Page 18 of The Lies We Steal

I glance over at Silas, he’s staring at the flames that climb higher and higher every second. Lost in his head and I wonder if he’s seeing something else than just flames. Wondering if the voices are there, or if he’s imagining people dancing through the fire.

Wondering if he is seeing her.

Red flashes in my eyes, knowing I can do nothing but watch him in pain right now. I can’t help him, not yet anyway. But I can slaughter the people involved in her death. I can’t bring her back, but I can avenge her.

For Silas.

I return my eyes to Rook, “If they are,” an eruption shakes the ground, a gust of hot wind hitting all of us. Nate screams, the fire probably spreading to outside the house and creeping up on him.

“Then we’ll watch the whole town burn for that mistake. For Rose.”

Briar

“So come on, spill it. Tell me what I need to know about this place. Where to avoid, secret societies.” I ask Lyra as we start picking at our lunch.

The weather was nice enough to eat outside, no sunshine of course, but there was no rain and I needed to give my allergies a rest from all the dust inside the building walls.

I stab a tomato with my fork, popping it into my mouth as Lyra starts tearing the pits out of her black cherries. The dark juices staining her fingers. Today had been a mandatory orientation for all students. Classes started tomorrow and I wasn’t sure if I was excited or wanted to throw up on my Chucks.

Orientation was a snooze fest. Teacher after teacher, then the dean expressing his need for obedience and excellence. Teachers enforcing rules that had been here longer than most of us had been alive. I’d barely listened, I didn’t plan on doing anything too scandalous that would even require me to know the details of their authority.

“What do you want to know?” She answers, tucking one of her chunky black Doc Martens beneath her.

“Everything, anything.” I shrug, “Is Kennedy Hall really haunted?” I raise an eyebrow with a playful smirk.

Lyra laughs a little, “Who knows? Story says there was a girl who was sleeping with one of the English professors, back when the school first opened. Apparently he tried to end it and she was so broken-hearted that she jumped right off the edge of one of the colonnades openings. They recovered her body at the bottom of the cliffside, stuck on one of the jagged rocks. Rumor says that if you walk Kennedy Hall past midnight, you can hear her screams as she fell.”

The wind brushes my hair behind my shoulders, a thought brewing in my head. What is it about love that makes people want to die if they can’t have it? I’d heard once it was a chemical in your brain and I was beginning to think I lacked the biology to feel that way.

“Crazy how people love that deeply, isn’t it?” I say aloud.

Lyra bites into her pitless cherry, chewing softly, “That’s not love. It’s obsession. Two very different things.”

“Yeah? You don’t think that’s the same thing?”

“No,” She shakes her head, “Love is real. A tangible thing you can run your fingers over, warm and safe. Obsession is living a fantasy in your head, over and over again. Obsession is living in a nightmare, but never wanting to wake up.”

I squint my eyes, suppressing a smile. Her face is so serious, staring down at her cherry soaked fingertips, like there is something staring back at her. I’m aware there are skeletons in my roommate’s closet, everyone has them.

Something that makes them tick. A core secret that motivates their every move and when she’s ready, she’ll tell me. But a part of me thinks, this is a clue into who LyraAbbottreally is.

“Whoa, that’s deep.” I mutter sarcastically.

She snaps back when she hears my voice, shoving my shoulder playfully, “I’m serious. It’s a thin line between the two, but there is a line nonetheless.”

Cracking open my juice I peer to my left at the sound of loud noises, seeing a small group of guys playing tag football in the middle of the commons. We’d picked one of the tables that was nestled beneath a tree, away from the busy areas because as we realized the other night, socializing was something we were going to have to learn.

One of the players breaks through the rest trying to get to him, crossing their agreed line for a touchdown. Raising his arms above his head, his dirty blonde hair dusting the top of his forehead. The kind of boy built for attention.

His long sleeve white shirt leaving little to the imagination, its see-through material allows a direct view of the deep-set torso muscles that contract as he laughs and cheers with his friends.

“Easton Sinclair.” Lyra whispers, “Dean Sinclair’s son. One of the most beloved sons in Ponderosa Springs. Athlete, student body president, volunteers at the local animal shelter. A perfect human if there ever was one.”

I chew the inside of my cheek, having a problem not looking at him. You couldn’t blame me though, we didn’t have guys like that back home. One’s that look like Abercrombie models.

Pretty sure that my staring is burning holes into the side of his head, he turns his face in my direction, eyebrows furrow on his handsome face as he searches for the eyes looking at him.

I quickly turn back to Lyra, face flaming a bright red.

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