“Fuck, Alex,” he gasps after a second, his hand still frozen where he pins me to the wall. “All this time, you—” He stops himself, and I see the gears turning in his head. He snatches his hand back like my chest is filled with hot pokers. “Oh, shit. Oh shit.”
He can’t bring himself to say the words. You’re a girl.
“It was—” I cough several raking coughs that feel like they tear open the flesh of my throat. I know I don’t owe him an explanation, but it comes tumbling out of my mouth anyway. “It was the only way to get into Bleakwood.”
I gasp for breath again. I barely recognize my own voice.
He turns away from me and clutches his head. “I—I can’t. I almost—”
The way he moves is a new kind of terror. It’s like he’s lost, floating, and at the same time like he’s wrestling with an immeasurable weight that makes it impossible for him to hold his head up straight.
After a moment of pacing, Jasper suddenly bends double and retches.
“FUCK!”
His hands clutch so tight to the roots of his hair that I’m afraid he’s going to start ripping it from his scalp.
I want to run, but my limbs won’t obey my brain. Instead, I sink shakily down to the floor, feeling my consciousness slipping. My throat still rasps as I gasp for air.
Jasper heaves again, spilling the remaining contents of his stomach onto the floor. He turns and looks at me in horror once again with one hand still on his stomach. I’m sure I look a mess. I’m also sure I’m about to die; everything hurts, and my consciousness is waning. I’m seeing spots, but everything else is blurry.
But it’s not too blurry to see the moment that Jasper turns to me one last time before he flees, leaving me choking and alone in the dark classroom.
Like a coward.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Alex. Alex Trevellian?”
Blurry. Spots. Too bright, too dark. Everything hurts.
“Alex!”
I blink stupidly. I can barely remember why I’m here, all I know is that I’m not alone anymore. I’ve been found.
Found by the last person I’d want to find me.
Dean Robin appears in front of me, her outline blurry as light floods in from the open classroom door. Blood flecks the floor around her feet. Or the floor around me, really.
“Alex!” she calls again, her hand slipping beneath my elbow. “So, what do you want to do?”
“What?” My voice is slurred and creaky all at once. I thought she was trying to help me at first, but that’s not what her voice sounds like. She doesn’t sound tender or concerned. In fact, from the tone of her voice, she sounds angry … at me.
The dean seizes me under the armpits and hauls me to my feet. She’s really strong. I can’t stand up on my own, so she props me up. Her eyes scan me with a calculating expression.
There’s no pity on her face. That, even in my bleary state, I still note.
Her lips purse tight together. “This simply will not do, Alex.”
I blink up at her again, my mind finally starting to piece together the events of the last hours. The dance. The look on Jasper’s face. The way his hand snaked around my neck.
Then …
My secret.
The secret I’ve been trying to keep for months now, the same one that drove me away from Dean Robin at the dance.
Straight into Jasper’s waiting arms.