Page 120 of A Liar's Twisted Tongue

Before I stand, I have a dagger in my hand. He punches my wrist just before I throw the blade. I pull out another dagger and swipe upward, from his torso to his neck, but I only nick his shirt.

I go in to stab him and he catches my wrist, twisting it down and around, spinning me until my back is to him and both my hands are in his. I stand on the tips of my toes and smash my head back as hard as I can. I hear a crack, and despite the specks of light filling my vision, I pull myself out of his grasp. His nose is gushing blood and twisted further to the left than it usually is.

I kick him once, twice, but he blocks the third and pulls my leg up, sending me to my back. Then he’s on top of me, straddling my waist with his legs, holding both my arms above my head with only one of his own while his other hand holds a knife to my throat. He leans in closer, and his dark hair dangles over my eyes.

I’m dead.

“Tell me what you did to Lilac,” he whispers.

“Nothing,” I choke against his blade.

He pushes the dagger further into my throat, no doubt drawing blood in the most obvious spot—the hardest place to hide my cauterizing wound.

“I’ll put it this way—tell me, or I’ll tell them.”

“Tell you what?” I spit.

Then he relents, standing up in triumph.

He didn’t kill me. I’m amazed, and I’m worried. What’s next?

“Everyone,” his voice echoes through the room with sheer power. I stand, ignoring the pain rippling through every inch of my body and the blinding white lights filling the room. “Desdemona here has been lying to you all for some time now.” The whole class has their weapons down, all staring at him, waiting for what he has to say. I’m waiting too.

He looks down at me and I look up at him. I scowl. His eyes are on me, but his voice is loud and clear when he says, “She’s from the septic.”

No. How could he know? I want to take his head and hold it under the lake until he no longer breathes. I want to take this dagger and put it through his throat. I want to… I want to…

Everyone is looking. Everyone knows.

I want to run from this room full of spoiled brats staring at me like I’m crazy. But I can’t move my legs. I can’t breathe either. I can’t do anything. Frozen, I am frozen. They all know. Everyone in this room knows who I am now. And everyone out of this room will know who I am soon. They know, they know, they know. They have my weakness when I want theirs.

A hand wraps around the top of my arm, and I am moving down the hall now. My body falls to the cold floor, and I feel like a rag doll. Cold water splashes on my face once. Twice.

“Stop it,” I say to no one in particular. I don’t know who’s doing this.

“You’re burning up, sweetheart.”

It’s Leiholan and his sweetly impersonal voice. He dragged me from the class. He helped me.

I try to focus on him, but the room is fading fast. Yeah, I am burning up. I can’t believe they know who I am. I can’t believe he knew who I was this whole time. Thinking about their faces, thinking about his face, staring down at me while he told the world that I’m septic, takes the air from my lungs. The composure from my being.

What else does he know?

“You can calm down,” Leiholan says, his voice soft, and I listen to him, suddenly unsure as to why I was getting so worked up in the first place.

Then I realize what he did.

“Don’t use that shit on me,” I huff and throw my weak fist up at him as hard as I can manage. He catches it with ease. Nepenthe and their ability to soothe their prey. At least he won’t use it just to kill me, like so many of the others.

I think.

“It was that or let you burn down the building,” he says casually and sits next to me, patting my knee like I’m a child.

I turn to face him. “Why did you help me?”

“Been in your shoes.” He tries to smile at me, at least I think he does, because it falls severely flat. Then he whispers, “You’re not doing a very good job at being likable.”

“Yeah, well, no one was gonna like me anyways,” I grumble.

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