Page 82 of Soulless Saint

That shit was not helpful.

“Why are you asking all this, bro?” Rook asked, nudging me with a knee. “Is there someone you and Hardin—” He cut himself off abruptly, stiffening beside me, and I knew he’d already figured it out. People said Corvus was the super perceptive one, but I didn’t think he had anything on Rook. “Shit. Becca?”

“No,” Grey said, drawing out the ‘o.’ “We asked you to watch over her, not fuck her. AJ’s going to slit our throats in our sleep. Scratch that, she’ll slit yours.”

Rook laughed darkly to himself, still flipping that damn coin over his knuckles. “Nah. Don’t worry about Ghost. Becca’s a big girl, and we already knew she had a thing for the bad ones. Besides, she’s not as helpless as she pretends to be. That girl has fire, she just hasn’t figured out how to wield it, yet.”

What the shit was that supposed to mean?

As if on cue, Becca, Toby, and their other roommate—shit, what the fuck was her name? Katelyn? Katie?—walked into the room.

Becca looked paler than the Ghost her best friend was nicknamed for as she stumbled into the low lit area, her long legs shaky in her heels even though she was holding her head high, her eyes searching for her friend, finding me instead.

Her throat bobbed and her gaze immediately flicked to where Hardin stood, watching her with a predator’s gaze. She broke eye contact with him the instant her eyes met his, and I felt something crumple in my gut.

Oh fuck. No. Not her.

Really, Hardin?

I remembered the scratch marks on his arms and neck and shut my eyes against a rush of something close to jealousy. My brother would never force a girl he thought was unwilling, which had to mean that she was willing. Proving my theory of their shared connection true.

“Becks!”

I looked up in time to see Ava Jade throwing her arms around Becca, knocking both of them off their feet. They landed in a heap on the vacant sofa opposite us and Ava Jade laid kiss after kiss all over Becca’s face as her friend laughed.

Becca managed to extricate herself long enough to catch a breath, a very real, but still tainted looking smile pulling at her lips. “I fucking missed you, bitch,” she told Ava Jade, her brown eyes glistening.

Ava Jade hugged her again, tighter this time. “Missed you, too. I promise, no more tours until next year, okay?”

“Okay.”

Toby and Kate hovered awkwardly across the room. Grey lifted his hand to give Toby a wave, and I remembered he’d let him ride shotty last weekend at the race. Her other roomie gave a little wave, too, the pair of them still absolutely jacked from the concert, their cheeks pink.

“Oh fuck, sorry,” Becca said, standing from the sofa to introduce Ava Jade to her roommates. I didn’t miss the way AJ assessed them. Like a butcher might assess a cut of meat before deciding whether or not to package it up or throw it in with a chuck to grind into pulp.

I waited for them to finish their moment, Becca introducing her friends to Corvus as well, before interrupting, unable to keep my big mouth shut. “No hello for us, Vixen?”

Tension lined her forehead as she settled onto the Sofa with her friends and glared at me. “Hi, Kaleb.”

“Hi?”

She rolled her eyes, and I didn’t miss how she completely ignored my brother. No hello for him.

“Wait,” Ava Jade said, her brows lowering as she looked between her friend and me. “You know each other?”

Becca looked guilty as fuck, and I flashed Ava Jade my most innocent smile. The one that got me out of even the worst kinds of shit I’d managed to walk my ass into.

She gave me a cheeky sneer and then laughed, the loud sound of it bordering on a cackle as she set a hand on Becca’s knee and wiped a tear from her eyes. “What am I even saying? Of course, you know each other. Leave it to Becks to find the biggest, baddest fuckers on campus and make friends. Right, Becks?” She elbowed Becca, who let out a strained laugh as Ava Jade wiped another tear from her eye. “Priceless. I’ll have to get that story later, for now I want to hear all about your new place and your job and everything I’ve missed since you moved away.”

Toby cleared his throat, biting his lip as he tugged something from his pocket with two fingers. The tiny baggy he shook held four round, all-white pills. “Before we launch into the magnificent tale of how Becca basically swindled herself a job at DBD and made me her shop bitch in a matter of twenty-four-hours, how about we kick this shindig up a notch, hmmm?”

Rook shifted uncomfortably beside me, and I had to admit, the feeling was mutual. It’d been a few years since I got clean and my ‘problem’ wasn’t nearly as severe as Rook’s. At least when I got high, all I wanted to do was stare into space while I chain fed a never ending parade of pizza into my face. When he got high, he was liable to murder anyone in his vicinity with his bare hands.

“I don’t think—” I started, but Becca was already taking a pill from the baggy and popping it into her mouth. Something passed between her and my brother, and I watched his nostrils flare angrily as she swallowed the pill dry.

Toby took the next one and offered the bag to Kate—that’s her name—who shook her head. “Someone’s gotta drive us home, Tobes.”

“Shit!”

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