Page 53 of Escaping Hallow Hill Academy
When long fingers stroke along my hairline, I lash out with a quick strike of my hand against his wrist. His eyes are watchful in the dim moonlight. But they’re not conniving.
They’re hooded and sweet.
He looks sweet.
And my mind doesn’t like that either.
“What are you doing?” I ask, gripping his wrist even tighter as he stares down on me in the little warm cocoon he’s built around me.
Those dark eyebrows of his pull together tightly. “I—I have no idea,” he whispers with a heavy sigh.
The realness of it settles into my own anxious chest.
He’s just as off balance from all of this as I am, and we don't know how to proceed.
We’re so good at disliking each other. So damn good at making one another miserable. Who knew we would also be amazing at making one another feel total ecstasy as well?
“Well, stop.” I release his wrist, and now it’s his turn to find his defensiveness.
“Stop? You want me to stop being nice to you? Holy Lady of Death, you’re fucking exhausting.”
And. Here. We. Go.
I swallow hard and try even harder to get ahead of all the progress we’ve made before we shit all over it.
“No. I mean . . . just . . .” I fumble for words while we glare at one another like we’re three seconds away from ripping out one another’s throats. “Lie down!” I command on a tone a bit too gruff.
Nice. Yeah. Screaming at him will definitely get him to do as you say, Em.
“Please,” I add on a warm voice like sex and honey.
Slitted eyes continue to assess me, and I just know he’s calculating the outcome of all of this.
What’s the worst that could happen? I big spoon him and gut him from the sternum down while he sleeps?
Wow. Maybe I need to reevaluate my twisted idea of what a love life should look like.
During my psychotic thinking, he lowers himself down. He sits at the very edge of the mattress. I watch him as he stares off into the darkness for a full two seconds. I wonder what he’s thinking and if his thoughts are as morbid as my own.
I suppose they’re not. Because he hesitantly lies down at my side. The barest amount of space lingers between his shoulder and mine. With our attention held on the dark shadows of the ceiling above, we find comfort in one another, side by side.
It’s nice. It’s intimate, and I find myself all too aware of the beating of my heart. And the thoughts of the man who is now taking over my mind.
“What happened to your runes, Sia?” I ask on a whisper so quiet, it’s almost too afraid to truly come out.
Another long breath leaves him, and he never once looks my way.
But to my surprise, he does answer.
“There’s things that happen here that people don’t talk about. The academy is a lifesaving gift for some people. For hunted species like the shapeshifters and the demons. They’d be murdered just for being different. But people like me and you, we’re hunted for our power.” He turns on his side and without warning, his palm traces lines over my abdomen. It tickles at first. It distracts me, and I think it distracts him. And so, I let him. I let him touch me as much as he wants. Because I recognize that sadness he’s hiding in his steely eyes. “I came here to stop being used by the outside world. But now I’m being used on the inside, too.” He levels me with a heavy stare, and my heart’s slamming so hard in my chest, it makes it hard to breathe.
Every word he speaks feels threatening. He’s holding me and breaking me all at the same time.
“Just say it,” I grind out as my eyes close slowly. I don’t know why I push my hand over his. I halt his movements, but more than that, I thread my fingers through his.
And he squeezes just gently enough to make the fear in my heart pause.
“They’re extracting magic from us. For some, it’s a small amount given by blood during classes or exams, things we’d never think twice about.” His breath catches, and the following words are so quiet it hurts my chest to hear the hint of weakness in his tone. “And for supernaturals like me and you—fuck, even your roommate— they take it by force. Until there’s nothing left to take.”
