He hasn’t left campus yet, and he drives slowly down the main road that winds through it, pointing at the grand building ahead of us. It’s all dark stone, with a Gothic-style tower and bell, heavy iron-banded door, and broad stone steps leading up to it. “See that? Archer Hall. Where graduations are held, concerts, plays. The epicenter of campus.”
“I thought that was the library. Or maybe the cafeteria.”
Dean ignores my sarcasm. “See that statue? That’s my great-great-great-grandfather. The library is named after him. The Sawyer building, for Sawyer Blackmoor.”
“Am I supposed to be impressed?”
“No, Athena, you’re supposed to pay attention.” He turns off campus then, pulling onto the main road that will take us through the downtown part of Blackmoor, towards the rocky New England shore.
The town is quaint in a Salem, bed-and-breakfast, quiet escape, aesthetic kind of way. The houses are colonial, the businesses stone or brick or clapboard, the roofs gabled against the snow that comes in the wintertime. Right now, it’s bright and sunny out, and as we drive through town, I can see plenty of tourists walking around with their coffees and children, and pets.
I wonder what they, or any of the residents of Blackmoor, would think if they knew about the little game that’s being played. Would they storm the manor house with pitchforks and torches, demanding that the princess in the tower—that’s me—be set free? Or would they just shrug and go about their lives, either not believing it or figuring that if things are fine now with the way it’s been, it might as well go on being that way?
I suspect it’s the latter. Which makes me feel more than ever that aside from Mia, I’m on my own. If I don’t want to be a pawn in this sick game, it’s going to have to be me who finds my own way out.
“That pharmacy right there?” Dean points it out. “My great-great-great-uncle ran the original version of it with his wife. And that bookshop? Her cousin started it. The pub—”
“His third cousin twice removed tended bar?” I roll my eyes. “I get it, Dean, your family, is influential here. That’s nothing I didn’t know. What’s the point of this history lesson? Because it’s more boring than my Western Civ professor’s lectures.”
A small muscle in Dean’s jaw leaps as if he’s trying to hold back his growing irritation. “My family isn’t just influential, Athena. They built all of this. My family, not the St. Vincents, not the Kings. They helped, sure. They brought their own manpower, money, and families and stood by Richard Blackmoor’s side when he started this town. But they didn’t originate the idea, they didn’t build all of this, they didn’t found it when it was nothing but a few stone buildings and a dream. My family did. All of this is my birthright, Athena. And you’re the metaphorical sacrifice that will keep this town going for another generation, this time under the rightful leadership.”
I don’t say anything. I don’t know what the fuck to say to that because it’s all so incredibly archaic and ridiculous—a town passed around a group of families based on some patriarchal bullshit bloodline, all of it made possible by the sacrifice of a girl…metaphorically speaking, of course.
But isn’t that how it always is?I think bitterly as I sink down in the seat, watching the town pass by as we keep driving. Women are always sacrificed for men’s advancement, and they always have been. Sometimes literally, sometimes metaphorically, sometimes just because we make the mistake of loving the wrong men, of wanting the wrong ones.
I’m not going to make that mistake,I tell myself. It doesn’t matter if Dean can make me come with his tongue faster than anyone else or if Cayde shoving me up against various walls makes me wetter than I’d ever thought it could or if my heart secretly yearns for Jaxon, if only because he’s the only one who doesn’t seem to want me and yet the only one who feels familiar. I’m not going to let them control me. I’m not going to let them own me.
I’m going to be the one to ruin them.