Chasm gives me and Kimber a ride to school; Tess seems to realize that we can’t exactly stop and have sex with my younger sister in the car, so she’s appeased. For now. I have a feeling that if—when, I have to keep saying when—we get Parrish back, all of the things she’s angry with me about will come rushing back.
For now, she’s too distracted by Parrish to give me more than a passing glance. If she could trade me to get him back, I believe in my heart that she’d do it.
As soon as we walk in the doors of the academy, I sense another cosmic shift.
Lumen is standing there, shaking and bleeding, her uniform torn and disheveled, her beautiful, honeyed hair a tangled mess around her angry face.
“Kwang-seon,” she breathes, nostrils flared, hands clenched into fists on either side of her. I flick my gaze over to Chasm, but he’s affected that lazy, bored, bad boy expression of his. He stares her down unflinchingly, amber eyes dark with barely contained rage. “This is your doing.”
“Is it?” he asks as Lumen pants, squeezing her fists so tightly that droplets of blood actually fall and hit the stone floor beneath her feet. “How do you figure that?”
Lumen’s earth-colored eyes swing over to mine. In them, I feel like I see a flicker of … something, but it’s impossible to place. Everybody here is brimming with secrets and bullshit; I can barely stand it. She returns her attention to Chasm, stalking down the hall as people move hurriedly out of her way.
“You have no idea what you’re doing,” she hisses at him, tall enough to look him directly in the face in a way that I can’t. Chasm doesn’t flinch, holding his ground as Kimber gapes openly, gazing between the two of them with a look that’s part fear, part awe. Meanwhile, I just stand there with my broken fingers and nose aching, every bruise on my body a throbbing splotch of purple betrayal.
“Not only did you unleash that pack of bitches to beat Dakota’s ass, but did you know they also tried to chuck her over the wall of the third-floor courtyard?”
Something strange flickers in Lumen’s eyes. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it was surprise, but it’s hard to tell beneath the blood and bruises.
“Who?” she demands, her voice cool and even. “I’ll have to send them thank you cards.”
Chasm lets out a harsh laugh and shoulders past her, knocking his body into hers so forcefully that she actually stumbles. Unwilling to be caught alone with the girl I thought not only liked me as a friend, but was also crushing on me, I chase after him and Kimber follows along.
“Did you get your friends to beat her up?” Kimber whispers, but Chasm just shakes his head, strolling down the hall as people move out of our way. How long will this social pressure hold for him? How long before he becomes a pariah and an outcast right alongside me? I meant it when I told him he should leave me alone to deal with this.
Then again, I wasn’t aware that my life was at stake on campus.
“Go to class, Kim,” he says, opening the door to a classroom on our right. She gives him a sharp frown but takes the coffee he bought her on the way here and slips inside anyway.
“She’s head over heels for you,” I tell him, and he turns a look on me.
“Yeah, I know, but … eww?” Chasm cringes slightly, lifting a single brow. “I’ve known her since I was nine; she was six. We’re basically family. Also, she’s fourteen.”
“Maybe you should be calling her Little Sister then?” I offer, my gaze sliding past him toward the end of the hallway. Lumen is gone. I assume she slipped into a bathroom to clean up. I turn back to Chas. “Anyway, did you send your friends to beat Lumen up?”
He leans in toward me, so close that I can smell him. Peppermint and dark chocolate. Ugh.
“All those girls I’ve helped over the years? I called on some old debts.” Chasm stands up straight, eyes scanning the students behind him.
“Didn’t I tell you to leave her alone?” I grind out. “You’re risking everything for … for …”
“You?” Chasm queries, looking down at me with an inscrutable expression. “You and Parrish, more like. Is that a problem? I won’t apologize, Little Sister. What Lumen did to you was fucked-up, regardless of the situation with the fire. She got what was coming to her.”
He grabs my hand and drags me after him, depositing me at my first period class before lifting up a finger in warning.
“Do not go anywhere without me. You hear me?”
“Yes, sir.” I roll my eyes at him and then, just to gauge his reaction, I try that phrase again. “Saranghae.”
