Page 27 of The Beautiful Dead

The pencil slipped from his fingers as he startled, head snapping toward me, those ice-blue eyes narrowing in question. This close, I could just make out the silver flecks in them. I wanted to count them. To know every scar and freckle that covered his skin.

His lips were so close I could feel his exhale as it ghosted over my skin. It would take nothing at all to lean in and seal my lips to his. To finally taste him.

I pulled the silver tin from my back pocket, flicked it open, and lit a cigarette. Smoke curled between my lips, twisting in the cold air. “Your things have been moved.”

His expression didn’t change—the perfect mask.

I exhaled, watching the smoke curl between us. “You start classes soon. You need somewhere safe that isn’t crawling with rats and junkies.”

Nothing. Not a single flicker of emotion. I’d have thought he was catatonic if I didn’t know he only hits a joint now and then.

I left him to process, strolling lazily to the next grave, lowering myself onto the stone. I pulled one knee up to my chest and rested my arm on it with the cigarette dangling between my fingers.

Seconds stretched into minutes as I waited for his reaction. I could feel it, the war raging inside him. He was fighting it in silence. Fighting me, but he wouldn’t win.

He was mine now. He just didn’t know it yet.

“You didn’t ask.”

His fingers tightened around his sketchbook, knuckles going bone-white as his eyes drilled into me. Wind tangled through his hair, the black and white strands whipping across his face, half-obscuring the sharp cut of his cheekbones.

I flicked the cigarette end across the grass. “I didn’t need to.”

Remi exhaled, his shoulders rising and falling with the weight of something unspoken. Then, without argument, he shut his sketchbook and slipped it into his bag.

No fight.

No resistance.

Just quiet, steady acceptance—the same way he had accepted my switchblade at his throat.

“Can I have one?”

I arched my brow. “What?”

“A cigarette.”

For a moment, I just watched him—searching for something in the ice-blue depths of his gaze but finding nothing. Wordlessly, I held the tin out from where I sat perched on a grave, forcing him to come to me.

A silent test.

He hesitated only for a breath before stepping closer, plucking a cigarette from the tin and placing it between his lips. He didn’t light it.

He waited for me. A test of his own?

A slow smirk curled at the edges of my mouth as I rolled my eyes and flicked open my lighter. The flame danced between us, catching in the glassy sheen of his gaze. I watched, fascinated, as he took a deep inhale. His lips parted, thick smoke curling frombetween them. His eyes watered slightly, but he never looked away.

A million silent questions passed between us, reflected in both our stares.

Why are we doing this?

What does it mean?

Why me?

I didn’t have answers. Not ones I could name. But my body knew, my fingers snagged his belt loops, yanking him closer, the heat of him bleeding into me through layers of fabric. My other hand reached for the strap of his bag, unhooking his fingers from it with slow precision, maneuvering him wordlessly until he held his hand out palm up.

Remi frowned, looking between my face and the object I placed in the center of his hand. A ring.

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