“Can I ride shotgun?” Kimber is asking flirtatiously as Chasm slides a lazy glance in her direction and smirks.
“Are you fucking kidding me? No. Get your ass in the backseat and stop hitting on my best friend. Don’t you have any shame?” Parrish snaps, shoving Kimber into the back as she mutters insults and curses under her breath.
“Why don’t you let Chasm answer for himself?” Kimber bites out as I slide in beside her and she scowls at me, her expression almost disturbingly similar to her brother’s. Her brother. My sister. Parrish and I might not be related, but we share four blood-related siblings. Is it weird for me to pretend to date him?
I decide the only weird part about it is how goddamn rude and dismissive he is. I don’t glorify bad behavior from boys, so what is it? Why? Why am I doing this to myself?!
“I don’t date freshman,” Chasm replies, some Podcast about modern day serial killers playing on his car’s stereo, which isn’t even remotely something I expected from him. “Sorry, Kim.”
“Whoever said I wanted to date you?!” she gasps, like the thought’s so abhorrent to her that she’d rather die than admit her crush aloud. “That’s disgusting.”
With a sigh, I lean my elbow against the window and park my chin in my hand.
“Fucking hell, Kimber,” Parrish scoffs, looking back at her with disdain marring his pretty features. “You’re almost as bad as Dakota.”
I kick the back of his seat hard enough that he grunts, and Chasm gives this annoyingly self-satisfied chuckle.
“I’m under strict orders to take you kids home,” he says, heading for the Whitehall gate at a speed that’s at least twice that of the legal limit. I check and double check my seat belt, just in case.
“How are you able to hang around the house so much if Parrish is grounded?” I ask as Chasm lifts his pretty amber eyes to the rearview mirror so that he can smile at me.
“Just consider me part of the family,” he says, locking eyes with me in the rearview mirror. We hold each other’s gazes for a disturbing amount of time before he turns back to the road. “Did you hear that Gavin is fucking some actor twice his age? He was sharing dick pics with anyone that would look.”
Mindless gossip. I don’t even know who ‘Gavin’ is.
For the love of god, I think as I suppress a roll of my eyes and lean back against the seat, trying to listen to the Podcast instead of the day’s gossip. The hosts are discussing the latest rash of disappearances and murders in Seattle, most of them involving teens around my age. It’s too depressing to listen to, so I stuff my own earbuds in and close my eyes for the rest of the drive back to the ice cavern.
I slump onto my bed and cover my face with my hands.
What a long-ass day.
“Knock knock,” Chasm drawls, slouching in my doorway and smoking a cigarette. I swear I locked the door, but he probably just picked the lock. I sit up, so that I can glare at him.
“What do you want?” I ask him, but he just laughs and continues to smoke. I’m assuming that Tess isn’t home then or else he wouldn’t be quite so blatant about it.
“I wanted to check on you, after such a wild first day and all,” he says, sauntering into my room and looking around with a wistful nostalgia on his face that’s clearly crafted of bullshit and arrogance. He’s just come in here to annoy me, clearly.
I lean back, planting my hand on the bed only to realize that I’ve just put it in something … wet? With a frown, I lift my palm up and notice the blood. What the hell?
“You’re the talk of the school, you know that, Little Sister?” Chas asks, seemingly oblivious to my predicament. I blink a few times as I stare at the red on my palm and then surreptitiously flip the comforter back, revealing a small red stain underneath. Huh. I remember stripping my sheets this morning. At least … I thought I did?
I must be losing my mind.
“Am I? I hadn’t noticed.” Only, I had. And I’m not sure whether it was a smart move on my part—or a huge mistake, playing this game with Lumen and Parrish. I move into the bathroom and wash my hands, heading back into the room and systematically stripping the bed while Chas watches, still smoking his cigarette.
He pauses at the sound of footsteps in the hall and we both turn to see Parrish in the doorway. He narrows his eyes on his friend.
“Why are you in her room?” he asks, this biting edge to his voice that gives me pause.
“What do you care?” Chasm retorts, tilting his head slightly to one side as Parrish flicks his attention my way, noticing the bloodied sheets and comforter. He frowns slightly, like he, too, remembers the exchange this morning. I kick the pile of blankets into the corner until I can get rid of both boys.
