“I’m not sure how you expect Sebastian to heal in an environment that continues to hurt him.”
“I’ll mention again that it was Sebastian’s idea to return.”
I stared into his cold, flippant eyes and wondered how true that was.
So much of Sebastian’s story was laid out across my desk, but enough of it was redacted that the truth remained a puzzle. I wondered how he’d have written his own version if someone had bothered to hand him a pen.
“I apologize, Mr. Hayes. I didn’t mean to take up the entirety of your time with Sebastian. I do hope you’re able to help him.”
He flashed me another one of those plastic smiles before clapping me on the shoulder and walking away. His shoes clicked against the wooden floor, and I stayed where I was until the sound faded into nothing.
My hand shook as it reached for the handle. It unlatched with a soft sound, and I stepped back into my office. Sebastian didn’t appear to havebreathedlet alone moved.
He remained stoic, curled up tight on that sofa, arms protecting his body as though he expected the weight of the world to come crashing down on him.
My gut clenched, chest aching with an unfamiliar intensity. Instincts that previously lay dormant had roared to life, and I felt this rapid urge to guard him from the threats I was certain lay ahead.
“He needs you.”
The voice came out of nowhere, tickling the inner edges of my ear as it whispered. The words were an echo that bounced around my head.
It was a premonition—one I wouldn’t ignore.
CHAPTERFOUR
SEBASTIAN
Ridgemont bred experts of aloofness—artists of fake smiles and professional pretenders.
I liked to think of them as apathy masks, flat features and lifeless eyes they wore against their skin to make it past each minute of the day. It wasn’t until the skies darkened, and the fog was thick enough to hide the truth, that those masks slipped away, revealing the monster that lay beneath.
The switch was seamless—a non-negotiable midday vs midnight psyche change that even the teachers went through.
It was almost crucial for surviving this place and all the reasons you were sent here. The split was painless—a smooth, even cut down your middle the second those gates latched shut behind you.
I’d always been more midday than midnight, worried that the fog would piece me into something that looked a little too much like my father.
Since Foster’s death, I felt my fear wrestle against my anger, and I wondered what midnight would look like etched throughout my fine features.
“Sebastian!”
I froze.
Cruelty laced the sound of his voice, echoing off the brick walls and syncopating with my exhales as they left my chest in stilted breaths.
The bodies that swarmed me stopped with the initial boom but quickly restarted, moving through the foyer with a purpose I couldn’t seem to find.
“Sebastian.”
His voice was at my back now, close enough that I could nearly feel his sticky breath coat the sides of my neck. It slipped down the ridges of my spine in a way that made my muscles quake. The bruises across my torso throbbed, and I wrapped my arms around them, pressing my thumbs into the most tender spots. The dull ache of pain was a reminder not to piss him off, and I took a breath to steady myself before pivoting to face him.
His hand shot out, and I felt the blunt heads of the rings he wore dig into my scalp when he tangled his fingers in the hood of my sweatshirt and yanked it off my head with a force that had my neck snapping backward.
Tears sprung to the corners of my eyes, but like all the other times he’d hurt me, I made not a single sound.
I didn’t even flinch.
“Wearing that hood will not hide you from your peers, Sebastian. It only feeds into the rumors.”