Then, it’s gone.
“Maybe you should try a different Rutledge.” Angus waggles his thick red brows.
“Aren’t you all interchangeable?” I ask. “Try one, you know them all.”
He frowns. The word interchangeable is lost on him.
“Pig,” Catherine mutters.
I give her wrist a warning squeeze.
“No one was talking to you, freak,” Angus shoots back.
And I don’t like that. I don’t like the wounded ripple that passes over her face before she’s able to look stoic and tough again. The familiar smolder begins at my core.
“Ow.” She looks at me with bewilderment, tugging her arm. I forgot that I’m still touching her. Quickly, I release her. She rubs her wrist, and I know that she felt my building heat.
Great. First, I almost reveal myself to Will when he kisses me. Now, this.
Maybe tonight would be a good night to try the golf course again.
“Take your seats,” Mr. Henke calls from the front.
Angus moves to the back of the room. Xander studies me for a moment with those demon-dark eyes before joining him in the back.
Will lingers, watching me like he expects me to do something. Say something. “Guess you’re not interested in me sitting with you.”
My gaze flicks away. I can’t manage another word—can’t make myself utter another ugly lie. Without looking, I hear him move away. Feel his presence fade from my side.
“Wow,” Catherine mutters in an awe-filled voice. “You really just rejected Will Rutledge.”
I shrug, fighting the painful lump in my throat where words strangle.
“You okay?” she asks.
“Why wouldn’t I be? He’s not really my type.”
I glance over my shoulder, glimpse him hunched between his cousins. They’re talking, but not Will. He stares out the window, his gaze fixed on a spot outside. The expression on his face reminds me of Mom. Tamra. Of how they used to look when we lived with the pride. Trapped. Always looking for a way out.
My chest feels tight, a dense and twisting mass at its center. A punishment he doesn’t deserve.
“What were you thinking?” Tamra snaps the moment I join her at the curb. Mom’s still several cars back, slowly inching toward us.
“You should know. That gym, that crowd…” I shiver, squinting against the desert sun.
An arid wind lifts the hair off my shoulders. The wild mass of it crackles, as dry and withered as straw.
Her eyes spark, and I know she’s been waiting for this moment, ever since the pep rally, to light into me.
Anger builds in my veins. Because she, if anyone, should know what sitting through that pep rally would do to me. She may not be a draki directly, but she understands. We share the same history. We descend from dragons. Dragons who ruled the earth and skies millennia ago. How am I to endure confinement? In a gymnasium brimming with harsh sounds and humans?
“I know only that you’re out of control. Especially around Will Rutledge. I thought you were going to stay away from him.”
I’m trying. Even as it kills me. I’m trying. But I don’t say that.
Instead, I think of all the time I’ve spent with him that she doesn’t know about and feel a shot of grim satisfaction. “If you’re so worried, then tell Mom,” I toss out, daring her because I know she won’t.
“So she can move us again?”
And that’s the crux of the matter for her. I answer with a shrug.
Her lips press into a hard line and she shakes her perfect head of hair. “I don’t think so.”
I look back to the row of cars. Mom’s hatchback edges closer. The sun beats down on my head, roasting my scalp and I shift impatiently on the balls of my feet.
My fingers flex around the strap of my backpack and I ask before I can help myself, “Do you even care what being here does to me?”
Her head whips as she turns to stare at me. “Like you cared about me all those years with the pride?”
Of course, I cared. I wouldn’t have resisted Cassian nearly so hard if I hadn’t. Cassian had been my friend. Well, mostly Tamra’s, but he’s always been there. As permanent and solid as the mountains surrounding me. I could have let myself like him. But I didn’t. I refused to do that to Tamra.
“What did you want me to do? The pride was our home,” I reminded.
Her nostrils flare, pain burning bright in her eyes. “Your home. Never mine. I was always the intruder, stuck watching Cassian fawn over you. Everyone loved you. Wanted to be your friend, your boyfriend, your everything—”
“I never asked for that. Never asked for Cassian to—”
“No, but you got it. You got him. And not because of you. Not because he loved you.”
She shakes her head. “You know, I could have lived with that, with the two of you together…if he really loved you.”
She utters this like it’s the greatest impossibility. A joke. I lift my face as if there’s a breeze in the sucking heat that might give me some relief.
No relief. She continues, “But it’s not who you are that lures people in. It’s what.
Firstborn wins the prize. Everything. Everyone. Even Dad. You two had your little members-only club.” She inhales deeply through her nose.
“Are you trying to be cruel?” I snap. “I can’t change any of that. I couldn’t then. I can’t now.”
She doesn’t speak for a long moment. When she finally does, her voice is softer. “Can’t you learn to like it just a little, Jacinda?” Some of the spark fades from her amber eyes, and while I see that she resents me—she doesn’t hate me. At least she doesn’t want to.
I shake my head, not to signify no, but rather that I don’t know how to answer. I know she doesn’t want to hear the truth, that she won’t like it. She doesn’t want to hear that I have been trying. For me, it’s not a matter of choosing to like it here or not. It’s not something I can control. What does it matter anyway? I won’t be here much longer. Of course, I can’t tell her that.
We climb into the car then. Tamra in the front seat. Me, in the back.
“Hey! How was school?” Mom asks.