Page 6 of Soulless Saint

It was a miracle I was alive at all after being shot in the chest at close range. I wasn’t about to waste this second chance at life doing absofuckinglutely anything I didn’t want to do. And if that meant living the broke girl life, then so be it. I’d loved art since I was old enough to soak my stubby fingers in plastic paint cups, smearing rainbows over the white-washed walls.

This scholarship to CalArts was the opportunity of a lifetime, and if I didn’t at least try to take it, then I was an idiot.

Oh so cliché, but it was true: money couldn’t buy happiness. I was living proof. I still went looking for it in all the wrong places… which was what got me a backstage pass behind the dark curtain of Thorn Valley in the first place. Once I’d seen it, I couldn’t unsee it, but that wasn’t why I stayed.

She was.

My lethal bestie, Ava Jade. She needed me, and I wasn’t the sort of bitch who left a friend in the dirt. Not anymore.

“Excuse me,” I muttered as the bus rolled to a stop and the other students on board shuffled forward, jostling everyone in their path. I followed in their wake, stumbling from the step down to the sidewalk.

I righted my footing, taking a long breath of fresh air, closing my eyes at the feel of warm sun on my cheeks.

“Watch it,” a growl sounded behind me before a body knocked into my shoulder, shoving me out of the way while the bus drove off.

I lifted my purse back onto my shoulder, a hot coil of rage shooting up my spine, leaving me wishing for one of Ava Jade’s blades as I watched the woman who almost knocked me over storm away.

I shook my head.

Coffee. I really needed a fucking coffee before I attempted murder.

My heeled boots clacked against the smooth sidewalk as I lifted a hand to shield my eyes against the sun, getting my bearings.

I rushed through here yesterday on my way to the administrative office at CalArts, but I was only really seeing it for the first time. The strip of shops and bars where I stood lay stretched out in the middle of a wide green space. Far off, over the rooftops of the shops to the left, Kilborn University stood proudly, with its stately columns and reaching spires. A marvel of red brick and Grecian inspiration that could give Harvard a run for its money.

To my left, in the distance, down a winding path through the gardens rested CalArts. Modern, done up in all white with warm brown wood accents.

The two universities shared this common green and the shops between them.

My stomach growled and I cleared my throat to conceal the sound, an old habit I’d never completely managed to break.

“Sorry,” I sighed, moving out of the way of a group of women linked arm in arm as they strode down the street. The smell of cloying gardenia perfume and… was that coffee?… clung to them as they passed.

I whipped my head around, searching the windows of the shops the way they’d just come, my mouth already watering. A few shops down, a black door burst open and the few students who’d been walking past scattered, hurrying to get out of the way.

Wary, I paused, scanning the street for danger as my pulse pounded in my throat.

A tall man in a leather jacket exited the building, dragging another man with him. I spotted the idling Ford Bronco on the street right outside and noticed that not a soul came anywhere near the two men as one dragged the other to the modded vehicle.

The top was removed and a light bar clung to the underside of the brush bar on the front grill. Wide-eyed spotlights perched above the windshield on the roll bar. It looked like a beach wagon and backcountry hunting truck had a shockingly attractive baby.

The guy in the leather jacket unceremoniously tossed the half-dead one over the side of the Bronco into the back seat, earning himself a slur of curses.

That’s when it hit me, the smell of stale liquor and cherry cigars. My nose wrinkled as the nondescript black door shut with a metallic clatter.

The man in the leather jacket rolled his shoulders back, twisting his neck this way and that as he pushed inky hair back from his face with tattooed fingers.

He snorted loudly before turning to spit into the street, giving me a full view of his face.

He was paler than a man living in SoCal ought to be, but it didn’t take away from his cruel beauty. I swallowed, following the long line of his tatted neck up to a sculpted jawline, black brows, one with a tattoo arching over it in sharp script I couldn’t read from this far away.

Turn around, I chastised myself, every alarm bell in my body ringing. Just turn around. Walk away.

I shuffled a foot back, but before I could spin on my heel, his head whipped around, piercing dark eyes meeting mine. A muscle in his jaw ticked as he took me in, upper lip curling with something like disdain as he drank up every inch of me. Those black eyes holding me hostage until he was finished.

The instant he looked away, I felt my body sag, catching myself on the rough wood of a light post. Old staples dug into my palm.

Dark and gloomy gripped the top bar of the Bronco and launched himself over the side like he wasn’t hiding two hundred pounds of pure muscle under the dark jeans and jacket he wore.

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