What reason did she have to stay here anyway? Why would she come back to a school where a bunch of assholes had laid claim to her entirely? Where they told her what to wear, where to go, what to do, who to hang out with. It was a fucked up situation and I knew she hated it. She wanted to be free. She wanted to choose her own life. And that life wouldn’t involve coming back here. Wouldn’t involve me.
I still couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that she was immune. That there was actually a vaccine to this fucking virus out there somewhere. Did that mean that it was only a matter of time until it was offered out to the public? Or was it lost now, stolen alongside the virus that had infected the world. But in one sense, I couldn’t help but be glad of it. Because at least I knew I didn’t have to fear her contracting it. I didn’t have to worry about her becoming sick if she really did head out into the world and turn her back on this place.
I ran a hand through my blonde hair, pushing it back out of my eyes as the straight strands were tossed about by the chilling breeze. Stubble scraped across my palm as I swiped it over my face and I sighed.
Tatum Rivers had been the ultimate fantasy. The little ray of light I’d been hooked on while the darkness that surrounded me made me ache. In the years that had passed since my family had been stolen from me, I’d been so focused on trying to achieve my revenge that I hadn’t even noticed how lonely I was.
Sure, I’d known I was alone. It wasn’t possible to go from living within the loving embrace of your family to a group home filled with assholes without realising that. But I’d always believed I was…content. Alone in my desire to destroy Troy Memphis, alone in my need for justice and retaliation. Alone in my life in a way that felt irrevocable. But when I was with her, it didn’t feel so permanent all of a sudden.
I should have known that time was fleeting. That I couldn’t even indulge in a wish of a future which involved my golden haired warrior. She was my student, I was her teacher and even aside from that, her future wasn’t here.
A window slid open at the side of the building and I padded towards it, careful to keep my footsteps silent. She’d told me Saint hardly slept, but Kyan slept like the dead and luckily, tonight it was his turn to have her in his room. It was strange that two men with so many demons had formed such different habits. Sleep for me came easy enough, I was usually so exhausted by all of the anger and hatred I carried inside of me that by the end of the day, my body craved oblivion just as a reprieve from it. But I often woke to nightmares. Memories of the crash or the imagined memory I’d formed of my mother’s murder where I pictured her surrounded and alone, fighting to stay with me with everything she had before she was overwhelmed.
Tatum tossed a thick winter coat out of the window and I was there to grab her boots for her as she raised them up too.
She slid through the window next, wiggling through the small gap and allowing me to take her into my arms and lift her the rest of the way out.
She didn’t linger in my embrace and that was for the best. I watched as she turned back to the window and pulled it shut again, my gaze falling on Kyan’s empty bed. I guessed he’d chosen to sleep on the couch again like she’d predicted and I thanked our luck for that. Getting her out of here while she’d been sleeping in with one of them would have been near impossible.
Tatum hesitated at my side, looking back in at Kyan’s room with a frown pinching her brow like there was something she wanted to say. But whether it was about him or the other Night Keepers, I didn’t get the chance to ask as she turned away from his window abruptly and quickly pulled on her coat and laced her heavy walking boots.
I held out her coat for her as she stood and she slipped her arms into it, her breath fogging around us as she exhaled shakily.
“Ready?” I asked her.
It was the first day of the Christmas break tomorrow so even if we couldn’t make it back to campus within the day, no one would really miss us. None of the students were allowed to go home if they wished to return to classes in the spring term and I was surprised to find that they’d all stayed willingly. Our walled sanctuary from the Hades Virus was a safe haven that not many people had been afforded and whilst the sickness ran rampant in the rest of the country, we remained safe out here, hidden in the mountains and the forest. I never thought I’d be so glad to be living in the middle of nowhere.
“Ready,” Tatum confirmed with a sharp nod.
She fastened her coat and slipped her fingers into a pair of black gloves before leading the way down the path away from The Temple.
I upped my pace until I fell into step at her side and she gave me a tight smile, her gaze flicking over my head to the huge building which had been her prison and I wondered if that look in her eyes was goodbye.
“I won’t let them
