Page 76 of Rejected Hollow

At the far end of the room, the dark-haired girl among the Fenhall students went very still.

Jax saw her too.

Without slowing down, he changed direction and walked me straight toward her.

"Hope you got her good side," he said pleasantly. He paused. "Trick question. She doesn't have a bad one." Then his voice changed. It wasn't loud anymore. It became quiet, controlled, and completely serious. "If I see one of those pictures anywhere, ever, I'll know exactly whose phone it came from, chica. I've got a very good nose."

The grin returned immediately, and he led me up the stairs while the gallery behind us erupted into whispers.

My face was burning. So was the rest of me. I was still embarrassed, still shaking, and still painfully aware that half the school had just watched me walk through the gallery wearing almost nothing.

But there was something else underneath all of that now.

For the first time since Delphine had taken my clothes, I didn't feel completely powerless.

Jax's room was in the Solace wing at the top of a crooked staircase. It was warm and cluttered and unmistakably his. The air smelled of cinnamon, oranges, and something spicy and smoky that I later discovered came from the small camping stove he kept illegally on the windowsill and used for late-night cooking.

Clothes were scattered across the floor. Books covered half the bed. A string of paper lanterns ran along the ceiling, and above the desk was a photograph of a thin, grinning boy who looked about eighteen. He had Jax's eyes and was giving the camera the finger.

Jax sat me on the edge of the bed, wrapped a blanket around my shoulders, and pressed a mug of hot chocolate into my hands. It was thick and dark, with cinnamon and enough chili in it to make my eyes water.

Then he crouched in front of me on his heels, still bare-chested, and watched while I drank.

Without my glasses, I couldn't see him clearly. He was little more than a warm golden shape at the edge of the lamplight.

But I could feel his presence. I could smell him, and I could hear the slow rhythm of his breathing.

"Why did you do that?" I asked when the mug was empty. "In the gallery."

"Because they wanted everyone to see you ashamed." He gave a small shrug. "You decided to walk through anyway. I just made sure everybody understood that you weren't the person who had anything to be ashamed of."

"I was ashamed."

"I know." He was quiet for a second. "You didn't look ashamed, though." I looked at him. "You looked like a queen."

I lowered my eyes to the empty mug.

"You called me gorgeous out there."

"Because you are."

"You call everyone gorgeous."

He went still. "Not anymore."

"Tamsin told me. Babe. Gorgeous. Trouble. She said you called half the school something."

"Used to."

"Used to?"

"Past tense, reina."

His smile came back, but there was less performance in it now. "I haven't called anyone those things since you told me to go away in the Pit."

"That was weeks ago."

"Longest weeks of my life."