Page 112 of Dare To Break

Bitter amusement passes through his gaze, but he doesn’t reply as he strolls away from me.

Aware of the other students watching, I crouch down to rescue the tray and plate. A second later, Linda and Evan arrive to help me with handfuls of paper towels to clean up the mess.

A tiny fissure cracks through the wall within me, and a curl of rage seeps free.

Chapter 72

Eli

I have a free study hour before English, so I use it to work on the mural for Lacy. To begin with, she insists on being there, overseeing everything I do, describing her vision for the mural. By the end of day two, stabbing her with a craft knife is looking tempting, so I threaten to quit if she doesn’t fuck off and leave me to work. The three days following are better. Without her there to interrupt me, I work faster.

She wants a haunted house scene, which is simple enough and doesn’t take much thought on my part. I base it on the school and surrounding grounds and amuse myself by adding the faces of students to the various people. Jace is being pinned to the wall by Sam, the pumpkin-headed villain from Trick ‘r Treat. Miles is being held underwater in the small pond in front of the building by Jigsaw. Lacy can be seen through one of the windows, the figure of Michael Myers from Halloween behind her. And Arabella? Well, she’s ducking behind a gravestone in the small cemetery to the left of the school. Freddy Krueger from A Nightmare on Elm Street is behind her, his bladed gloved hand wrapped around her throat.

There are other horror movie villains dotted around the painting—Pennywise from IT, Jason Vorhees from Friday the 13th, and Ghostface from Scream. I’ve even thrown in Leatherface from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the doll from Chucky.

I’m putting the finishing touches on a werewolf slinking through the trees, its eyes focused on Arabella, when my alarm goes off to tell me it’s time to clean up and get ready for the final class of the day.

Anticipation unfurls in the pit of my stomach. I’ve been looking forward to this class all day. All week, in fact. I wash up my brushes and prop the canvas against the wall before locking up the room and heading to my locker to grab my stuff. Kellan is there, leaning against the wall, arms folded as he watches me walk toward him. He straightens once I reach him.

“You’re set on this course of action?”

I open my locker and pull out my books. “Yes.”

“There are better ways to get her attention.”

“I don’t want her attention.”

He laughs. “Do you even believe what you’re saying?”

I slice an irritated glance at him. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Eli, you didn’t work this hard to piss her off before she stopped responding to your texts. You half-assed getting her to leave the school. I’m not sure your heart was ever really in it. But now? Now, you’re upping your game. And why? The only thing that makes sense is you’re punishing her for ignoring you.” He keeps pace beside me. “I can’t decide whether that’s funny or fucked up, because … and this might come as a shock to you. She doesn’t fucking know you’re her dark little addiction.”

“She could have found out easily enough.”

“I might be wrong, but I’m pretty sure asking ‘who are you’ comes under the attempting to find out scenario.”

“She doesn’t want to know who I am. That’s kinda the point. She gets off on fooling around in the dark with a stranger.”

“And you’re getting off on being that stranger, which is why you’re so fucking angry now. Your little toy doesn’t want to play anymore.”

“She’s not my toy. I’m doing this for one reason. I want her to fuck off out of my school, out of my family, and out of my life.”

He pats my shoulder as we enter the classroom. “Keep telling yourself that. We both know you’re lying. I haven’t seen you this invested in someone since … Well, never. If you were really pissed off about her mom marrying your dad, you wouldn’t be ignoring the obvious source of the issue and focusing on the one that had no say in it.”

We cross the room to our desks, and I sling my bag beneath it.

“My theory is she made your dick hard the first second you met her,” Kellan continues in a low voice. “I get that it’s messed with your head but punishing her for something she has no control over is crazy, even by my standards.”

He’s not wrong. I know that. I just don’t care. I walked away from her last weekend, so I could keep my word and not fuck her. And now she’s attempting to punish me by ignoring me. Fuck that. If she wants to play the game this way, then I’m all in.

The rest of the students pile in, the noise levels rising as they take their seats and pull out books.

“Alright, class. Quiet down.” Mr. Bellamy walks in. “We only have an hour, so let’s get straight into it. At the beginning of the week, I asked you all to write three paragraphs of emotive writing. I told you to dig deep and write a piece about how you feel about something, anything. How did you do? Who wants to get up and read one out to me?”

There are mumbles and shuffled feet as everyone looks around, hoping someone else is picked so they don’t have to. I wait, letting the anxiety of the class rise, and then stand up.

“Mr. Travers? You’re taking the hit? Good man! Get up here.” He throws me a smile. “That’s what I like to see.”

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