Page 88 of Spearcrest Knight

My gaze snaps to Luca. I have the sudden, violent urgent to tell him to go fuck himself and his stupid bet, that none of this is any of his fucking business and to get off my fucking back.

But my anger would only bring the sadistic fucker more satisfaction—so I swallow back the urge and wave my hand in a dismissive gesture.

“It’s not a big deal. Guess someone had to do it.”

I grab my backpack and blazer from the couch where I tossed them earlier.

“I’m off to Bio.”

Luca checks his ridiculous Rolex. “So soon?”

I shrug. “Mr Ahmed will have my balls if I’m late.”

“Wait up,” Zachary calls, putting his books away into his bag and slinging it over his shoulder. “I’m headed that way too. I’ll go with you.”

I give a curt nod and wait for him by the door. We walk in silence until we make it out of the building. It’s snowing again, thick, fluffy snowflakes spiralling down from low, dark clouds. Students are hurrying inside, their navy uniforms blurring in the corners of my vision.

My eyes are lost in the snowfall, unfocused and unseeing. All I see, burned into my retinas like a permanent scar, is that goddamn expression on Sophie’s pretty face, the tears gliding down her cheeks. A horrible, almost embarrassing pain, a pain I inflicted myself.

Ididwant to hurt her. After everything that passed between us, after every blow she got to land on me, I couldn’t stand that she got to walk away unscathed.

Well, she is well and truly scathed now, and the balance of pain has been redressed.

So why do I still feel like pure, utter shit?

“What did you do, then?”

“What?” I turn. Zachary’s not looking at me but straight ahead as we slowly make our way towards the Science building.

“I can’t imagine Sophie would have come for you for nothing,” he says, his tone neutral, almost casual. “So what did you do?”

I glance away and swallow hard.

“I reported her to Mr Shawcross.”

Zachary is silent.

“You know… about her job, or whatever.”

“You told Mr Shawcross she had a job?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

I try to think of the reasoning behind my actions, the chain of events that led to this horrible, irreversible point.

“We kissed. At my house, during the Christmas holiday. We… kissed.”

From the corner of my eye, I see Zachary slowly nod. He’s quiet for a moment, then says, “Right. You two kissed during Christmas—so you reported her for having a job?”

“No. We kissed, and then she apologised, and told me she liked somebody else.”

Zachary is silent for longer this time.

“That’s truly shit, Ev. I can’t imagine it made you feel great.”

“It made me feel like absolute shit. Then she ran away from my house. Then—then I tried to confront her, and we had sex.”

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