Page 35 of Good Losers (Lochkelvin Academy)

“Art is the one thing I feel captures the enormity of my soul. Art,” he says, “and sex. Now stop moving, girl, I very much want to kiss you.”

I gape at him, at the pale pink lips approaching mine. I have the sudden, angry flash of certainty – that under no circumstance am I bargaining myself away to a man for this fucking male-created disaster of a dossier. Indeed, the only thing I feel right now as I gaze at Oscar Munro’s cold, handsome face is the desire to knee him in the balls.

“You’re Rory’sdad,” I gasp, turning away from him.

“And therefore a thousand times more qualified than him to know how unsuited you are.”

But instead of pressing the issue, he lifts his gaze from mine, glancing out at the midnight grounds of the estate as though he hadn’t suggested anything improper at all.

As I wander around the Death Room to gather my thoughts, studying each feral piece of taxidermy in detail, I dwell on his offer.

Of being pinned against the back wall. Of hands tight around my wrists, my legs around someone’s waist, of being lifted into the air and being kissed and kissed, varnished mahogany scraping down the bare skin of my back, down the strip of bones along my spine, the thrill of edging ever closer to the cool glass. The possibility of smashing the ancient window with the weight of such a passionate embrace, and of tumbling free to the beyond.

Of plummeting.

Of losing control.

Of dying spiritually and physically.

An unfortunate accident. A happy suicide.

I shake my head. Yes, part of me wants to be corrupted. Part of me wants to be the victorious one Oscar Munro turns his weighty, absent-hearted attention onto, so swollen with meaning and power. But I don’t raise this. Because this is all about power. I’m attracted, enchanted even, by the power running through Oscar Munro’s veins, the same as which runs through Rory.

Or perhaps it’s just their stupidly attractive DNA.

Either way, I don’t say anything. I have a job to do.

I have to use the modicum of power I’ve been given to destroy that dossier.

I swallow, glancing back at him. While he’s distracted by the window, I move over to the side table containing the all-important document.

When I touch it, when I hold the thick satisfying weight of it, I’m thrust back into a memory of a dingy cavern behind a sooty fireplace, of Benji and the insistence in his bright amber eyes that this is theright thing to do, that releasing this document to the blissfully ignorant public is theright thing to do.

I disagree now, as does Finlay.

It’s the worst idea in the world.

This is the kind of blinkered male idiocy that we were pushed into without having the time to slow down and fully comprehend.

It’s the kind of blinkered male idiocy that could start a war.

And so… I take one for the team.

Sacrifice. Martyrdom.

Let Oscar Munro do what he wants with me.

Without knowing what to do with it, I curl my fist tight around the document.

Mine.

I pause, and the pause is a mistake.

The world falls to the side as my wrist is jerked from behind, and I cry aloud through singing pain as a vise tightens around my bones. But I’m determined, I’m so determined, to eliminate this dossier from the world.

As I stumble back into Oscar Munro’s arms, I throw the dossier in the direction of the fireplace.

It’s my one act of rebellion. It may be the bravest thing I’ve ever done in my life.

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