“Yeah, I know. I’m getting that a lot. Have you seen Skye?”
“Skye?”
“You know, Skye Carver, this tall, brown hair, bright, cute, sweet.” He didn’t know why he used the word “sweet” to describe her.
“I’ve been advised that you two are to be kept apart. It’s not exactly difficult. Before your … incident, you weren’t in many of the same classes anyway, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”
“No, wait. You don’t have to do that. I mean it. Seriously, why is everyone so intent on keeping me and Skye apart? I don’t get it. We’ve done nothing wrong. We were there for each other, and you’re treating it as some kind of punishment.”
“No, of course not. This is not a punishment at all. We just think—”
“We?”
“Both of your parents came in to see me. You and Skye have been very … quiet about what happened. We know from what we’ve been made aware of, it wasn’t a good experience.”
“Our incident was a kidnapping, Howdes. We didn’t have any incident.”
“Again, I appreciate that, but this is what is being asked of me, of all of us. We think you both need a clean start. She will no longer be tutoring you. Skye has also been moved from your science class and has a few rearrangements made to her schedule, but she will be fine with it.”
“Wait, why have you rearranged her and not me?”
“We didn’t feel it was necessary for you.”
His anger was starting to build. They were throwing him into a cage, and they didn’t even see it. If they did, they didn’t care. He was starting to get really fucking annoyed. All he wanted to do was to talk to Skye. Why couldn’t they see that? He wasn’t a monster. He’d never fucking hurt her, and right now, they were treating him as if he’d hurt her at the first opportunity. Skye had been right by his side through everything, and he wasn’t going to turn his back on her.
“This is something I’ve spoken about to your parents. We’ve been looking for a counselor, one you and Skye could use to talk through your problems.”
“No.”
“Noah, you haven’t given it a chance.”
“I’m never giving it a chance because it’s fucking pointless. All of this is fucking pointless.”
“Noah?”
“No, I’ll just head to class. Thank you for your time.”
Getting to his feet, he walked out of the room and went straight to the toilets. No one was in there, and as he gripped the edge of the sink, he shut his eyes. Blood pounded behind his temples, and he felt his rage begin to build. Being kidnapped, fighting for his life and for Skye’s, he’d done a lot of bad things, and it had been easy to do. Murder was such a dirty word, and yet, in self-defense, it wasn’t so dirty.
He and Skye had faced so much together, and now they were being torn apart by their own fucking parents. He was finding it a lot harder to be away from her and he wondered if she felt the same for him? Did she miss being with him?
How was she?
He had so many questions and no outlet for them. Just a place deep inside himself that he couldn’t allow to answer. On the outside, everything was okay. But he was starting to lose it every passing day that they kept on ignoring his requests.
Lifting his head, he stared into the mirror.
He didn’t see his reflection.
He saw everything he was forced to do and even heard Skye’s scream as she was being hurt. Held down, forced to take him, otherwise they were going to hurt her. Mitch had hurt her as well, taken her against her will and laughed as he did.
Turning on the tap, he saw the men lined up, ready to fuck her. The men they’d had to kill for sport, for the amusement of others. Then of course, he saw the man that was raped for trying to escape, before it was Noah’s turn.
Each memory was blistering and burning inside his head. All of this was his and Skye’s little secret.
He hadn’t told a soul, and he never would. Splashing water on his face. He tried his best to clear the darkness from his mind. If Skye didn’t want to see him, he could handle that. Being kept away from her because their parents thought it was in his best interest, well that fucking irritated him more than anything else in the world.
They didn’t have a right to keep him from her. The only person he’d listen to was Skye. If she asked him to stay away, he would.