“Meaning?”
“Do you five not want me to know you? Do we stay in this cycle of sex and punishment until you grow tired of me, and Legend takes his turn to pick the new girlfriend?” The words tumbled out one after the other—too fast for me to stop. “Am I supposed to be kept at arm's length, falling for men who won’t tell me anything about their lives, families, plans, or dreams? Is that my punishment, Jacques?”
His expression didn’t change during my speech. “No, de Souza.” His voice was low. “That is not your punishment.”
“So, one day, I’ll know everything.” I wasn’t sure if I was asking him or telling him. “About you, how you guys came together to do what, who gave Arsenio a job like Axel Verlice, and the secret this town is hiding that you’d kill to protect.”
Never let it be said I had Jacques Stone figured out.
Holding my gaze, he tipped his chin. “One day, you will.”
I loosened my grip on the spoon. “Okay, then... I can wait.”
We were quiet while I filled the kettle and set it to boil. There was likely more I could’ve, should have, said after finally receiving my answer. My guys weren’t counting the days till they got bored of me and put me out on my ass. Soon, we’d share everything and I’d know all about them. Their lives. Their hearts. Their secrets.
Mine.
I finished making breakfast. The guys were all down by that time, their search for bugs and booby traps over. They ate with caveman grunts, saying it was good. Jacques finished his bowl. That done, my last guy to feed was Cairo. He waited upstairs for me in the bath.
We took off for class and went our separate ways in front of my lecture hall. I went in, sat down, set my pack at my feet, and took out my things with a single thought plaguing my mind. Why didn’t Jeremy and the Crows try something?
The scuffle with Cairo didn’t count because they both walked away from that. I heard the rage in his voice after Roan made him give up his phone. Who knew the thoughts going through his head, but I’d bet my life it wasn’t to shake hands and cool off.
What are you going to do, Jeremy?
One side struck and the other rebounded. Back and forth they went till the Crows nearly wrestled control away from the guys, and the guys wrested their respect in retaliation. By my counting, both sides were even. They could sit on opposite ends of the aisle and wait for Bedlamites to decide where their loyalties lie.
But even as the thought passed through my head, I dismissed it. Neither side was going down that easily. That’s why you don’t put two alphas in the same pen.
“Hey, Rainey.”
I snapped out of my reverie. Nelson smiled as he grabbed a seat next to me. He had a forehead riddled with acne scars and a black eye I was certain came with a story, but there was nothing to say against that bright, winning smile. “Did you get the notes from last class? Mind if I copy?”
“Not at all.” I passed over my binder. “Go for it.”
“Thanks.”
I secretly thanked him for pulling my head out of those thoughts of Bedlam Boy versus Crow. It yanked me up and deposited me on the correct mental track: the Letter Man.
There was nothing sinister on the face about Cavendish volunteering for a mentor program. I assumed a fair amount of sociopaths filled their lives with good works, so no one would suspect inside they were empty. Who knew if he turned the kid he worked with, or how I’d prove he did, but either way, I was going to find Blake Jensen.
Or maybe who I was looking for was Dante. A shadowed figure behind a letter. A shadow voice behind a microphone. There was a certain symmetry in the name who patrolled this town for a hundred years, shedding light on its secrets, was also the dark counterpart making us pay the price for our sins.
Then there were the cigarettes. I didn’t smoke, so they all just looked like crushed trash on the sidewalk. Only the cops would be able to tell if there was something special about them, and I’d have to rely on Cairo to pass on that information since I would go nowhere near Sheriff Sharpe. Still, I knew without a doubt he was watching me.
My gaze swept the bald, spiky, red, blonde, and raven-haired heads in front of me.
Somewhere on this campus, he was sitting in class, fetching research for a professor, running a field, or studying in the library. The image I built up in my head refined by meeting Cavendish, then it changed further with the truth he blended in the Homer Green mob. All I needed was to match the picture to someone looking at me too long, standing a little too near, crossing my path more than was coincidental.