Page 23 of Make Me Lie (Rich Demons of Darkwood 1)

The brunette crinkled her nose. “I mean, have you seen them?”

It was almost a valid point.

But no, there was no excuse for that kind of behavior. That was their brand of toxic.

“You all deserve better,” I grumbled. “And I deserve better.”

Even with my dark twisted past, I knew that I deserved better than men who were bullies and monsters like those guys seemed to be, or at least like Stellan was. I wondered what had happened to him. He had been such a nice boy when we were growing up. Yeah, he was the popular jock, and he knew it. He’d been handsome and cocky and way too charming. But something was different about him now, a mean, vicious side that had been a cruel gleam in his eyes after he kissed me. My heart ached as I thought maybe it was because of what had happened to his sister.

No one was listening to my grumbling now. The conversation had moved on, and the girls were comparing how drunk they’d all gotten the night before.

For a moment, just as I always had when I was a kid, I had a glimpse of how we looked from the outside, half a dozen girls laughing and shouting. For a moment, it was nice to see myself as if I was part of the group laughing with a bunch of fun, cute girls. And the next second just made me feel sad. I felt like I didn't really belong here, that I wasn't really one of them.

“I have a ton of homework to do,” I said finally.

“Hey, yeah, me too.” Jenna got up from the table too. “But I'm gonna go take a nap.”

We all laughed. She went upstairs with me.

As I packed up my backpack to go study, she tumbled onto the bed and stretched out. “Our freshman year is going to be such an adventure.”

She sounded so happy, and it was such a jarring contrast to my jangling nerves about Stellan. “I like your enthusiasm.”

“I’ll be enthusiastic for both of us, Aurora.”

“And I’ll study for both of us, Jenna.” I hoisted my backpack and headed out. “Later!”

“Later!” She already sounded sleepy. I would love to have her ability to sleep so easily, without any subconscious freakouts.

I didn't actually head off to the library. I realized once I left our room that I felt weird going back there after that strange note. A shiver ran down my spine. If someone knew who I was, I couldn’t shake the feeling that knowledge would be followed by violence.

I should have known there was no way I could get an actual second chance. What The Demon had done to me, and what he'd made me do, would haunt me all my life.

But I didn't know at the time just how much it would haunt me that day.

* * *

I wentinto a café on one end of campus. I hadn't been there before, so I spent a few minutes looking at the menu before ordering a green tea latte and trying to pick a seat. I found a table by the window where I could sit with my back against the wall.

I pulled out my books and got to work reading, highlighting, and making note cards. If there was one thing I knew how to do, it was to be a good student. Reading and researching had always been my escape, a way to make my mind so busy that I couldn’t ruminate over my memories at the same time.

But after a while, I noticed that people were giving me a second glance. And a third glance, and a fourth. It was my nature to always be keeping an eye out on what was happening around me, no matter how deeply engrossed I was in my homework.

I could have sworn I heard people twittering and whispering and giving me long, dark glances. Was word spreading about what I had done with the guys? And were people really that jealous of my few miserable moments with Stellan, or even the nicer ones before with Cain, Remington, and Pax?

I mean, the guys looked like gods, but they weren't literal gods, no matter how much people treated them that way.

I couldn't stand the weird, dirty glances anymore. The air around me felt charged, so I gathered up my stuff and headed back across campus to our room. I didn't want to risk waking up Jenna, but it had been several hours, so hopefully she was awake by now.

I opened up the door to our room as quietly as I could, trying to tiptoe in so that I wouldn't wake her up. But when I caught a glimpse of red, my heart stopped. Blood! There was blood splattered all over my side of the room.

My heart rate dropped as my reflexes took over, my hands rising to protect myself as I whirled, looking around the room for a fight.

But there was no one else in here. Jenna was still breathing, and drooling.

The red was everywhere. It was all over my side of our room, poured over my bed, over my clothes. I pulled open one of my dresser drawers and realized that every single piece of clothing I owned had been doused red.

It didn't smell like blood. I was intimately familiar with that particular scent.

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