Page 38 of Laid Bare

It would be smart to get to know them. Like,reallyget to know them. Maybe see if they are relaying every little thing about me back to the council. Not that I think they’d tell me. But everyone has a tell, and I don’t doubt that I’d be able to figure theirs out.

“Hey, Bailey?” Bane’s voice stops me before I can enter my dorm.

“Hmm?”

“We have that book for you from Councilman Cassian. Do you want to come in and get it?” He nods toward their door, an unnamed emotion resting in his eyes.

“Umm, I’ll just wait out here for you to get it, if that’s okay.” More than anything I just want to disappear into the solitude of my room. Get away from the judgment unfairly thrust upon me.

A flicker of sadness—there and gone—flashes across his face before he gives a sharp nod and disappears into their assigned dorm room. Zane continues to lean against the wall, watching me, waiting for something. What, I have no clue. But his stare has me fidgeting in place, wholly uncomfortable with the weight of his attention directed solely at me.

It’s only a heartbeat later when Bane comes back out, a thin leather tome grasped in his gray fingers. The aged spined is cracked, barely looking like it’s holding itself together, but the cover is soft beneath my fingertips.

There’s a reverence in my touch, an unspoken awe to the fact that this one small book holds all the answers to the etchings embedded in my skin.

“When you get the list compiled, you can give it to us, and we’ll get it over to Cassian.” A fleeting darkness flares in his gaze, telling me he’s not all that onboard with the councilman’s request, but instead of voicing it, he turns on his heel and disappears back into their room.

“If you need anything, we’ll be right here,” Zane murmurs, hiking his thumb over his shoulder toward their door.

“Thanks, Zane. I’ll see you guys later.”

Not one to shirk on his duty, Zane stays rooted to the spot, his gaze following my every move toward my dorm. It’s only when I get the lock clicks into place that I hear their door slam from down the hall.

Aero makes his rounds around the room—why, I have no clue—before he climbs up on the couch and lies down, closing his eyes. Not a moment later, his snores bounce off the walls, clearly exhausted after the day we had today.

Not that the flying pony did much, except follow me from class to class.

I glance around my dorm, the same walls, the same floor-to-ceiling windows offering the same view every day.

Same. Same. Same.

Everything is the freaking same, and I’m over it. I don’t know how much longer my sanity will last staring at the same things again and again. There’s nothing to break up the monotony that has become my life since the gala.

It’s not safe outside the walls of the academy. I get that. I really do. But going from having friends, doing things, exploring the city to absolutely nothing but the same damn four walls day in and day out for the past week is liable to make a person go crazy.

And I feel like I’m standing on that ledge, about to plunge headfirst into the realm of batshit crazy.

Almost like a lightbulb going off, I realize there is somewhere I can go. Somewhere relatively safe that very few know about.

My birth parents’ house. Or, well, my house now.

As uncomfortable as I was the first time Axel took me there, it now feels like it could be a much-needed sanctuary. A home away from—I look around and my lips twist in a grimace—home, I guess.

Decision made, I pull out my phone.

Me

If you guys are free, I’m going to portal over to my birth parents’ house.

Yummy Vamp

Any particular reason why, cor meum?

Shit.Think, think, think, Bailey.I can’t exactly tell him I’m running away from the bullshit here. It’s not like I’ve told him about the vile things people are saying about me. Especially the comment about raping me. He’d go psycho-vamp in a heartbeat if he knew.

Oh, oh, I know!

I quickly type out a reply.

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