Page 9 of The Hunt
“Hey, where you going?” Jelleta shouted.
“I’ll catch you later,” I said, hurrying out of the building and to my car.
What the fuck is Mark doing?
He peeled out of the parking lot after her, and I got into my car and followed.
Because whether Daphne liked it or not, she was mine. And Mark fucking Sesta wasn’t going to touch what was mine. Tonight, he’d learn not to put a hand on my girl. Tonight, he’d learn to keep his hands to himself. And tonight, I’d finally get my chance with herl.
CHAPTER 6
DAPHNE
Snow fell in lazy spirals, covering the city in a white blanket. I stepped out of my car, the cold air hitting my face. I grabbed my backpack and headed toward the Botanical Gardens, which were nearly two hours away from Redwood.
I drove up here once or twice a week to help care for the trees. Everyone visited for the pretty display of flowers blooming all times of the year, and the trees were always the last to get any love. Still, they were my favorite.
After adjusting my bag on my shoulder, I headed up the path toward the gardens, willing myself to forget about Apollo. I had seen him after school when I was grabbing a coffee before heading up here, and he was giving me those eyes.
Yes, those eyes.
Those eyes that made me warm in places that they shouldn’t.
He was with all the popular kids at Redwood Academy too, and he was giving me the bedroom eyes in front of them! The last goddamn thing I needed was gossip about Apollo DeLuca and me happening right now.
I had been trying to ignore him for the past four weeks. Why didn’t he get the hint?!
It had been four freaking weeks of mental torture from that man, visiting me during my lunch period in the library, telling me about all the dirty things he wanted to do to me, only to not touch me and leave me desperate for it.
Stupid boy.
He was doing it on purpose too. He wanted to break me.
Well, it wasn’t happening. It couldn’t.
I stomped the snow off my boots before heading into the warm building. This place was my little sanctuary where I could forget about everything, even that asshole; a mix of greens and trees, even in the dead of winter.
And tonight was one of my favorite events of the year: Winter Solstice Galore.
“Hey Daphne,” the woman behind the counter said, offering a smile.
I smiled back and headed toward the main greenhouse. The warm and earthy scent of plants wrapped me up like a blanket. Twinkling fairy lights hung from the glass ceiling, casting a soft glow on the plants underneath it.
For the next few hours, I tended to the flora like usual, greeting sightseers who had come for the event, clothed in silky dresses and suits. When I finally caught a moment to myself, I lingered by the laurel trees, dragging my fingers across their branches.
“Daphne,” a familiar voice called.
I glanced over my shoulder to spot Mark Sesta, a student at Redwood that I saw everywhere. And when I say everywhere, I mean everywhere. He wouldn’t always greet me, but I’d see him browsing the aisles of Walmart late at night, in the parking lot of the bakery that I frequented on Sunday mornings, even at the park in the dead of winter.
“Hi,” I said slowly, offering him a smile. “Mark, right?”
“That’s me!” he said with a huge grin. “What’re you doing here?”
Mark had always been a bit too nice to me, the only guy showing interest in talking to me at Redwood. Besides that asshole, Apollo. But Mark wasn’t like Apollo. No, he was always nice and never pushy. And he didn’t have those stupid little smirks either.
“Just… uh, working.”
“All the way up here?”
