“Who’s Aubrey and why?”
I shrugged, unable to meet his blue eyes. Tobias was probably the only person I fully trusted at this school, but I still didn’t want to open up the locked box of unwanted feelings buried deep in my belly. There were some things I just didn’t want to talk about, and Aubrey was one. I felt stupid for feeling jealous—and maybe a bit immature. I’d been through too much over the last year to let myself get worked up over a catty girl who wanted what I had once had.
“She’s just some girl that apparently isn’t happy I’m back.”
I didn’t even have to look up at Tobias to see the confusion on his face.
“I guess she and Cade were kind of a thing while I was…away. I don’t really know.”
A loud, angry heave of breath floated across the aisle and hit me in the face. I peeked up and saw Tobias’ face was relaxed and calm, which usually meant he was brewing on the inside. He was difficult to read, but I’d seen him angry before. “Have you found anything out?”
Subject change, thank you.
Shaking my head, I tucked a piece of hair behind my ear, fully closed my book, and pressed harder into the shelf behind me. “No, but even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”
“Why?”
“Because…” I started, knowing it was getting close to curfew. I began to sit up, straightening my skirt over my thighs. “You got out of that place. It’s time for you to heal, and I’m not going to weigh you down with my shit.”
Tobias stood up beside me and plucked the book out of my hand. His back was to me as he flipped around and pushed it onto the shelf—in the wrong spot—and then said over his shoulder, “I live for death, Journey. Someone tried to kill you, and you think I’m going to let that go?”
My heart clunked to the floor, and my fingers began to get shaky. I glanced over my shoulder and down both ends of the dark aisle. “It wasn’t him,” I whispered, looking up at Tobias’ stoic expression.
He nodded once, trusting my admission.
“He thought I did it to myself.”
Tobias dropped his gaze to my arms. “Along with everyone else. Keep me updated, Scar.”
I smiled at his nickname for me—the name he’d used before I divulged my real name to him one darkened night when I was prowling the halls of that creepy hospital full of too many secrets. Tobias didn’t reciprocate the smile—he never did—and left me in the aisle with my arms wrapped around my middle to hold myself up.
My legs were stuck as I ran my gaze down the spines of each book, trying to calm my erratic breathing from bringing up the one trauma that I wasn’t healed from. Someone tried to kill me. It was still so strange to think, let alone verbalize. And there was a quiet inkling that was nestled in the back of my mind, like a faded memory that I couldn’t quite bring to life, that told me whoever tried to kill me did it for a reason that I wasn’t fully aware of. Like something from my past. Something with my parents? Something that had to do with why I was abandoned when I had barely even taken my first breath? That was why I had to start uncovering things that were likely hidden for a reason.
“That’s why you were afraid of me?”
A yelp got stuck in my throat as I spun around quickly, almost flinging myself onto the bookshelf behind me. Cade’s hand was quick to wrap itself around my lower back, keeping me from banging into it, and my throat closed with the impact. Flutters started low in my belly as my heart picked itself up off the floor, and I found myself staring up at him with surprise.
“Wh..wha..what?” Get it together, Journey.
Cade’s nostrils flared like a dragon seconds from burning down the world. His warm eyes were hardened as his hand stayed pressed firmly against the small of my back. My covered arm was jerked in between us with his large hand, and I gasped, looking down at my sleeve as he pushed it up higher and higher. The pad of his finger slowly brushed over the raised skin, and the feeling of guilt surrendered to his touch. My breathing picked up, and to anyone else, they’d think I was afraid, but I wasn’t.
The fact that he now knew the truth—some of it—was liberating, and suddenly, I felt very alive.
“Someone fucking did this to you?”
Thump. Thump. Thump. My heart was pounding so hard my ribs ached. When I slowly swung my gaze from his hand gripping my elbow to the look of disbelief against his features, I stayed quiet. I didn’t trust myself to speak. I didn’t even trust myself to move. My heart was shouting at me to rip my arm away and retire to my room, but my body was burning and twisting, and my feet were glued to the floor.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
The craving and hunger were there, hidden behind guilt and betrayal. I swallowed past the tightness in my throat as Cade stood eerily still in front of me, still touching me in places that shouldn’t have made my knees shake.
“Answer me,” he gritted, the hand on my elbow tightening.
I jumped at the sound of an authoritative voice echoing down the long aisle. “Library is closing, and it’s almost curfew.” It was Mrs. Groves, the librarian who looked like she was near the brink of death. I slid out from Cade’s grip, shaking myself out of whatever it was that had just presented itself, and hurried toward her.
“Sorry,” I muttered, walking past with Cade still standing in the same spot. I didn’t wait around for him to follow me to ask me more questions. I basically ran down the hall, passing by Sloane and Gemma’s room, whose door was wide open with Isaiah lounging on Gemma’s bed, and slammed my door shut before slumping to the hard floor and placing my head in my hands.
Cade had been listening to my conversation with Tobias, which was a total invasion of my privacy, but instead of feeling angry, I felt ashamed. Now, it was all out there in the open—from being attacked and kept in a psych ward to the dirty details of how I had found my way out.