Page 49 of Twisted Little Game

I lift my brow. “If you came to this school and I found out you had threats against you, I would always choose to protect you. No matter who you were. Even if I wasn’t told to, and even if there was no pay.”

He gives me a sad smile, then looks out at the fire. “I don’t know if I believe that.”

“You should.”

“Okay. Thanks for saying that.”

“You don’t trust me?”

“I wish I did.”

I set down the iron poker with a loud clatter on the stone.

“I don’t think you know how many people I have already kept safe on this campus, and the larger amount I’ve kept safe in my family. I am taking Luke’s payment because my idiot cousin recently lost two million dollars of our money, and I need to pay it back. But I would do this for nothing.”

“Why? You don’t know me. You have no reason to care⁠—”

“Because you are an innocent person, and a good person,” I say forcefully. “End of story. There are no other details I need. Innocent people do not deserve to be threatened. Ever.”

The words spill out of me too quickly, and I’m more angry than I realized.

But I despise it.

I hate that I have to explain to a good person why he’s worth protecting, in a world where bad people never even stop for a moment to question themselves.

Tate is quiet for a moment.

It’s the first time I’ve seen that sad look in his eyes in person.

I caught it in some of the photos of him, and now it’s right there in front of me.

The sounds of crackling wood fill the air between us.

He reaches down to pick up a thin fallen tree branch from the ground, ripping off the leaves until it’s stripped bare. He leans over and puts the tip of it into the flames, letting it catch fire.

When he pulls it back it looks like a little torch, then he blows it out quickly, a trail of smoke curving around him into the air.

“Okay,” he finally tells me. “I believe you.”

“Was that so difficult?”

“Yes,” he admits, and even when he smiles at me, it’s still tinged with pain. “I’ve been the shadow in my family for my entire life. I don’t think I’ve ever contemplated if I’m a good person or not. I’m just a Landrey. Me play football. Me work out. Me no cause trouble… or if I do, there are bad consequences.”

“You act like you’re some meat-head, but you’re one of the smartest people I’ve talked to in a long time.”

“How do you know?”

I bite my lower lip, then slowly let it go. “Teacher’s pet.”

He sighs, giving me a hopeless look. “You watched me while I was in my classes? Of course you did.”

“Not all of them. But enough.”

“How the fuck did you do that? Hacking the school cameras?”

I give him a playful look. “Why do you think everything has to involve hacking? I took Econ last year. The professor loves me. I asked her if I could listen in, so I took a seat in the back row and just watched.”

“You were in that classroom with me?”