Page 22 of Dark Embers

No! Not going there.It hurt too much to think about.

Knock, knock, knock.

I popped my head up off my pillow, holding my breath as I deliberated over who it might be and whether or not I was going to answer it. I didn’t want to talk to anyone right now, but if itwas Caesar or Celeste, I didn’t want to snub them. Then again, it was too late for either of them to come calling.

It could be Ashlyn. She’d loaned me this dress and probably wanted to know how the date had gone. A topic I had no energy to discuss at the moment. And if that were the case, she would’ve just texted me.

What if it was Tobias? Maybe he’d come back to apologize for being a wishy-washy asshole. I seriously believed he had too much pride for that, and while I deserved a bit of groveling from him, I was too angry and wounded to hear any of it tonight.

Actually, it might feel good to yell at him some more. Just the thought had my muscles tensing and clenching all through my body.

Finally, I rolled off my bed and opened the door, prepared for any outcome.

Kendall stood in the hallway with his hands in his pockets. Okay, maybe I hadn’t been prepared for that.

Did he know I’d gone out with Tobias? If he was here to give me shit about it, I was more than happy to unleash the yelling I’d reserved for Tobias.

But the hesitant, burdened look on his handsome face disarmed me, taming the raging beast inside me that only a moment ago was ready to bite his head off.

“What’s up?” I asked, though, at this point, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

“Celeste wanted me to give you a message earlier, but you were out,” he said with a shrug.

“Oh.” That caught me off guard, and now guilt coiled in my belly. I worked to remove the bitch scowl from my face and adopted a neutral expression instead.“What’s the message?”

He pursed his lips in a decidedly awkward gesture, making me feel as apprehensive as he looked.

“Celeste won’t be able to tutor you privately anymore due to some new business that has come up, so she’s assigned another mer student to tutor you instead.”

From the tone of his voice, this didn’t sound like good news. And it sure as hell didn’t sound like it was him who was assigned the task.

I took in a bracing breath. “Who’s going to be tutoring me?”

His shoulders stiffened at the top of a shrug, and he grimaced as he replied, “Letti.”

Every ounce of composure I’d struggled to maintain flew out the window.

“What? No! Why?” I yelled, throwing my hands up.

Kendall squinted at the volume of my voice, then looked both ways down the hall before reaching for my arms and ushering me backward into my room. He closed the door and turned back to me with his hands raised in submission.

“Hey, don’t shoot the messenger,” he said with an attempted playful tone that fell short.

“Ican’tbe tutored by that evil bitch!” I hissed, outrage rushing through my veins like searing venom. “You don’t know what she did to me.”

A crease sliced down his forehead, his eyes narrowing in concern. “What do you mean? What did she do?”

I was so livid I no longer cared about keeping their prank a secret. After everything that went down today, this was the rotten cherry on top, and I was all out of fucks to give.

“She, Adina, and Cora trapped me in the Simulation Room last night,” I said through bared teeth.

“They didwhat?” he exclaimed, anxiety paling his complexion.

“Yeah. I almost fucking died! And I would have if Tobias hadn’t shown up.”

He raked his hands through his sandy brown hair, examining me up and down for a moment with worry in his eyes. “Shit. Did you tell Caesar?”

I folded my arms against myself and shook my head. “No. I amnotgoing to add ‘snitch’ to the list of reasons for the rest of the mer to hate me.”

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