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Journey

Claimingparties used to be a type of high for a girl like me. Someone who was timid and shy. Someone who didn’t like to put themselves out there to avoid being hurt or let down. I lovedthe idea of no one knowing who you were. When the lights went out, a blanket of darkness covered the room, and you mysteriously turned into whomever you wanted.

The feeling of someone’s hands on you who had no true idea of knowing who you were was intoxicating. The letting go and allowing all your inhibitions to disappear, if only for a moment. I loved it.

The first time a pair of large, rough hands found their way to my waist, a rebellious thrill rushed through my body, followed by a million little butterflies. His lips found my neck, and my pulse thundered behind my skin. I didn’t know it was Cade the first time, but I had hoped. I didn’t know it was Cade the second time, either. But by the third time, I knew. I caught him watching me from across the party, with his hands in his pockets and his tongue dipping out to wet his bottom lip. It was as if my body knew it was him. A burn so hot swooped low in my belly, and I grew uneasy on my feet. Right before those lights went out, Cade winked at me, and the next thing I knew, we were in our rightful spot, tucked away in a corner, with his hands caressing my curves and his teeth tugging at my ear.

But now, claiming parties only reminded me of what I never truly had in the first place. Cade’s words were always so pretty—and believable, too. I even let myself believe him when he had his hand between my legs just a few days ago, but I wasn’t as gullible as I had been last spring. Spring turned to summer, summer turned to fall, and here we were, in winter, with the lock on my heart frozen shut. Cade Walker is not allowed in.

“Bye, Mom.” Sloane hung up her phone rather aggressively before throwing it onto her bed as she stood in the middle of her room nearly naked. Her chest filled with air as she shakily let it out before turning around and staring at me, Gemma, and Mercedes.

“You okay?” Gemma asked, putting light-pink lipstick on.

I turned away as Sloane peeked over at me, knowing that she was likely about to skim over her own issues like before. Sloane was a closed book—always had been.

Sloane’s light laugh filled the dorm room. “Why do you even bother?”

“What?”

“Isaiah is going to have that lipstick off in literal seconds, Gem. What’s the point?”

Mercedes laughed, and I forced a smile, ignoring the siphoned anxiety that was filling me from going over my plans for the night. Cade continued to poke at the outside of my brain, trying to weasel himself in there with his scorching gaze and straight jaw, but I blocked him out, slipping into the Journey that ruled the halls of the psych hospital to save herself.

I was doing the same thing here—trying to save myself from another meet-cute with a knife.

“I like to look good,” Gemma said, running her hands through her hair. “Richard never let me do anything for myself, so I’m trying to fight against that and do whatever the hell I want.”

“Fuck yeah,” Sloane said through a smile. “I like it when you’re a little badass.”

I shot my gaze down to Gemma’s outfit and lingered on her bare wrists, realizing that I had only seen them once before, in the Covens, when she was placed there for a brief time. Her left hand rubbed against the pink skin, almost as if she were nervous, and I latched onto her in that instant because I understood. I understood her in ways that I could never explain.

“Isaiah wants me to show my wrists tonight,” she whispered, glancing down at her nervous fingers moving against the fresh marks. “He said it was up to me, but he said it could be good to show them off and be proud that I survived.” She looked over her shoulder at Sloane and Mercedes with a show of emotion in her green eyes. Then, she sliced her attention to me and smiled. “You know, when I first met you, I was envious.”

“Envious? Of me?” I crossed my arms over my tight tank hidden beneath my usual leather jacket.

“Yeah,” she answered, tucking her hair behind her ears. “Not because you could walk freely in that place, because even if you were moving around the halls late at night, I know now that you weren’t free.”

A swallow found itself lodged in my throat as my heart skipped a beat. That night was trying to break through, just like Cade was, and I wasn’t going to let it. Although, I knew here, in just a few hours, I would be reliving that same night all over again.

Gemma snagged my attention back to her as she took a step forward. “It was because you weren’t shy about those scars on your arms. I remember thinking how amazing it would be to be proud of something like that...to not give a shit what anyone thinks or assumes.”

A shaky breath was summoned from my mouth with the truth following closely behind it. “I’m not proud.”

“You should be,” Sloane said, still standing in the same spot. She knew. Sloane knew the truth. Well, part of it. I wasn’t sure if she believed me when I told her that I didn’t create the scars on my arms myself. I hoped she did, though, for a reason that was buried deep below the surface.

“We’re survivors, Journey. And I don’t know you that well, but I have to say, I’m glad you’re alive.”

Why did that make my heart dip? I cleared my throat and glanced down at the fuzzy rug beneath my boots. With my heart pounding in my ears, I shrugged my jacket off my shoulders so slowly that the cool leather chilled my skin. It dropped to the floor in a quick whirl, and when I looked back at the three girls who were continuing to include me in their newfound trio, something clicked.

I shrugged, allowing a small amount of warmth to fall into place. “Since everyone is so curious at this school anyway, I guess I’ll show them that the rumor of having Cade’s baby is incorrect and that I have the scars to match my suicide attempt.”

Sloane nodded proudly at me, and together, we all headed straight to the claiming.

The claiming wasin full swing, and I was beginning to think that our allotted time to walk the halls purposefully made us the last to show up because everyone was already half-buzzed as their heads lazily turned to us when we walked through the door.

I bit my tongue when I snagged onto Cade first. A wicked string of curse words flirted through as I allowed a surge of hot lust to fly through my veins when his brooding eyes ran down my legs and back. He didn’t even stop to look at my bare arms like everyone else in the room. Instead, his eyes latched onto mine, and the tick in his jaw sent a shiver down my spine.

“Hmm,” Sloane whispered from in between Mercedes and Gemma. “Looks like someone is pissy that you’re looking all hot and shit.”


Tags: S.J. Sylvis Romance