Page 173 of Dare To Break

I don’t give her a chance to respond, releasing her hands and walking out.

I don’t go straight back to my room. I wait for her to leave, which she does a few minutes later, running across the cemetery. If she had stopped for half a second, she would have seen me standing nearby, but her eyes are down, and the moonlight shows me the tears on her face.

Once she’s gone, I go back inside the tomb and slide down to sit with my head back against the coffin.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I say the words out loud. “You had the perfect opportunity to come clean. Why didn’t you take it?”

But I know the answer to that and, idiot that I am, I’m not ready to let go of her just yet.

Shoving to my feet, I go back outside, lock up and take the secret tunnel back to the dorm building. Kellan is asleep when I slip through the door, his body a barely visible shape beneath the sheets. I strip off and crawl into my bed. Sleep is slow to come, but eventually, I drift off.

***

I don’t text Arabella that morning with a dare. The night before has left a bad taste in my mouth, and I spent half the night tossing and turning, wondering whether she’s gone to Miles.

Did they have sex? Did she give him everything she’d been offering me?

I’m out of sorts and irritable when I arrive at the first class of the day, so of course, it’s the day the asshole football team decides they want to fuck with me.

Jace and Evan stand in the middle of the room, blocking my path to my usual seat. They’re wearing matching grins as I approach them.

“Hey, Travers, I was wondering,” Jace’s grin stretches wide. “When you stuck your tongue down your sister’s throat, did you get a boner?”

I don’t answer him and turn my head to Evan, hiking an eyebrow. He shrugs, his expression sheepish.

“Jealous that she’d rather kiss me than you, Black?”

Jace’s smile drops. “So, you did kiss her on purpose?”

I yawn. “Don’t most people kiss on purpose? Or have all your kisses been accidental? Can’t say that would surprise me.” I wave a hand in front of my face. “That breath of yours must be off putting.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

I lean closer, until our faces are inches apart. “It means that you stink of the bullshit you spew.” I pat his cheek. “Now, are you going to move, or do I have to hurt you?”

He lifts his chin and I roll my eyes. “It’s never the fucking easy option with you, is it?”

I feint a punch toward his face and when he moves to block it, I bury my left fist into his stomach. He doubles over. I grab his hair and slam his nose into my knee, then shove him across the nearest table.

“When are you going to fucking learn?” Pushing past Evan, I take my seat seconds before the teacher arrives.

Chapter 111

Arabella

“Hey, Travers, I was wondering. When you stuck your tongue down your sister’s throat, did you get a boner?”

I flinch at the sound of Jace’s voice, loud across the classroom, and keep my head down.

My eyes are heavy from lack of sleep, and a tension migraine throbs through my skull.

“Jealous that she’d rather kiss me than you, Black?” Eli replies.

Something nudges at the back of my mind but I’m in too much pain to catch it. I hunch my shoulders and wish for the ground to swallow me up. I close my eyes against the chime of my phone. It will be another flood of notifications flashing up. This morning I’d crawled out of bed to another wave of tags about the kiss with Eli, and the fight with Tina.

My head is a mess of emotions.

I offered myself up to Sin last night, and he walked away. Rejection cut deep, leaving me in a pit of misery.

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