The Half-Class by Kayvion Lewis

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Kat and Luke were together.

I was everyone’s plaything, wasn’t I? Not a real person, with no right to things of my own. Kat, Gilow, Jace. They could ask anything of me, and I was supposed to give it up. They could take whatever they wanted from me.

How long had Kat and Luke been hiding this? Since everything happened with the twins? Since the races? After that?

Before?

I was a fool. The way she looked at him at the manor. The way they talked at the engagement party. The adoration. I’d tricked myself into believing that they were nothing more than newly blossomed friends. But it was all clear now.

Kat wanted him, so she took him. And if Kat was an option, why wouldn’t Luke toss me aside for her? She was Katalin. Beautiful, perfect, fair Katalin. She was a flawless porcelain doll, while I would never be valuable enough to keep anyone or anything. Let alone someone’s heart.

I should have been heartbroken. I should have hated Kat—or both of them. But why did I feel like these tears were for someone else?

My heels pressed into Butter. Faster and faster, we whipped through the trees. The evening was fading fast, night nipping at our heels. I couldn’t go back home. Not to them. More than that, I didn’t want to go back home. Even if everything was perfect back at the barn, if I hadn’t seen what I did, I wouldn’t want to be there. What I really wanted wasn’t there. I needed someone else. I wanted to curl up into someone else’s arms and cry. Not about this, but about everything. To hell with trying to salvage an engagement I didn’t treasure or a cousin who didn’t understand my situation. There was someone else I wanted to save.

I wanted Cass.

Because…I loved him.

Butter’s hooves pummeled the path beneath us. Faster, like we could outrun the night itself. Tears streaked my cheeks, but it wasn’t sorrow that pushed me. An unyielding fire carried me forward.

Night overtook the evening. Darkness surrounded me. I should have been afraid, but a distant light peeking above the trees pulled me forward.

The castle.