Page 28 of Reign

I ignore them all and storm to the front of the room, tossing my unfinished exam on the professor’s desk.

“Miss Ryan, what on Earth...?”

“I don’t feel well,” I mumble, then careen out of the classroom before the redness creeps from my cheeks into the whites of my eyes.

The hallway’s deserted, the usual proctors either completing their own exams or hooking up in custodial closets and empty classrooms.

Briarcliff Academy’s lack of supervision was always obvious, but now I’m disgusted by it. My steps echo through the hallway and a cold draft of air follows my every move. None of it dissipates the heating of my bones or boiling of my blood.

Ivy’s dead. Piper’s dead. Both murdered, and all they can talk about is a malicious rumor about a fake baby I had while fake fucking a fired professor.

My coat’s in my locker, so I brace myself for the long walk ahead of me to get to the opposite wing before the clocktower tolls, signaling the rush of students out of classrooms and the start of winter holidays. I don’t want to be caught up in the tide. My shoes squeak against the flawlessly polished floors as I hurry my steps, but the vicious energy sparking against my joints doesn’t subside.

“Dipping out early, huh, possum?”

My rubber soles shriek on my abrupt halt in the middle of the hallway.

“Probably a good idea, considering what’s leaked to the student body,” the deep voice—the familiar baritone—continues.

I don’t turn around. Counting the tiles at the tips of my shoes, I whisper, “Leave me alone.”

“I won’t.”

With a slow, aching arc, I swivel to the voice.

Chase’s smooth, undeterred features stare back at me.

My expression is probably war-torn and famished compared to his, lost in a battlefield where neither side won. He sees it, he must, but there’s no reaction within that cold mask of his.

“Did none of what we had mean anything to you?” My voice, though low, curls around the thick stone columns around us and wisps its way into Chase’s ear. “Or did it mean so much, you have to eviscerate me in order to separate yourself from any sort of warmth whatsoever?”

I search for a flinch of understanding, a tic of emotion, but he gives me nothing. “I’m doing what I have to.”

“No.” My heart thumps, filling in the spaces between our breaths.

“You don’t see the value in it?” Chase angles his head, resembling a beautiful demon he’d kept so well hidden until now.

“How can I see value in filthy rumors and disgusting gossip?”

“The worse I torture you, the better it is for both of us.”

“Says the guy who comes out a king for it.”

“Callie.” He steps forward.

I skitter back. “Don’t you dare come near me.”

“I told you what would come next. We talked about this. If your dignity is more important than your life, then I’m sorry to say—”

“It’s erasing Ivy!” My shout bounces off the walls, the portraits of alumni in their gold-framed paintings seeming to hurl my words right back into the heart of me.

And there it is. The flinch I was waiting for. Yet, instead of being satiated by it, I’m starving for more. More hurt. More humiliation. More pain.

I rake him from head to foot, this golden boy with eyes drenched with liquid bronze who blinded me and freed me all at the same time.

I’m desperate to stride right up to him and throw him against the wall. Toss him across the floor. My mind begs to break his heart the way he’s shattered mine.

One foot moves forward. Then the next.

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