Page 18 of The Hate We Breathe
7
JULIET
Animals can smell fear, and I’ve often wondered, why not humans? We’re all animals after all.
Then, I step through the doors of Silverwood Public and I realize—we can.
Fear smells like a combination of sweat, bleach, and cheap perfume. It clings to the walls, the lockers, and the students that pretend not to stare at me as the guys and I walk towards our lockers.
If I thought shit was bad back when my dad was just a thief—that’s nothing compared to what those eyes are saying now.
Murderer.
Psycho.
Whore.
They don’t say it out loud. Cowards never do. But I hear it anyway. I’m no longer just guilty by association. In these people’s eyes, I’m a killer. It’s almost ironic that they’re right—just not about who I’ve killed.
The hallway stretches in front of me like a damn execution march. Each step I take is met with a strange sort of silence that’s too loud to ignore. It’s not the complete absence of sound. There are far too many whispers and other noises—sneakerssqueaking on the tiled floors, the sharp banging of a vending machine releasing its goods, and the clang of locker doors—for that to be the case.
The silence is coming from somewhere else. From the students themselves. There are no shouts, no mocking jeers. Even the teachers avoid looking at me as I pass them.
I’m not sure if I should be grateful for the guys’ positions on either side and behind me. A part of me is a little annoyed. I need to know what to expect when they’re not around. I need to be able to anticipate and protect myself. Right now, I’m struggling to read any of the people I see.
Sharp gazes crawl over my skin like cockroaches, hungry for blood, for a hint of the truth. That is… if the truth is what they’re hoping for.
Truth and reality are two very different things. These people don’t want reality. They want the truth astheyknow it.
My fingers curl at my sides, nails biting into my palms, but I don’t stop walking. Not when Nolan moves up from my back and around to the front of me, taking the lead. Not when I spy some of Megan’s old cronies. Not when Lex reaches out and takes my hand, redirecting my attention to him.
He lifts my hand up until his lips are on my knuckles. I blink and nearly stumble as he opens his mouth and sets the edge of his teeth on my skin.
“Lex.” I hiss his name and yank my hand away. Not that he seems to care. His laugh is a deep vibrato that dives deep into me and heads straight for my core.
With a scowl of frustration, I turn forward and pick up speed, pacing past Nolan as I head for my own locker—if it’s still even mine. I hear one of the guys call my name—maybe Nolan, maybe Gio—but I ignore it and stomp forward.
When I reach the hallway and row of lockers that houses my own, I move to it and am grateful to see that it still has the samelock I left on it. Twisting the knob back and forth until it pops, the door swings outward to reveal my notebooks and textbooks, all of which had been left behind when I moved into Morpheus’ house. Even though I’d continued schooling online, he’d made sure that it had included everything online—textbooks and notes included were only available digitally. He’d been in the process of getting the physical things for me to finish school when he’d died.
Oh well. It was a wasted effort.
A male body smacks against the locker next to mine and my lips twitch in amusement. “This brings me back,” I murmur as I pick out what I’ll need for classes before lunch.
Gio grins at me. “To the good ol’ days, I’m sure,” he replies.
I roll my eyes. “Those ‘good ol’ days’,” I say, “were, like, three months ago.”
He shrugs, crossing his arms over his chest as I finish and close the door, relocking it. “Hey, things are different now than they were then, aren’t they?”
He’s not wrong about that, but I don’t respond as I move down the hall towards my first class.
“Jules.” The sound of Nolan’s voice draws me up. I glance over my shoulder, arching a brow as both he and Lex stop next to Gio. “You gonna be okay?” he asks, casting a dark look at the onlookers as he does.
“Don’t worry, big man.” I lift my hand, waving him and the others off. “I’m no damsel in distress. See you in class.”
The studentsof Silverwood aren’t the only ones surprised by my sudden reintroduction to the rest of the school. Several of the teachers do a double take when I walk into their classrooms.Most stop me when the bell rings, signaling the end of the period, to inquire about my studies while I wasn’t in class.
I lose count of how many times I have to explain the online schoolwork that Morpheus had me do even though I’m almost certain they all must have been informed. They had to be in order to send information and grade my previous work.
