Apathy by L.K. Reid

Skylar

I always hated the smell of this school. No matter how many times they renovated it, how many times they tried to make it look more modern, more approachable, the moldy smell always stayed. Generations have passed through these halls, and no matter how many times they try to cover that wall next to the classroom for biology that had a red circle painted by some vandals years ago, it always seemed to seep through the white color. I was still in elementary school when that incident happened, but the whole town talked about it the entire year. They never caught the culprits.

I loved the stories people tried to spin, going from bored teenagers to satanic cults hiding in our town. Not that I could blame them. Winworth was famous for its foggy days, that eerie feeling wrapping around your bones like a vine around a pillar, making you see things that weren’t really there. If you typed ‘creepy towns in the United States’, Winworth would pop up as one of the first ones. With the population of a little bit over ten thousand, you most definitely knew your neighbors. And just like every other town, people here were wary of outsiders. Tourists still loved visiting us during the summer, investigating the caves up in the mountains, and trying to find a good story for their blogs.

I always wanted to laugh at them, because while they chased the ghosts of the past, they were missing the real monsters lurking around the corner—watching, stalking, waiting for their prey to fall into their hands. If I were them, I would have never set foot in this town. If I were them, I would avoid this whole area, because nothing good could come from a town with a history as violent as Winworth.

Lost in thought, I shivered as a hand landed on my shoulder, halting me in my steps. Long, strong fingers were the first thing I saw as I looked to the side. “Watch where you’re going,” a deep voice boomed, eliciting chills all over my body. The hair at the nape of my neck stood up as my heart thundered in my chest. Before I could lift my head to see the owner of the voice, he walked away, showing me his back. An oversized black hoodie covered his body, and I hated that I couldn’t see more than his back.

It took me a moment to realize that he actually stopped me from walking into a sign for the wet floor, because my brain decided to focus on other things. Dylan hated my blatant dismissal for my surroundings, while I secretly loved the ability to disconnect from the rest of the world and just exist, even if it was only for a minute.

The tall stranger disappeared into the sea of other students, and instead of gawking after him, I started walking again, going around the puddle on the floor. The last thing I wanted today was to end up face-first on the floor. Knowing my track record, gravity and I were not best friends. I wrapped my hand around the strap of my bag, pushing through the freshman gathered around the classroom for English lit, looking excited about the new year, new possibilities, new friendships.

I was once like them. I was full of life, wanting to experience everything high school had to offer, but somewhere along the way, I stopped caring about it. Somewhere along the way, I lost the will to care.

I filtered inside the classroom with two other girls from my grade, ignoring the stares and pitiful looks from both of them. People had questions about the end of the last school year, but I didn’t have answers. I just wanted to forget that May twenty-fifth ever happened and move on. Unfortunately, that was easier said than done when everything in this town reminded me of that fucking night, and every single person apart from Lauren and Dylan kept reminding me about things I wanted to forget.

The inferno that blazed through that night was just a cherry on top of a very fucked-up year.

I lowered my head and scurried past them, heading toward the back of the classroom, where I knew that another reminder was going to wait for me. But instead of seeing Kane in his usual seat, right next to mine, it was a person I had never seen before. But wait…

It was the guy in the hoodie.

My breath caught in my throat as I stood in the middle of the classroom, gawking at the high cheekbones, and eyes the color of midnight blue as they connected with mine. Every living being had an energy they showed to the rest of the world, but this guy… If I had to describe it, it would be with one word—violence.

He wore violence like an expensive cologne, and I wanted to drown in it. I wanted to drag my hands through his thick, black hair, to get lost in the dark abyss of his eyes, and let the darkness take over. My hands trembled, and I gripped the strap of my bag as if it could center me. As if it could help me with these thoughts coursing through my mind.

He dragged his eyes over my body, going from my head to my toes, and I could see a tattoo on his neck, peeking from the collar of his hoodie, a stark contrast on the pale skin. Somebody cleared their throat behind me, and I moved my eyes from him, refusing to see the reaction after his perusal. My cheeks were burning, and I knew they were already colored red, which probably made me look like a tomato.

I had never had this kind of reaction to another person. This visceral feeling in my gut was not something I was used to. A few years back, I accidentally touched an open wire in Lauren’s house, earning a small electroshock, but this thing I felt when I looked at him, this overwhelming need to come closer, to touch, to feel—this was far worse than those electroshocks.

My ribs started closing around my heart, pressing, cutting off air, the closer I came to him. I dared to look again, to see if he was still looking at me, but his eyes were plastered on a window on the other side of the classroom, completely ignoring me.

Well, okay then.

I dropped my bag to the floor and pulled a chair, slowly settling next to him. Goddammit, I wasn’t going to be able to focus if I had to sit next to him for the whole year.

How the fuck was I supposed to concentrate on Mr. Morales, when the guy next to me smelled like cedar pine, cigarettes, and danger?

Lauren was going to love this shit. Not that there was anything specific going on, considering that the tall, dark, and dangerous stranger ignored my entire existence. Annoyed at my entire reaction to him, I bent down to take out the books from my bag when a voice I knew all too well boomed around us.

“What the fuck are you doing in my seat?” I looked up, seeing Kane with his eyes narrowed at the new guy. Truth be told, I was hoping that he wouldn’t try to sit here this year.

I dropped one of the books on the table with a thud, trying to draw Kane’s attention to me, but his gaze stayed firmly placed on my new desk buddy, who kept quiet the whole time. Mr. Broody—as I decided to call him—started checking out the desk, going so far as to bend down and check beneath it.

“Are you fucking deaf, or just plain stupid?” Kane roared again. This would’ve been amusing if it wasn’t eight in the morning, and if I had managed to get that coffee before I got to school. But I was exhausted, pissed off, and my cheek still throbbed from that hit I got a couple of days ago.

“No,” my new neighbor finally spoke as he straightened up. “I’m just trying to find your name written on the desk, but I can’t see it anywhere.”

I wanted to laugh at the nonchalant way he said that, but one look at Kane and I knew that my laughter would cause more harm than good. Kane’s eyes held a promise of cruelty, and as I looked at the rest of the classroom, I noticed all eyes were directed at us. I fucking hated this kind of attention, and Kane knew it.

I also knew why he started this whole scene. He sat with me during those last couple of weeks of school after everything happened, and he got it in his head that I belonged to him somehow, now that the… now that things were different.

“Listen, buddy,” Kane placed his hands on the desk, leaning toward Mr. Broody. “You’re new, so let me explain a few things for you.” Here we go. “This school, this fucking desk, they don’t have to have my name written anywhere for them to belong to me. Trust me, every single person will tell you that what Kane St. Clare wants, Kane St. Clare gets.”

The new guy leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest, smirking at Kane. “Is talking about yourself in third person a medical condition, or is that just your ugly persona?” he asked. “You might want to check that out.”

I swallowed the snort threatening to erupt from me, and turned away, taking another notebook from my bag.

“You are a motherfucking—”

“Asshole? Idiot? Jackass? Cretin? Would you like me to go on? I’m not sure if your peanut-sized brain can come up with all the terms.”

This time, I couldn’t stop myself. As I opened a notebook and took a hold of a pen, the laughter I was trying to hold in erupted, echoing around the classroom.

Kane glared at me. Mr. Broody smirked. I couldn’t stop myself as my shoulders shook and my eyes misted. “I’m sorry,” I choked out. “It’s just… Oh God. I can’t.” I had to text Lauren and tell her about this shit.

“Skylar!” Kane admonished, but I couldn’t care less about his feelings or his pompous ego.

“Just go and sit somewhere else, Kane,” I uttered, still snickering. “He’s right. Your name isn’t written on the table.”

I begged him to stop this silly game he started playing a few months ago, but instead of pulling back, he kept pushing until I felt like I couldn’t breathe. He used to be an amazing friend, but after the incident, it was as if the Kane I knew completely disappeared, replaced by this person that only took but never gave. He didn’t listen to me because he didn’t want to be alone.

I wanted to help him. I wanted to be there for him, but not like this.

For a fleeting moment, his chestnut-colored eyes filled with pain, piercing through my chest. The last thing I wanted to do was to hurt him even more. But what he was doing, no, what we were doing, wasn’t healthy. This co-dependency he started developing was suffocating, and the only thing I wanted was to run away from him.

We weren’t together—we would never be together—yet he behaved like he owned me.

“Yeah, listen to Skylar, Kane.” Mr. Broody smirked. “You might as well find another place to sit because I’m most definitely not moving away from here.”

“Skylar?” Kane still kept looking at me, silently pleading, begging me for things I wasn’t willing to give. When he gets out of this weird place he found himself in, he would understand that it was better for all of us if we quit it now.

“Go and sit down, Kane,” I croaked, my throat suddenly parched. I wanted to look away, to avoid seeing the anguish flickering over his handsome face, but I couldn’t. I hated this person he’d become. I hated who I was. The last thing Kane needed was a girl with a fucked-up head, just because he thought he could fix whatever was wrong inside me.

The sound of a chair scraping over the floor pulled me back from my reverie, and when I looked to the side, Mr. Broody wasn’t sitting anymore. He stood up, towering over Kane, who was already close to six-foot-two. The devil-may-care attitude was gone, replaced with that violent surge I felt when I first saw his face.

Dark eyes, shadowed by darker eyebrows, were fixed on Kane, and it felt as if time stood still as he spoke again. “You should really, really listen to her,” he hissed. “If you don’t like me now, you’ll like me even less if I have to come around and show you to your seat.”

“Hey.” I stood up. “That’s enough.” I placed a hand on his shoulder. The last thing I would’ve expected was the zap of electricity that traveled through my arm, all the way to my chest, into my stomach, sending a frenzy through my whole body.

He jerked away as if my touch burned him, and his wild eyes zeroed in on me, caging me. For the second time in just a couple of minutes, the rest of the world ceased to exist as he held me imprisoned. What was probably just a minute felt like an eternity, until the voice of Mr. Morales broke through the fog in my mind.

“Good morning, class.”

The sound of chairs moving, students chattering, and textbooks opening filled the tense air, but my whole body burned with a need I couldn’t quite explain. Mr. Morales started talking about his summer and asked the students to share their stories. I dropped to my chair, plastering my eyes on the green board behind Mr. Morales.

I could feel the dark eyes on me. I could feel the energy buzzing between us. It felt like a living, breathing thing, and yet I couldn’t look at him. I didn’t want to look at him, because the last thing I needed this year was to get involved with somebody whose whole persona yelled danger.

Who the fuck was this guy?

* * *

Cold air slammed into me as soon as I stepped through the back entrance of the school, heading toward the garden area. They tried to keep most of the layout of the mansion once they turned it into Winworth High, hence the ridiculous garden area on the backside. It was absurd that they decided to turn this place into a school at all, considering its history and everything its original owner did here.

Some say that Balthazar Corvin was a wealthy merchant, but the darker stories are the ones I always paid more attention to. Some urban legends say he was part of a group that used human sacrifices to bring more wealth to themselves. Others say that he was a paid mercenary who used this place to torture those he was hunting. Over the years, some students swore that they could still see his ghost roaming the hallways of the school, hiding behind the pillars on the first floor, seeking revenge over those that betrayed him.

While I didn’t exactly believe in any of those stories, I loved listening to them. There was something interesting in dark occults that always pulled my attention, and this town was filled with stories just like that one.

Other students started filling the garden, taking their break after the third period, but I wasn’t going to stay and try to socialize with any of them. Knowing Lauren and the rest of our friends, I probably wouldn’t be coming back at all.

The fog was slowly lifting from the ground, but as I looked up, I still couldn’t see the tops of the mountains surrounding the town. I had a feeling that today wouldn’t be one of those rare sunny days. The gravel scrunched beneath my feet as I marched next to the group of cheerleaders settling on one of the tables. Hailey, one of our friends, wasn’t with them, and I hoped Lauren told her about the crypt and where we went.

It must sound weird, us hanging out at an old crypt when the rest of the population tried to avoid cemeteries as much as possible. But when you lived in a town that had more cemeteries than diners, you didn’t have much choice. Besides, at least no one would bother us there, and it wasn’t like we were disturbing the dead. Lauren found the place three years ago, while she was hooking up with one of the seniors.

That guy was as creepy as they came, loved having sex in the cemetery and Lauren, of course, went with it. I wasn’t sure who was crazier—her or him. But it did land her in the crypt when they tried to hide from the groundskeeper, and the idea was born.

I rushed toward the gate separating the garden from the football field and went left toward the broken part of the fence. Whoever cut through it was a genius, because if I had to go through the main entrance, either a security guard or one of the teachers would have caught me. We weren’t allowed to leave the school grounds while classes were still on. At least not while we were still minors.

Kane and Lauren didn’t have to worry about that shit, since both of them turned eighteen over the summer. Rowan and Danny, the twins that hung out with us, were turning eighteen in three weeks, and were no doubt planning a party. Which only left Hailey, Beatrice, and I that would have to use this way to sneak out of the school. But I guess that there was something about the adrenaline coursing through my veins when I did this. You never knew who could catch you.

It made me feel alive, no matter how fucked up it sounded. I knew that my parents wouldn’t give a shit if the school called them to report on me missing classes, so I didn’t give a fuck about missing them, either. Dylan was the only one who threw a tantrum when he found out about me skipping school, and me getting fucked up at the cemetery that was just a few minutes away from the school wasn’t his idea of fun. But Dylan wasn’t here anymore, and knowing his schedule, he won’t be here for at least three more months. I know it was ridiculous, but as soon as he left for Seattle to start university, it felt as if a part of me left with him, and I was suddenly lonely. It felt as if he abandoned me—at least the irrational part of my brain thought so—even though I knew that he didn’t have a choice.

I shook my head, shutting off thoughts about Dylan and the fact that I missed him like crazy. As soon as I exited on the other side of the fence, I felt like I could finally breathe. These first three periods were hell to get through. The first one was spent with me trying to ignore the burning need to look at my new desk partner, and during the other two, I kept thinking about dark eyes and these weird feelings he seemed to draw out of me. I honestly couldn’t wait for that bell to ring. While Mrs. Montgomery, our history teacher, kept going on and on about the current situation in the world, I felt as if the walls were closing in on me.

One year, Skylar. You have to survive one year and then you’ll be gone for good.

I couldn’t wait to leave this town behind. This depravity, this sickness, these deranged people that liked to wear their pretty little masks. I wanted to leave it all behind and start anew. I just had to be smart and survive. I just had to shut my mouth when he called and try to get through this without losing the remaining pieces of my mind.

The air smelled like rain, and as I ran across the street, heading toward the entrance to the cemetery that was located right next to Clayton Bakery, I prayed that it would rain. I hated this in-between period where it started getting humid but it wouldn’t rain. At least with rain, I could pretend that it was washing away the sins and tragedies surrounding our little town.

I stopped in front of the gate leading into the cemetery, looking for the groundskeeper. He almost caught us once as we sneaked in at two in the morning. I knew that we had to be more careful if we wanted to keep coming back here. While my parents didn’t give a shit about my whereabouts and what I’d been doing, it wouldn’t look good if the senator’s daughter was caught getting high at the local cemetery.

All of us had something to lose, and only Hailey and Beatrice weren’t part of one of the founding families. Kane was a St. Clare, Lauren a Maddox, Rowan and Danny a Lacroix, and me a Blackwood. All of our parents would shit a brick if any of this came out, especially after that party back in May.

I ran between the tombstones, heading toward the other side of the cemetery where all the crypts were located. All our families had their own crypts, and one day my body would probably rot here, forever bound to Winworth. Thankfully, our families preferred the Hylan cemetery, right next to the old church in the center of the town, and they wouldn’t be caught dead here. I almost snickered at myself and my thoughts, but in reality, I was disgusted by our families. Even a cemetery was unworthy of their perfect bodies, as if the dead cared where they were buried.

Unfortunately, not even the dead rested easy in Winworth.

This cemetery was used by the people living on the East Side of Winworth, or as my lovely parents loved to call them, lowlifes. We all heard the stories about gangs running free on that side of Winworth, people missing, drugs flowing through the streets as if they were water, but we were forbidden from crossing the bridge connecting the two parts of this town to investigate for ourselves. And I was curious. I wanted to see if the stories were true.

As I came closer to the area that housed the crypts of various families, most of them abandoned and no longer used, I thought about the kids we had in our school that came from the East Side of Winworth. We all looked the same, but I could see the bullying some of the seniors from the West Side kept inflicting upon the lower classman that didn’t belong to their social circles.

If you asked me, it was complete bullshit. Our mayor behaved as if the East Side of Winworth didn’t even exist, always mentioning only the West Side. I know how I sounded, like a whiny girl that kept talking about the unfairness of the situation but still wasn’t doing anything to change it. But how could I change the way people viewed the East Side of Winworth and their inhabitants, when I couldn’t even fix my own problems?

The only solution I had, not only for that problem but for all my problems, was to get away from here. Nothing good could ever come from this godforsaken place. Even nature here knew that the sinister things ran the show, and I couldn’t even remember the last time I saw the flowers in full bloom, unless they were dahlias or roses. Our gardener once tried to grow daisies, after I begged him to buy seeds, but nothing ever came out. I could still remember the disappointment on his face, and him explaining that the weather here wouldn’t let them grow. But I knew better. People weren’t the only poisonous thing around here. Air, soil, water—it all carried its own poison, and the longer you stayed here, the sicker you got.

Before I could reach the crypt where we usually hung out, a branch broke somewhere behind me, and I froze in place, trying to hear anything else. I heard footsteps on the wet ground, a crow screeching from above me, and I turned right, hiding behind one of the crypts. I tried to calm my breathing as the footsteps came closer, and closer, and closer, until I couldn’t hear them anymore. Was it the groundskeeper? Goddammit, I didn’t see him before and I was so careful.

Fuck, if he found me here, I would have to come up with a story about an old ancestor that was buried here. Shit, shit, shit.

I pulled my phone out, checking if Lauren had texted me, but the screen remained blank. I just hoped that they weren’t already here. We could spin the story if one of us was found here, but five teenagers at the cemetery, in the middle of the school day… Yeah, he wasn’t going to believe us. I looked up, struggling to drown out the screeching of the crow, but there was no use. I couldn’t hear anything but the wind that started increasing and the annoying bird. I took a step forward, attempting to see if anyone was around, but before I could fully see the area in front of me, a hand landed on my mouth, and somebody started pulling me backward.

I started thrashing against them, hitting their sides, trying to pull away their hand, while a scream lodged inside my throat, and my eyes started watering from the lack of oxygen. Whoever the person was, they wore gloves, and they were much taller than my five-foot-six. Panic gripped my insides, and my stomach started turning, but my captor was relentless. Tears fell over my cheeks, but instead of increasing the pressure, my captor slowly released me. It took me a moment to realize that instead of silence, laughter was what welcomed me.

I turned around, only to see Kane standing next to the crypt where we usually hung out, with Danny right in front of me, and Rowan laughing his ass off, standing behind his brother. Lauren was nowhere to be seen, and neither was Beatrice, nor Hailey. I didn’t have to be a genius to know what just happened.

“You motherfucking—”

I ran toward Danny who was obviously the one that dragged me, scaring the shit out of me.

“I am going to kill you!” I screeched as I launched myself at him, hitting his chest with my fists, while he continued laughing. Kane, Danny, and Rowan were all part of Winworth High’s football team. I knew that my hits did nothing to him since the guy was built like a brick wall, but I was going to try. “What the fuck, Danny?” I yelled as I kept pummeling at his unmoving form. “Goddammit, I thought I was going to die.”

“You should’ve seen the look on your face.” The motherfucker laughed as he took a hold of my hands, stopping my unsuccessful attack. “Are you crying?”

“No!” I ripped my hands away from his grip and wiped my cheeks, just as Kane approached us, looking concerned.

“Are you okay?”

“No, I’m not fucking okay, you idiot.” Rowan was still laughing, clutching his stomach, and mumbling incoherently. I narrowed my eyes at him, ignoring Kane altogether. “I’m glad this is amusing for you, Rowan. I wonder if you’ll laugh when I switch the cocaine you love snorting so much with baking soda?”

He immediately sobered, a horrified look taking over his face. “You wouldn’t.”

“Fucking try me,” I spat out. “And you!” I looked at Danny and took a step closer to him. “I’ll make sure that Lauren knows what a fucking shithead you are.”

Alarmed, he reached for me, but I took a step backward and started walking toward the crypt, turning my back to all three of them.

“Skylar!” Danny yelled, but I didn’t want to talk to any of them. I lifted my hand, showing him my middle finger, and ducked down, since the entrance to the crypt was smaller than the rest of the space. “Come on!” His voice followed me all the way in, but I continued to the bench on the far side of the crypt and dropped my bag on it.

Their footsteps followed me in, and I kept my back turned to all of them, going through my bag and pulling out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, just before Kane spoke again.

“Sky—”

“Fuck off, Kane.” I lifted the cigarette, placing it in my mouth, and lit the lighter, illuminating the space. I dragged the first smoke in, loving the burning going through my throat, all the way to my lungs.

“I thought you stopped smoking?” His voice was nearer now, but if he came any closer, he was going to get punched in the face. My hands still shook from the adrenaline surge and the prank they pulled on me, so the cold shoulder it was.

“And I thought you stopped being an idiot.” I finally turned around, taking another drag of the cigarette. “But I guess not.”

I sat on the bench, still looking at Kane. He didn’t say anything else, but I could see the twitching in his left eye, and when I looked at Danny and Rowan, neither one of them could look me in the eye.

Good. Fucking amazing. I should’ve listened to Dylan when he asked me to carry that pocketknife he bought for me, but I always thought that nothing bad could happen to me here. Not that anything happened, but somebody else could’ve ambushed me like they just did, and instead of sitting here, smoking my cigarette, I could’ve been in some creepy van, on the way to God knows where. As soon as I got home today, I was going to put that fucking knife in my bag.

Winworth was full of creeps, and with my track record and the number of times I sneaked outside during the night, it was better to be safe than sorry.

“We’re sorry, Skylar,” Danny mumbled as Lauren strolled in, followed by Beatrice.

“What are you sorry for?” Lauren asked, looking from me to them. Kane turned on one of the lamps in the corner, while Rowan fumbled with the other one, illuminating the room. “Danny?” she looked at him again, waiting for an answer.

“Yeah, Danny.” I smirked. “Tell her what you did.” I leaned down, placing my elbows on my knees, dropping the ashes from the cigarette on the floor.

“Sky,” he groaned, avoiding Lauren’s eyes. “Come on.”

It wasn’t a secret that Danny liked Lauren, who liked playing the game of hot and cold with him. I felt sorry for him, but I knew why she didn’t want to get involved with him. Lauren had a worse track record with guys than I did, and that was saying a lot, considering that my first boyfriend ended up cheating on me. I dumped the second one because I started liking his friend, and the third one… Let’s not get into what happened to the third one.

“Skylar?” She looked at me now as she moved the hair from her face. Danny’s eyes pleaded with me, and for some reason I didn’t want to destroy whatever he was trying to build with her. I knew that they hooked up a couple of times, but Lauren kept avoiding the whole talk he wanted to have. We both knew that if she knew about what took place today, she wouldn’t give him the time of day.

“Nothing, babe.” I smiled, still looking at Danny. “I’ll tell you later.”

She narrowed her eyes at me, but I shook my head, not wanting to get into it again. My hands finally stopped shaking, and I threw the cigarette on the floor, extinguishing it with my booted foot. She approached me and sat on my right side, while Beatrice went to Kane, who sat down on one of the fallen pillars.

“Where’s Hailey?” I asked as Rowan started playing “High” by Zella Day on his phone, keeping the volume low. The acoustics here were strong enough to keep it at that volume, and I wanted to laugh at the meaning behind that song.

“She’s coming,” Beatrice responded instead. “She’s apparently bringing somebody with her.”

Fuck, Hailey.“Another stray?”

“I don’t know.” Beatrice shrugged. “You know how she loves including people.”

Yeah, I did know. She loved bringing new people to our parties, but this was the first time that she wanted to bring somebody here. We were extremely careful about this place, and bringing a stranger was a one-way ticket to a disaster.

“Do we know—” Kane started, but before he could finish the sentence, a smiling Hailey appeared at the door, looking at all of us.

“Well, aren’t you guys poster children for gloom and doom?” Her singsong voice echoed around the crypt, and Lauren snorted next to me, shuffling through her bag.

“It could be worse,” Rowan started. “You’re lucky we’re still coherent.”

“Yeah, yeah.” She brushed him off and came to his side, taking his phone from him.

I looked at the door, expecting the person she was bringing to appear, but there was nobody. “I thought you were bringing someone?”

“Oh, he’s coming.”

He? Who the fuck did she get involved with now?

I didn’t have to wait too long to see who was coming, because as soon as she said that, a familiar body filled the entrance, and the dark abyss I was getting lost in this morning captured me again. Dark, disheveled hair, chiseled cheekbones, but the hoodie he wore wasn’t on him anymore. It was tied around his waist, while a black t-shirt hugged his upper body. Without the hoodie covering his arms, I could see all the tattoos climbing from his hands toward his shoulders. His eyes traveled over the crypt, meeting everyone’s eyes, even Kane’s, until they landed on mine.

“Hi.” One word. One simple, fucking word, and my insides felt like they were burning all over again.

Did it have to be him, for fuck’s sake?