sharp with the scent of decay and antiseptic. Glass cases lined the walls filled with preserved human remains floating in jars of yellowed fluid.
Welcome to Ravenwood.