Page 72 of Theirs to Ruin

What I did find, however, was a pair of binoculars lying on the ground, in an area where someone would have had a direct line of sight into Camille’s room.

I made a call. Several hours later, I had cameras set up around the perimeter of the dorm.

I thought of the visit Dante had paid me in the morgue. How he’d wanted us to team up to keep Camille safe. The thing was,I didn’t fully trust him. For all I knew, he could have killed Ava, and he was just playing nice with me, suggesting we share Camille like she was some kind of fuck toy to throw me off.

My gut didn’t completely buy it, but I wasn’t taking any chances.

Not when it came to my sister’s killer.

And not when it came to Camille.

Chapter 31

Camille

After what went down with Kage, sleep didn’t come easy. That meant two sleepless nights in a row, as well as a bunch of restless nights before that. I kept dreaming about Ava’s body floating in the dark river, about kissing Dante and Kage, and about that dead rat. The last thing I wanted to do was face the wrath of my schoolmates again, but I had no choice.

Surprisingly, my day turned out better than I expected. There were still plenty of suspicious glances and nasty whispers, even a couple of incidents that could be written off as pranks rather than full-out nastiness, and I couldn’t help but wonder if Kage had ignored what I’d said and warned others to back off.

Either way, I was grateful.

After my last day class, I texted Bianca, who said she’d arrived and was already soaking up the California sun. She texted me a picture of blue skies, palm trees, and the Pacific Ocean, and I wished I could transport myself there. After I saw California, I’d make my way up to Oregon to stay in the Sylvia Hotel, a huge Victorian inn on the ocean that catered to book-lovers. It had author-themed rooms, including ones for JaneAusten, Edgar Alan Poe, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Agatha Christie, and J.K. Rowling. I’d wanted to go there ever since I’d heard about it. Bianca said she’d go with me one day so long as we stayed at a swanky hotel, too.

Sighing, I put aside my daydreaming and reluctantly headed to the admin building for my scheduled appointment with Dante. When I got there, I hesitated at the bottom of the steps.

I didn’t want to talk about what happened the night Ava died, but I was sure her death was why Dante had made the appointment for me in the first place. As much as I wanted to cancel, I had some serious questions for him. For starters, why he’d tracked me and if he’d been watching me in other ways. Had it really been about protection or had our kiss been just a preview of what he felt for me? With Dante, there were plenty of pieces that didn’t fit. And yet, I still trusted him.

I entered the building and slowly made my way to the counseling office. I reached for the door then froze. I envisioned how it would be, being alone in a room with him after what had already happened between us. I’d end up talking. Crying. I’d beg him to kiss me. To fuck me. To make me forget everything that happened in the past week.

Then he’d tell me again how we couldn’t be together like that.

I couldn’t do it.

I couldn't face Dante with these swirling emotions. Not when his piercing gaze would unravel me, stripping me of whatever meager defenses I’d managed to build up over the past few days.

My heart racing, I turned and quickly made my way to back to my dorm to wait out the time before Defense Studies class. Unless I chickened out and bailed on that, too.

Would Ty be just as hateful toward me as he’d been the night before?

I shut my door behind me and leaned against it. The comfort of my apartment was supposed to protect me, wrap around melike a shield, but as I stood there, it felt more like a prison. I couldn’t breathe as I imagined Ava’s room once Kage had finished clearing it. Her bed stripped, her wardrobe emptied, the photos and trinkets that once adorned her desk gone.

It would be like she had never existed.

With each passing day, the vibrant, fiery spirit that was Ava was slowly returning to the earth, decaying. Even after how she’d treated me, the sadness and regret I felt for her drained away my energy, my hope, my will to go on.

Feeling an overwhelming need to escape, I climbed into bed and pulled the duvet over me, basking in its warmth and security. It’s something I used to do as a child when the world got too much, and again, when my mother died.

But it was no use. My heart raced, the edges of the panic attack blurring my vision. I shoved off my covers and tried to read a romance novel to distract myself, but there was no escape from my grief, confusion and guilt.

I was alone.

As alone as my mom must have felt when she’d flushed one year of sobriety down the toilet and started swallowing pills. She’d died because of it.

And for the first time in a long time, I let myself go there. To the thought I’d never voiced to anyone.

Had dying been exactly what she’d wanted?

After eating a leftover sandwich from lunch and half an apple, I tidied up, then headed to my night class. A note taped to the front door of the classroom announced Defense Studies class had been moved to the gym. I walked across the quad and had almost reached the gym when I smelled a familiar cologne, acitrusy scent that had once brought warmth to my heart; now it brought bitterness and resentment.

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