Page 37 of Twisted Lies

Chapter 17

Astrid

“Well, you’ve been a stranger.” Bryce walks behind my chair before sitting down beside me at the library table. The first floor is packed with students studying for tests, but after the Halloween debacle, I have an entire table to myself.

I haven’t talked to Bryce or Justin in a week. And I avoid Charlotte. I want to tell her off, but I have to remind myself of how that would backfire. The shameless slut picking on the princess of Stonehaven. I roll my eyes at the thought. Charlotte has what she wants anyway. She has Bryce, but obviously, he has wandered off on his own again.

“Aren’t you afraid your keeper will see you talking to me?”

Bryce doesn’t answer. He places his bag on the table and pulls out his laptop. He sits there intently staring as the screen casts a glow over his sculpted features. His straight nose ends in a perfect point; his skin has never had a pimple; and his lips rarely curve down. It must be pleasant to be so pleased with oneself.

“Didn’t you hear me? Go sit somewhere else,” I whisper between my teeth as I feel the room turn its eyes on us.

Wren sits at a table not too far from us, and she’s not reading her upside-down book. Casually, she opens up her purse, and I wonder how long it’ll be before I see Charlotte flouncing in.

Bryce looks at me with that superior smirk. “You’ve had enough alone time. Or maybe you haven’t been lonely enough?”

Bryce pulls a hardcover book out of his bag, and I stare at it as if it’s a rodent that’s jumped onto the table.

It’s the ledger from the Pit.

Involuntarily, I move back away from it, hunching my shoulders as if an inanimate object could bite me. Bryce calmly opens the book, revealing rows of digits, and my breath rushes from my body in a way that I can’t disguise.

“Justin showed you the books,” he states, flipping through the pages. He stops on a page, and his finger moves down the column. The name on top says Getz. “You don’t have to ask him again. You ask me.”

I scoff. “So you can toy with me?” I glance around, noticing a few eyes on us. This will get back to Charlotte, prompting an overdue confrontation.

“He’s not to touch you,” he whispers, still fingering the book. “I’m the only one who touches you.”

“Can your girlfriend Charlotte watch?” I whisper.

Bryce’s calm eyes link with mine. “She may want me, but I will have you.”

“How does that even work?” I scoff.

Bryce moves the tablet toward me, so the screen is facing up. A video is playing, and I gasp at an image of Justin’s head between my open legs. In the next frame, my head is thrown back as I hiss with release.

“In the future, that will only be me,” he says.

“Does Wyatt know?” I ask sheepishly.

Bryce’s face colors as his eyes narrow. “Why should he need to know?”

Instantly, we receive angry glares from the librarians at their desk. Bryce grabs his stuff and pushes it into his bag. “Get your stuff. We’re going for a ride.”

“A ride?” I scoff.

“Don’t make me make a scene. I’ll drag you out if I have to.”

The look in his eyes tells me he’s not kidding. I grab my books and shove them into my backpack. “Are you going to walk out with me, or should I wait before I follow?”

Bryce hears the sarcasm in my sweet voice and towers over me, waiting for me to stand. Wren watches us, not hiding how she feels as she screws up her face as we walk by. Her phone is out, and I don’t doubt she’s sending both message and photo to Charlotte.

Fine. Let her be the messenger that brings Charlotte to me.

Bryce doesn’t speak to me as we walk side by side to the student parking lot. It’s shocking the difference between the cars the faculty drive and the students. I’ve never seen a Mercedes or a BMW in the teachers lot, but they fill the student lot.

Bryce holds the door open while I slip into the passenger seat. He hops in the driver’s side while I adjust my backpack on my lap. We drive toward Rockingham and pass through it toward the other side of town and open space. It’s odd. I’ve never really gone past Rockingham. Maybe because there’s nothing there but grass and trees. I forget that I’m with Bryce and enjoy looking out the window as we pass a farm. I forget how close we are to nothing.

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