Page 28 of The Lies We Steal

For a few moments, they have a staring contest, neither of them speaking a word, only watching each other. It’s clear they don’t get along but know enough about one another to get under each other’s skin.

“Come on, Briar, I’ll help you find your next class.” Easton snaps back to me, a friendly smile on his face.

I’m grateful for the help, wanting to get away from this situation as soon as possible, but Alistair has yet to move his chair.

“Let her out, asshole.” He snarks.

“If she asks me nicely, I’ll think about it.” This is directed at me.

Those dark eyes looking up at me and shining with a challenge. Daring me to do something about it.

I drink the bile in my throat, not wanting to be late to my next class and needing some fresh air that doesn’t smell like hot cloves. I hated being here, being in the middle of this.

I was not a girl who could be intimidated. My father raised me better than that.

You can do this, Briar.

I hitch my book bag up higher on my shoulder, pulling my hair to the side and taking a breath for courage.

With ease, I swing my leg over Alistair’s lap trying to ignore the desire between my legs that’s directly over his crouch. Our eyes meet for a split second, his jaw clenches and arms crossed at his chest, the veins bulging.

Easton grabs my hand for support, helping me pull my other leg over before I’m standing next to him on the outside row.

“I have statistics with Gaines next,” I tell him already walking down the aisle towards the door, feeling the pair of ebony eyes follow my every move.

I try not to. I try to fight off the portion of me that looks for problems. The piece of me that misses the adrenaline of stealing and wandering in the shadows. I tell myself I can be different now, that I don’t have to be that person.

But it wins. The fight is pointless.

Warily, I turn my head up to the top of the lecture hall, looking at the unmoving Alistair. His eyes never wavering from my own, like he knew I’d look back at him.

A smirk adorns his face just as he raises his hand, wiggling his fingers softly in a mock goodbye wave.

From down here, his eyes aren’t as dark. They are a stunning brown color and I find it almost unfair that the boys stitched together with dark magic and cruel intentions always have the prettiest eyes.

Alistair

Iwent to therapy once.

Once as in, one single appointment that lasted maybe twenty-five minutes before the psychiatrists refused to work with me any longer.

I was twelve, five inches shorter than I was now, and I tried to stab my nineteen-year- old brother in our kitchen during a Christmas party, after I’d broken his nose and my right set of knuckles.

It’s funny, I don’t remember much of it besides what I’ve been told and in perfect vision I recall sitting on the kitchen floor watching as connected people tugged strings calling the best plastic surgeons and doctors money could buy.

My mother was bawling, holding Dorian’s face in her hands while he held a blood soaked handkerchief to his face, waving her away from him. They rushed out the door, everyone leaving shortly after and not a single person even looked for me. Not for punishment. Not for worry. Not even to ask why I did it. Nothing. The only reason I’d been put in therapy was because my grandmother insisted it to save the Caldwell name. Claimed I had temporary explosive disorder, anything to make it look better.

They all waltzed right past the kitchen where I sat, clutching my shattered knuckles in my hand, watching them look right through me like I was nothing but glass. Something to only look through, never at. Not like Dorian, who was nothing but pure gold.

That had been my first punch. My first explosion of rage that I couldn’t contain. I physically could not swallow it any longer, I had to do something. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to kill him.

I’d walked to the fridge grabbing a bag of frozen peas, knowing the cold would help the swelling go down. Rook had taught me that before I was even seven.

Dorian was in his second year at Hollow Heights and he’d decided he wanted an office, to study, fuck girls, whatever bullshit he’d told my parents. Instead of taking one of the fifteen thousand other free bedrooms, he took my conservatory. He picked it because he knew it was the only place in that fucking house I could stand. He didn’t even want an office he just wanted to show me, once again, that everything in my life was nothing but his to take.

The conservatory was all the way on the west end of the house, it was a small circular extension of the original house. My grandfather had built it for my father when he was my age, and it had never been used until I was five.

I stayed in there all the time. I never came out unless I wasn’t at home.

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