Her face paled as she looked down to the gloopy pink blob by her shoe which was blackened in places by grime. It clearly wasn’t hers and it made my stomach churn just to look at it, let alone touch it.
“Kyan,” I snapped and he shot a glare back over his shoulder at me that made my heart lurch.
He turned back to Pearl, lazily circling a finger in the air to hurry her up. “You’re wasting precious seconds of my life right now. Pick. It. Up.”
Pearl dropped down with a whimper, scraping it off the floor between her finger and thumb with her nose wrinkling. She stood back up, looking to Kyan with an expression that begged for mercy.
“In your mouth,” he encouraged and a ripple of laughter carried from the onlooking students.
Pearl’s lower lip trembled as she lifted the gum to her lips, her eyes watering as she pushed it onto her mouth with a grimace.
“Now chew,” Kyan growled and Saint released a dark chuckle beside me. I shot a glance at him, finding his eyes alight with cruelty as he watched them. On my other side, Blake was cracking his knuckles and watching Pearl with a smirk.
Pearl started chewing, her whole face screwing up in disgust and my throat constricted at the thought.
“What flavour is it?” Kyan asked casually.
“Strawberry,” she said through a mouth of saliva, clearly trying not to swallow.
“They say gum stays in your stomach for seven years after you swallow it. I wonder if that’s true…” Kyan mused and Pearl’s eyes widened in horror. “Do it,” he commanded.
She winced and I strode forward. This had gone far enough. But as I approached to try and intervene, Kyan threw out an arm to stop me. “I’ll deal with you when I’m finished dealing with Devickers.”
“Kyan,” I snarled. “Stop it.” He ignored me, surveying Pearl and her whole face screwed up as she forced the gum down, her throat bobbing as she swallowed.
“Open your mouth,” Kyan instructed and Pearl did so as he peered inside to check she’d really done it, nodding his approval before grabbing my arm and stalking past her.
I stumbled as he pulled me along at a ferocious pace, my heart pounding madly at his hardened features. There was none of the light I usually saw in him. He was sticking to his vow, becoming the monster I’d accused him of being. And now I was going to pay the price of those words. But I wasn’t going to beg. If he was going to prove how black his heart really was then he was only confirming my accusation. Beneath all the bullshit pretence that he liked me, he really just wanted to own and hurt me like the others.
He kicked the doors open and half carried me down the steps into the courtyard beyond Aspen Halls, hauling me along onto the path in the direction of The Temple.
I glanced over my shoulder, finding Saint and Blake following. Blake was laughing at something on his phone like he didn’t have a care in the world and Saint was floating along the pavement like a malevolent spirit with unfinished business.
We soon arrived at The Temple and Kyan directed me inside just as rain started to fall from the sky and pepper my cheeks. “Get a bucket of soapy water and a cloth.”
I pressed my lips tightly together, heading inside with a huff as Saint and Blake followed and Kyan walked away. I glanced curiously over my shoulder, spotting him heading into the trees and wondering what the hell he had planned for me. Was he gonna go roll in the mud and make me wash him down with a rag? Wouldn’t put it past him.
I tossed my bag onto the couch and was about to walk away when I noticed a piece of paper sticking out the top of it. I took it out, frowning at the typed words in the centre of the page. It definitely wasn’t mine.
Sinful lips I want to taste,
In the night, you’re mine to chase.
Ever lonely, ever breaking,
You’ll soon be mine for the taking.
I frowned, glancing over at Blake as he looked through the fridge for a snack and Saint headed upstairs to shower and change in his usual routine. I folded up the note and stuffed it back in my bag. It must have gotten amongst my things by mistake when I’d dropped everything. Though I wouldn’t have put it past Saint to write a creepy ass poem like that. Maybe he’d risen to strange new heights of fucking with me.
I headed into the kitchenette and took out a bucket and cloth from under the sink as Blake gave up on his fridge hunt, his gaze slipping to me instead like I might just be what he needed to sate his appetite.
“Someone’s in trouble,” Blake sang, grinning at me as he opened a cupboard and took out a bag of peanut M&Ms. He tossed one in the air and caught it in his mouth, crunching it between his teeth. I snorted a laugh as I placed the bucket in the sink, squirted some soap into it and started filling it with warm water.
“Kyan’s just trying to prove a point that he’s a big scary asshole,” I said lightly, ignoring the tug in my chest that said he was a big scary asshole and he was about to do something terrifying.
“That’s the thing about us, Cinders…” Blake threw another M&M and caught it in his mouth again with a smirk. “Underestimate us and we’ll prove you wrong. Really fucking wrong.”
I turned off the water and hefted the bucket out of the sink. “So why didn’t you pull the trigger on me Blake?” I arched an eyebrow and his jaw tightened, his eyes darkening by ten shades.
“Maybe because you knew I could. I didn’t
