Isaiah threw his head back and let out a loud laugh that had a flock of birds flying off an icy tree. His hoarse yell of Gemma’s name had the hair on the back of my neck sticking up. “Gemma!” I wasn’t sure if she turned around, or if Journey was staring at me, because I was too focused on Bain and how his beetle-like eyes were on my girl. “I love you!”
There was a cluster of girly laughter, and my nostrils flared as Bain kept his hands in his hoodie pocket with his beanie-covered head leaning against the fenced area of the bleachers.
“Isaiah.” His name was calm coming from my mouth, but I was raging on the inside. Burning with anger and uncertainties.
“What?” It didn’t take Isaiah long to follow my gaze, but when he did, he sighed loudly. “What is it? Has he done something?”
I turned to Isaiah after I watched Journey and her friends disappear into the side of St. Mary’s to likely head to their rooms. “She didn’t try to kill herself.”
My heart caught on fire, burning a hole straight through my chest and landing on the snowy field. Isaiah’s dark brows lowered beneath his black beanie. “What? Did she tell you that?”
“Not exactly,” I answered, and I knew I didn’t need to explain. We had a way of finding shit out one way or another.
Bain was still sitting up on the top bleacher, looking down at his phone, fully submerged in it now that Journey had gone inside. I tore my gaze away, walking with Isaiah toward the courtyard to get to Tate’s office.
“So, someone attacked her?”
“You don’t seem surprised,” I grit out, watching my shoes tread over the thickening snow. “Did you fucking know?”
“I would have told you if I knew anything concrete.”
“So, what?” I asked, moving in front of him. “You just assumed? Even after you told me to let it go all those months ago?” My heart was pounding, racing like it was trying to crawl right up my throat and choke my best friend for his betrayal.
Isaiah’s grinding jaw was all I could see as he glanced toward the courtyard. “I hated seeing you so fucked up over something that we had no control over. But I had always suspected Bain in every problem that arose in this school.” He turned back toward me. “We all did.”
“If he fucking touched her, I will kill him.”
Isaiah nodded. “I’ve been there before, too. In fact, I pointed a goddamn gun at his head. Remember that?”
As if I could forget.Bain had been our enemy from day one—his father, Callum, being the biggest rival of ours. We were tasked with the job of following Bain’s every movement, and when he’d fucked Isaiah over in the worst way possible, I thought I was going to have to hide his body. He managed to squeak by in the end, helping get Gemma back to Isaiah, but he had his eyes on Journey, and that put him right back at the top of my shitlist.
“Come on.” Isaiah nudged my shoulder, and we began walking to the front of St. Mary’s with my blood pressure quickly rising. My mind was reeling with too many negative thoughts of Bain, putting him right there in the center, circling around Journey.
“It could have been him,” I said, walking up the steps to the school. “We weren’t as cautious with him back then. Things hadn’t picked up with your father’s paranoia yet.”
Isaiah nodded. “You’re right, but…”
I slammed the door shut just as he’d opened it. I was certain the headmaster would come see what was going on in a few minutes. “But what?”
Isaiah’s jaw shifted again. I could hear his teeth clamoring together. “I found pictures of Journey in Bain’s room back when I was searching for shit for my dad.”
The white snow that surrounded us began to melt with my anger, but before I could fully explode, Isaiah put a pin in it.
“There were pictures of Gemma, and later, he took pictures of her and I together, which he gave to Richard.” His eyes flicked to mine with an intensity that we both suddenly shared. I remember. “But there were pictures of Journey, too. And of Ms. Glenburg.”
My hand trembled with anger on the door to St. Mary’s, and blood rushed to my fingertips. Fast puffs of air left my chest, and I was seconds from turning around to find him, but Isaiah snapped his fingers in front of my face. “I’m not done.”
“There’s more?” I choked out, moving past the fact that he had kept this from me. I would deal with that later.
“They weren’t sexual.” He glanced away, still seeming troubled by this. “They were just…almost like he was spying on her? Kind of like with Gemma at one point. I don’t know. There were none of the two of you. Only of her. There were other pictures in there, of Ms. Glenburg, that were borderline pornographic. But of Journey? They were just…normal.”
“There is nothing fucking normal about him secretly taking photos of her.” The tone that came from my mouth sounded just like my father’s. Calm, collected, and psychotic.
“Boys.” My hand fell when the heavy door propped open, allowing a gust of warm air to hit us. “Get in here.”
Isaiah and I walked through the door together, and I shot him a look that said, This isn’t fucking over, to which he shot me a look right back that said, Obviously. When my anger subdued later on, I would better understand whyhe didn’t inform me of the photos. When Journey was gone, I bristled at her name on anyone’s lips. Anger and remorse would fill me to capacity, and I would have to start the climb all over again to find my way out of the deepest, darkest hole, but fuck. Right now? I was agitated, and my muscles throbbed with fury.
As soon as the headmaster shut his office door, Isaiah sat lazily in the chair in front of his desk, kicking his long legs out and placing his hands behind his head. I stood back by the bookshelf, picturing Journey’s bare leg propped on the edge and remembering the brief second I’d had my hand on her thigh.