Page 36 of Spearcrest Knight

“You can try,” I say, perching back on the stool and waving a hand at him in a dismissive gesture.

“Be careful what you fucking wish for, Sutton,” he smirks, and saunters off to make coffee.

My pulse is still pounding in my throat as I watch him with narrowed eyes. Evan is as simple as they come, but I’m finding him harder and harder to understand lately.

I almost find myself missing our relationship of the past few years. It was intense only in the way it was unpleasant. Encounters with him and his rich kid buddies always ended in the same way: with cruel comments, childish acts of bullying and smug sneers.

But there was a sort of comforting reliability to that viciousness. After a while, I adapted to it. I became adept at avoiding it and, failing that, at withstanding it.

This, however… This is far from anything I’m used to. I no longer know how to handle it. It’s as though by being in his house, Evan has realised he is on a whole different kind of battlefield.

Instead of trying to defeat me with insults and mockery, he is using a completely different arsenal. An arsenal made of his body, his eyes, his voice. His ambiguous comments and the sensual suggestions within them.

If I didn’t know better, I’d think Evan was flirting with me.

But Idoknow better. I know better than to trust him, to give in to his games.

Because for all his appearance of sincerity, Evan is more duplicitous than anybody else I know. I’m still ashamed that he burned me once.

He won’t burn me twice.

12

Honey

The First Time Evan Burned Sophie

ThefirsttimeEvanburns me is in the dining hall at lunch. I’m sitting at my usual table by one of the windows, eating with a book propped against my tray. Evan doesn’t always join me for lunch—I never expect him to. But today, he stops at my table with an apple in hand. I look up, and my smile freezes on my face.

At his sides, Luca, Iakov, Séverinand Zachary, the most popular boys in the year, stand staring down at me. Their faces are closed and mocking—so is Evan’s.

I frown at them. “What do you want?”

“Nothing from you,” Evan says, the aggression in his voice startling me.

“Just having a look at Evan’s new admirer,” Luca says with a leer.

“What are you talking about?”

It’s like being awake in a nightmare, but a really realistic nightmare, where everything feels real but something is off.

I’m on the backfoot, underprepared and disoriented. My heart is beating fast, like I’m in danger. If I could follow my instincts, I would grab my tray, throw it at the whole group of them and run away. But they have formed an arch around me; if I wanted to walk away, I’d have to push past them, something I don’t want to do unless my hand is forced.

“Do you really think a girl like you stands a chance with one of us?” Luca continues. “Have you seen yourself?”

“I know what a mirror is, yes,” I answer. “Don’t you have anything better to do than tell me stuff I already know?”

“If you already know how disgusting you are, then what made you think it would be a good idea to try to get with Evan?”

I look at Evan, but his grin hides any true expression on his face. It’s impossible to tell what he’s feeling or what he’s thinking in this moment. But it’s clear that something happened. The Evan standing in front of me isn’t the Evan from English class. The Evan who sat next to me with his chin propped on his fist as he watched me playing chess. The Evan who gave me a tiny bear necklace for Christmas and hugged me outside the assembly hall.

That Evan is nowhere to be seen—I’ll never see him again after that.

“I’m not trying to get with Evan,” I snap. “So you can all go away and leave me alone.”

But by then, the damage isn’t done—it’s growing. A crowd assembles, not just Year 9s but Year 10s and Year 11s, too. Girls who have always found reason to look down on me are now gleefully observing the scene unfolding in front of their eyes.

And no matter what I say or reply, I’ve already lost.

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