Page 23 of Ashes

She loved those assholes.

And I swore the moment she came back to life for me at Chapel Crest that I’d never take from her again. I’d only give.

Mausoleum aside, I thought I was doing pretty well. I honestly thought we’d finally find peace in the darkness. She hadn’t liked it though. I was far too eager to be alone with her and had let myself go a bit.

Her screams though… While they’d made my heart race, they’d also been music to my ears. She hadn’t forgotten me.She remembered us.

I ran back to my private dorm and went inside. I grabbed a quick shower, my mind on her the entire time.

My forever girl.

I was chomping at the bit to see her. The watchers had made sure I couldn’t get into her room though. I’d seen her mother and stepfather on campus, and I’d watched Cady, her younger sister. Beautiful. Intelligent. Strong. . . Cady.

Cady was no Sirena though.

No one came close to her beauty or magnetism. She was one of a kind.

A knock on my door pulled me from my thoughts on our Rinny. I went to it and cracked it open to find Riley, one of only two real friends I had on campus.

“Hey, I’m supposed to tell you Sully wants to see you in his office. He said—”

“That I have fifteen minutes,” I finished for him, opening my door and allowing him into my room.

He stepped inside as I went to my closet and pulled out a black hoodie, tugging it over my torso. If he would’ve knocked thirty seconds sooner, I’d have answered the door naked.

“How do you do that?” he asked, crinkling his dark brows at me.

“Do what?” I slid my feet into my shoes.

“Know what I’m going to say?”

“You always ask me that,” I pointed out. “And my answer is?” I strode to my door with him following.

We stepped into the hall, and the door clicked and locked behind us.

“That you just do what the voices tell you to.” He rolled his eyes, making me smirk.

“Exactly.”

It was way fucking deeper than that, but explaining the intricacies of what the fuck I was wasn’t something I wanted to dip my toes into. I was different.

“You should play the lottery,” he said as we reached the elevator.

“How dull. There’s only one thing I want in this world, and it isn’t money.”

“Sirena Lawrence.” He nodded. “I know.”

My friends weren’t new to my obsession with her. The moment I’d seen her again, I was done for.

“How is she, by the way?”

I tensed. “I don’t know. Alive. I’m hoping to be able to see her soon.”

No one knew the sort of history we had with Rinny exceptus, her, and now Sinclair Priest. In all fairness, I really wasn’t concerned about him telling our secret because he had a secret of his own that he didn’t want to get out. It seemed secrets and souls were currency here at Chapel Crest, and I was a motherfucking banker.

It was just as well. I was good at finding skeletons.

“Hopefully, you’ll get in to see her. Ask Sully when you see him. You know, if he doesn’t beat you with his ruler.” He winced.

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