Page 48 of The Pawn

Something cool and scaled.

I shudder as I wrap my fingers around it and pull it out, adrenaline coursing through me.

Cole put a snake in my bag.

Chapter 24

"How'd you get here?" I coo at the snake as it crawls rapidly up my arm, green scales glinting.

"Oh my god!" The girl at the cubby to the left of me stumbles back so fast she nearly drops her Prada bag. "It's a snake!"

"Don't worry," I reassure her, "it's just a garden snake." Looking over at Cole, I add, "It's harmless, and not at all frightening."

His jaw clenches, fingers curling up towards his palms. We lock eyes for a long moment, and I find myself thrown back into what happened at the rock climbing event.

Cole's shirt off. The way he pushed me up against the wall. How close he was to me, my hands pressed against his bare skin, his heat against me.

Sensations run up and down my arm, electrifying. I feel more alive playing this game of cat and mouse—or spider and snake—with him than I have in months.

He's woken something up inside me that I don't think I can put back to sleep.

"Brenna, if you could put the garden snake back outside," Rainbow says, approaching me calmly. "It probably crawled in under the tent and was looking for a warm and dark place to sleep. You can always put it in the green house."

"Of course," I tell her, reaching out to stroke the top of the snake's head. "I'm just glad I found it before someone moreafraidof snakes saw it and hurt it."

As I walk out of the tent flap, the garden snake curled around my arm, bag in my other hand, I pass by Cole. He's staring at me intensely, dappled light shining through the tent flap and turning the side of his face golden.

"This isn't over," he murmurs.

I turn away and try to ignore the feeling of him staring at me as I walk across the outdoor space, heart in my throat.

Maybe I should've pretended to be afraid of the snake, just to get him off my back.

But I don't know how to be weak.

That might be the one flaw that winds up being my undoing.

* * *

Tuesday, English Language and Literature, 9:35 AM

My head comes up when, in the middle of English literature class, our teacher announces that we'll be pairing up for a group project on the differences between British and American literature.

"You'll be spending the rest of class planning your project, which will be due at the end of the month. Those of you in this row and this row," she motions to the first row, then the one I'm sitting in, "turn to your right and you'll see your partner for this project."

I already know who sat next to me today.

Lukas raises a brow as I turn to him. "You don't look thrilled to have me as your partner."

"You're bad luck," I point out. "The last time I put myself in your arms, I almost broke my neck."

"I caught you," he retorts. "You wereliterallyin my arms. And you didn't give me much of a chance to talk to you afterwards and see if you were okay."

Licking my lips, I ask him, "Did you know that it would happen?"

"That what would happen?"

"Don't play dumb with me." Outrage blossoms in my chest. "Youhaveto know that Georgia Johnson messed with my harness. Cole probably helped her, too. That's why you were the one who wound up being my belayer."

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