Page 40 of All Saints: Pledge

I blink rapidly. “Win?”

He's pushing me toward the door.

“Win what? Oxford isn't something you can win.”

Kendall snorts, and I stop him with a hand on his chest. My fingers curl around his shirt, and he hisses out a breath. I tell myself I need to be this close to see him in the gloom that is the doorway between mechanical room and tunnel. He turns fully to me, nearly nose to nose.

“This bet with your father? The reason you're following me everywhere, and beating up my friends, and sticking your hands down my shirt?”

Violence boils under his skin. I can feel him shaking as he raises one thumb and presses the pad of it into my lower lip. Pressing. Testing. “I want to win everything. And now, you are my test.” My breath hitches as his thumb slides down from my lip to my chin, angling my face up to him. Does he…does he mean he intends to winmetoo?

I open my mouth to tell him that I’m not a pawn, but he crushes his mouth to mine in a bruising, searing kiss that isso much more punishment than tenderness. It’s all I can do to stand my ground, his energy possessive and undeniable. It’s pure electricity, burning, hurting, savage. And I think, I need to stop lying to myself that I don’t want to kiss this man. This kiss is everything I’ve ached for since he pushed me against the wall in a quiet quad. Everything I’ve become addicted to since we opened each other to an ocean of desire in the library. I like being swept up in this current, and at this point I fear I might not ever want to swim in another river, ever. Pretense is gone between us. This isn’t a slip, or an accident. Both of us want this. Just as I surge into him in response, he pushes away from me. I taste a faint spot of blood in my mouth from where my lip met a tooth.

“This is what I mean. You are a torment I must endure if I am going to win. And it's laughable how perfectly my father placed my torment.” He rakes a hand over his mouth, then through his hair before giving a slightly unhinged laugh. “Because I all I have ever actually wanted is you. It's the reason I can't stay away. It's the reason I can't stop touching you. The reason I have dreamt every single night since ninth fucking grade about having you wrapped around my body. I held out for four years, telling myself we’d part ways and now?—”

I gape at him. I’m having some sort of Twilight Zone experience here, where reality shifts on its head with no warning.

He rakes his hands through his hair, his eyes devouring me. “You were born to be mine, Helena. You are mine by rights and now I know, by choice. But the fact that now we have to play this fucking game for my father? It means you will never actually be mine. And that, dear Helena, is why you are my jailer, my torturer and my reason for wanting to win what cannot be won.”

He turns then and walks down the tunnel the way we came, leaving me standing in the dark, staring after him.

20

It turns out blood red lipstick covers up lip bruises from an earth-shattering kiss. No one is the wiser as I walk into the glittering den nestled in the catacomb tunnels under Oxford. And by the reaction I know I look good. Beyond good. Heads turn, and Clara gives me a double take.

What isn't easier to cover up is the echo of Kendall's words. I can’t focus on what I’m supposed to be doing. I nearly drop my first small tray of gold-rimmed crystal champagne flutes—the recollection of how his eyes burned when he'd saidyou were born to be minereverberates through my being so hard, I can’t feel my feet.

“Are you drunk?” Clara whispers to me, eyes raking up and down my person.

“No.” I steady the glasses. “Um, just nervous. These tunnels give me the creeps.”

Clara looked exactly how she'd looked yesterday after we'd picked out outfits together. Classy and elegant in a beaded white jump suit. She’s demure, and put together with her hair in a bun. She looks every inch the virginal, fresh-cheeked material AllSaints says it wants. “You changed what we picked out for you to wear.”

“I spilled juice—wine. I spilled wine on my clothes.”

Her eyebrow goes up. “You spilled wine on yourself in the music building?”

“Li came to visit and she was enthusiastic about our conversation and sloshed it on me.” Enough of that is true that if she follows up on my story for any reason, it will hold water. “I had to, uh, trade with what Li was wearing. You know how she is.” I produce something aproximating a laugh.

“I mean, you look great. But. Wow. It's not what I expected.” She looks down at her own outfit and frowns.

“You look perfect,” I assure her as a waiter fills her tray. “I feel ridiculous but at least it's something to wear that doesn't reek of booze already, right?”

The Russian girl, Irina, shushes us. She's dressed to kill too in a velvet gown and a velvet choker necklace that somehow is both vampireandglam, and I wonder if she has had a secret heads up the way I have.

I lift my tray, a gorgeous purple flower nestled among the fancy glasses on top of it. I'm waved to a table and square my shoulders. I have to play this game. At least a little while longer. So for the next two hours, I turn every charm I have on. I am engaged with everyone I serve. I endeavor to be incandescent in a way that is almost farcical given my humble beginnings and my personal convictions that I don't belong in this room full of very rich people.

And rich people they are. I note Rolexes on wrists. Perfectly tailored suits. Vera Wang. Givenchy. Prada. Balanciaga—I hadn’t even known what Givenchy or Balanciaga logos looked like, Irina pointed them out to Clara and I like we were heathens. Gowns with beading so intricate, they have to be one-of-a-kind and hand made. The jewels on cufflinks and fingers are so big,they'd look fake if they...didn't. Diamonds the size of a quarter. Emeralds. Rubies. Everything short of tiaras and crowns. In fact, I am almost positive I saw a woman wearing a jeweled circlet in her hair.

If these are the donors sponsoring my scholarship, it puts the scope of this endeavor in stark reality. I swear I recognize several notable British politicians. I overhear Irina talking with an Australian news mogul. Whatever these people are here for, dressed to the nines, tension in the room is as thick as the mascarpone on the appetizers. The gazes and conversation is hungry for lack of a better word. Not just the men, but the women too. I’m a delicate fish, swimming in a pool with sharks.

Eyes rake up and down my body so often I begin to feel desensitized to it. Soon, I refill wine glasses with the full assumption that the man or woman I'm serving will ogle my breasts. Clara looks spooked after a woman runs her red fingernails over her bare shoulder. She and I exchange worried glances over the complete change of the vibe in the room from our other serving gigs. I have a brief moment of panic that this is some sort of sex cult and I'm about to be sacrificed to a room full of drugged up rich people. There are movies about that very thing.

And yet. While the air of sex and sexiness permeates the air, this is a room of people who want to talk about ambition. I manage to smile and gloss my way through explaining that my family is so broke that I can't attend Oxford any other way, but they seem aware of that. Their interest always piques when I tell them what I told Kendall. About my dreams, as far-fetched as they seem. I talk about my grandfather, who raised racehorses as a passion and who gave me my want to advocate for people on a bigger scale. About my dreams to study at Oxford with Professor Dusberry, and go on to a career in political strategy. Several nodas if they know Professor Dusberry well, a gleam in their eye. It’s at once validating, and unsettling.

I can’t help the feeling that they’re… feeding on my dreams. Inhaling my young passionate fervor like you scent a wine before drinking. One woman reaches out and drags her finger down my arm, while declaring my ambition reminds her of her younger self. Her dark eyes are still razor sharp despite the four drinks I've served her.

A brown-skinned man, some sort of dignitary from Thailand, I think, asks me probing questions about my studies and performance in courses so far. He’s very familiar with all my professors, and grills me about their quirks like it’s his job. It's perhaps the most intense four hours I've spent since coming to Oxford and that's saying something. Far more intense, even, than the rigorous interview process for Oxford itself. No, I’m not asked philosophy questions, or my own interpretation on how Brexit has shaped world macroeconomics, but I’m grilled about…me. My own passions. Where they stem from.

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