Page 17 of Reckless Hearts

Someone’s photoshopped my face onto hers.

I can’t tell if I want to scream, throw up, or both. It’s a combination of disgust at seeing my face on something so vile together with rage at the obviously intended racist element. I’m not the least bit religious, and I’ve never once worn a hijab. But of course, that’s the cheap, easy dig they go for when they come after me: the man who raped my mother was Iranian. So let’s bring on the shitty, racist hijab jokes.

I almost throw my phone. But instead, I lurch to my feet, grab the closest rock off the ground, and spin around, hurling it against the stone wall I’ve just been leaning my head against.

And then I pause, my brow furrowing.

My thrown rock has bounced off the wall and rolled away. But right next to where it struck, one of the bigger, ivy-covered stones set into the wall hasmoved, and is now pushing out a little.

The fuck?

Peering curiously at it, I walk over and grip it between my fingertips. It slides out easily. Instantly, my brows lift.

Whoa.

The space behind the rock I’ve just slid out of the wall isn’t empty, or full of bugs and dirt. There’s a book sitting there, small and battered, with a faded orange leather cover and one of those elastic straps keeping it closed. When I take it in my hands and open it, I blink.

It’s a diary.

No name. No “this book belongs to”. No phone number in case it’s found. And even though I know I’m not meant to read it, my eyes drop to the first words on the first page:

“Sometimes I feel as if I’m the only real person wandering a whole planet of replicas. A single fish in a tank, with the glass painted to look like the ocean around me.”

I’m instantly hooked. I sit on the bench and I read until the sun begins to set, devouring every single hand-written word.

Eventually, when the shadows begin to lengthen and the sky begins to darken, I realize it’s time to go, knowing that I’ll be back.

I carefully put the book back exactly as I found it and slide the rock back into place before I pick up my bag and walk out of the garden. I head through the glade of trees, across one of the fields, and then plunge through another thick clump of woods on my way back to my dorm.

…When suddenly, something dark materializes out of the trees right in front of me.

I gasp, my heart leaping into my throat and stifling my scream as I lurch backward. My eyes widen as they lift up to his…

And something explodes in my core.

A mix of terror and excitement. Fear and curiosity.

Run, or stay?

My mind can’t decide. But as the seconds tick by with me staring up through the gathering darkness into Deimos’ eyes, I realize I’m not sure if it’s that Ican’trun right now, or that I simply don’t want to.

And I’m not sure which is more terrifying a thought.

Seconds turn into almost a full minute. Neither of us says a thing as we stand there, barely three feet apart in the rapidly darkening woods. I try to swallow, but I can’t. I wet my lips, and his eyes focus on the motion, like a hawk spotting a mouse scurrying across a moonlit field.

“I…”

I’m astonished that I actually manage to make a sound, even if it’s just one syllable. One letter. One tiny utterance. I swallow again, shivering as his eyes stab into me, filling me with fear and something else as I realize I’m completely alone in the woods with the terror of Knightsblood University.

“Have you been spying on me?”

The words burst from my mouth even as I try to shove them back inside. Deimos says nothing, and the silence around us only grows. The cool air prickles my skin, yet my palm feels sweaty as it grips the strap of my school bag.

“I…I mean—”

“You don’t belong here.”

It’s the first time I’ve ever heard him speak. His voice is like whiskey and leather. It’s so much older than the rest of him, too. So much more weathered, and stoic, and world-weary than any twenty-one-year-old has any right to be.

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