Page 7 of The Knight

A moment passes between us, and I know we're both thinking about the things we said. Worse, the things we did. What I did to him with my stupid, naive little blog. And what he did to me—what I thought he did to me—with my brother's reputation and his untimely end.

"They killed him."

The sound of my voice is louder than I expected, and I twitch at its volume. Speaking the words aloud to them, unlike to Officer Lopez, makes it all seem fresh and real. But also messy. Like a scabbed-over wound, recently picked with grubby fingers.

"Those two men who took me," I continue, "they said something when they were..." My hands go up to my neck, and I find myself struggling for the next breath to finish the sentence. "When they put me in the trunk. They said they would do to me what they did to Silas."

Lukas freezes, his facial expression oddly devoid of emotion. What Tanner does is the opposite in every single way: he curses up a storm, a filthy word barely springing from his mouth before another one rises on its heels, tripping over each other on their way to my ear. Pacing in front of my hospital bed, every muscle in his body tense, he makes me feel like I should be doing the same thing with the same energy.

But all my anger died with the toxic cocktail of chemicals still racing through my veins. It'll take hours, maybe even days of recovery before I feel strong enough to burn as I did before. Maybe it's for the best—when I come for those men, I want to be ready. The fire inside me has a history of hitting the wrong target when it's released from its cage too eagerly.

"We came here to warn you about something, but I guess it'll be the least of your concerns." Lukas runs a hand through his already-messy blond hair, tossing it wildly around his head. "That detective is talking to Cole and Blake right now. He wants to investigate you for falsifying your identity. The school administration found out what you did."

My blood freezes. "Am I going to be expelled?"

Tanner rolls his eyes. "Shouldn't youwantto go home now, you bloodthirsty monster? You almost died. Also, if what you said is true, then you can't blame us for what happened to your brother anymore—last I checked we're notmurderers."

"I don't want to go home," I protest, even as I find myself wondering if I'm insane for saying it—and even worse, meaning it.

Leaving Coleridge should be the first thing on my mind, but for some reason it's not. I've paid too steep a price to give up on the academy now, after everything. And I'm not done here. Not yet.

Not until the right people pay for the hollow ache inside my chest where a brother's love used to live.

"I need to know what happened to Silas. I don't have all the answers yet." I shouldn't be explaining this to these two wretched, terrible boys who pulls at my conscious and makes me want to scream, but here I am saying the words anyway. Maybe it's something they put in my IV. "There is no home for me until I know why I had to put my brother in the ground."

Lukas is watching me. "Understandable."

"Brutal," Tanner counters. "And very, very stupid. Are you willing to die to sate your curiosity? This is how you got burned in the chapel, you know."

Frowning, Lukas says, "I thought you burned her."

"She's a good liar." Tanner narrows his eyes at me. "You should let the police do their jobs, and get out of here before that detective decides to charge you with something for using a fake social security number."

"You know about that?" I glance between them. "I guess Georgia figured it out."

"Cole did, actually," Lukas says, and my hands knot up into fists in the sheets at his name. That kiss is still seared into my mind—a kiss far less sweet than Lukas's lips on mine, leaving an imprint behind on my lips, which burn with hunger and hatred alike for him. "He's talking to the detective right now."

"What is he saying?"

Looking away, Lukas says, "Probably anything to get you kicked out of Coleridge forever so you leave instead of digging into more things that aren't your business."

My voice is hoarse and angry as I point out, "What happened to Silasismy business."

"That may be," Lukas states calmly, "but it's not safe for you here."

"So you're turning me in to the police?"

"I'm sure you'll get off with a misdemeanor," the European bastard says dismissively. "You're still a juvenile. The worst they'll do is assign you community service."

"And kick me out of Coleridge."

Tanner snarkily points out, "You didn't earn your spot, so what do you care if you lose it? It wasn't yours to begin with."

Maybe it wasn't. Maybe I used a false name and fake transcripts to get in, and barely managed to stay in by the skin of my teeth. But Ididstay in, without even cheating, and now my spot at Coleridge feels like it belongs to me—stolen or not. I've suffered at the school, lost my naïveté and my purpose, betrayed myself and my brother's ghost with kisses that never should've happened, and sinned a dozen times over.

The school is mine to stay in.

I suffered hard enough for it.

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