Page 21 of Disobedient Pawn

No one in the world could talk about nothing as much as Vicky. She would make a great politician. She’d been on the phone all night. From the moment I got in from dinner, she’d told the same story ten times to ten different people, and each time it changed slightly. She’d gotten word from her cousin that a girl from another Academy was hitting on her boyfriend. So now she was pulling up every social media account on this supposed girl that liked her man and was in the midst of making her life a living hell. If I had to hear, ‘I mean, this is all her own fault. How dare she go near my man,’ one more time, I was going to freak out.

“Hang on. I have another call coming in. Oh, it’s Nash. I’ll talk to you laters, bye bestie bitch,” Vicky said, her voice sounding like a squeaky toy.

I rolled my eyes, happy we had a half wall between us so she couldn’t see my face. I wouldn’t have been able to wipe the ‘Are you fucking kidding me look’ off my face.

“Hi, Nash,” she said, purring into the phone. Dear Lord, if she started having phone sex, I would be out of here. I had my limits. “A surprise? You know I love surprises.”

I glanced at my earphones to see if they were charged. I might need two pairs, so this never happened again. The little light was green, so I unplugged them as Vicky jogged for the door. Was there really a reason to jog? Our room was all of twenty strides long.

Finding a song I liked, I put the earphones on as she opened the door. She jumped and screamed like it was a serial killer at the door before leaping on the guy I’d seen her with at lunch. He was holding a rose, and his eyes found mine for a second before Vicky attacked his face.

“For the love….” I finished swearing in my head and turned my eyes back to the pages of notes I’d already made. Spanish was no joke, and just because I was fluent in French didn’t mean a thing. Well, that was a lie, I’m sure it helped some, but I’d never felt this far behind in my entire life.

With the music pumping and focusing on the next set of words I needed to memorize, I didn’t notice what was happening with Vicky and her boyfriend until a shadow loomed over me. It was like an eclipse in my room as the desk suddenly became dark.

I looked up at the guy leaning on the half wall, staring at me. The light behind him cast half his face in darkness, but his unique and overly intense blue eyes glowed from the shadows like something supernatural. I couldn’t stop staring at the scar on his face. I wanted to know what happened. Was he in an accident, did he fall down drunk and do it to himself, was he in a fight with another guy, or was it something more sinister?

I pulled my earphones off and left them around my neck. “Would you like something?”

The corner of his mouth pulled up in an unsettling smirk that made the butterflies in my stomach want to flit around and hide at the same time.

“There are many things that I would like, but at the moment I just wanted to meet Vicky’s new roommate,” he said, and before I could stop myself, I chuckled.

“I doubt that. Did Myles or Blake send you? I know you’re all friends. You can tell them I’m not interested, and they can go jump in the lake.”

The smirk turned up into a smile as he pushed away from the half wall and wandered into my space. I didn’t like people in my space at the best of times, but this guy was giving off a dangerous vibe. I definitely didn’t want him around my stuff.

Spinning in my chair to keep an eye on Mr. Tall and Scary, I watched as he looked at my photographs from back home. There was one of Lizzy and me and a few others of me and my Mum. He flopped himself down on my bed and for a second I thought he was going to lay back and close his eyes. What the fuck was happening right now?

I looked around and didn’t see Vicky. “She’s in the washroom getting ready.” I glanced at the clock. “I don’t care that it’s after curfew,” he said, his eyes following mine. That was highly unnerving. “You don’t like me in here, do you?” His voice was like silk but with an edge that was razor sharp. I felt caught between staring at him and his stupid sexy face or saying something dumb, so I opted to say nothing.

He ran his hand over my pillow but kept his eyes on me. “You don’t like it when people touch your things.”

It took everything in me to remain quiet. He was poking me, trying to get under my skin, but I couldn’t figure out why.

“What if I did this?” He proceeded to lay down, stretching out, and my eyes went to his sneakers that barely stayed off the bed. I licked my lips, my body shaking with the urge to kick him off.

“I’ll ask you again, what do you want?” I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms over my chest to keep myself from shivering as he stared at me. Something about him made me want to jump up and order him out of the room, even though he technically hadn’t done anything terrible.

Not yet.

“I already told you there are many things I want,” he said, his voice low and seductive.

Even though his hand hadn’t moved from where it was on his stomach, all I could picture was it slipping inside his jeans. “But for tonight, from you I just want to get to know you better. You are the newcomer. I make it my business to know who is lurking around the halls.”

I laughed at the pile of bullshit that tumbled from his mouth. He might have wanted to get to know me, but I would have placed money he didn’t make a point of lounging on every new person’s bed.

“Well, that was a pile of sparkly shit if I’ve ever heard it. You don’t want to say, then that’s fine with me.” I grabbed my headphones to pull them into place and dismiss the annoying guy on my bed, but he sat up and opened my nightstand.

I was out of my seat and grabbing the journal from his hands before he got it fully out of the drawer. The look of shock was brief, but there was a challenge in his eyes.

Gripping the journal to my chest, I growled. “I don’t care who you are. Do. Not. Touch. My. Things.”

Nash slowly stood, his eyes locked with mine, but I wasn’t backing down. I let him have his fun, and now he could fuck off and go the way of the dinosaurs. I always felt short at five feet, but as Nash towered over me, I had to crane my neck to maintain eye contact. He stepped in closer, but I refused to back away. This jerk was not going to scare me.

“What are you going to do to stop me,” he asked, his voice so deep and gravelly that the hair stood up on the back of my neck, and goosebumps rose on my arms.

“Okay, Nash, I’m ready,” Vicky sang as she came out of the washroom, the scent of her perfume hitting me a moment later. “What’s going on here,” she asked, but I didn’t look at her until Nash broke the staring contest. That felt like a win.