Cruel Abandon Read online

  Did I hate having no friends? Yes.

  But as far as Liam and I went… his active avoidance was fine.

  And now it’s not.

  His blond hair is longer than when I saw him at Howl, longer even than last year. It’s grown out to hang just above his eyes, and lighter from the time he must’ve spent in the sun this summer. The rest of him hasn’t changed much: he’s lean, tall, handsome.

  The sort of beautiful I’d expect Hades to be—beautiful enough to lure Persephone to his underground kingdom, anyway.

  He watches me. “You’d never believe me if I told you.”

  True. Anything from scaling the outer wall and slipping in through the window—like he used to do at his childhood home in Rose Hill—to picking the locks.

  “Get on with it, then,” I sigh. I’m tired, I want him out of my apartment, and if he stays, I might be dumb enough to ask him to do that again. Maybe not the biting, or shoving me against a wall, but… “What warning?”

  He scowls. “You’re pretty callous for a girl with a target on her back.”

  I step forward, into his space. “A target on my back, huh? Says the guy who put it there.”

  Liam shakes his head once. “That’s not what I’m referring to.”

  I wince, then slip around him. Some memories do better when they stay buried. He follows me to the kitchen, where I pour myself a glass of water and drink the whole thing. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it.

  This.

  Liam is in my apartment to warn me, but he hasn’t yet spit it out.

  “Don’t walk home alone,” he orders me, filling the doorway. “Why do you even live off campus, anyway?”

  “For the wine, of course,” I mutter.

  He scoffs. “You’re being ignorant.”

  “I’m being normal,” I snap. “You don’t get to walk in here and be bossy, making demands—”

  “I’ll demand any fucking thing I want of you,” he growls. “You owe me.” His frown turns into a smirk. “In more ways than one.”

  This time, I can’t stop the shudder that crawls up my body. I slam the glass down and point to the door. “Get out.”

  He sees too much, but his expression doesn’t change. It reveals nothing—not curiosity, not kindness. I resist the urge to touch my ear or my cheeks. I refuse to let him know me any more than he already does.

  “Just don’t do anything stupid,” he says. “So I won’t have to punish you for it.”

  My heart skips a beat or five.

  But I don’t have to ask again. He nods once, gaze sweeping up and down my body, and turns for the door.

  I sag against the counter.

  “Oh, and Sky?” he calls. “Your hair makes you look like a ghost.”

  4

  Liam

  Your hair makes you look like a ghost. What a fucking idiot.

  Still, it doesn’t stop me from pulling up her social media as soon as I’m home. I stare at her latest picture and frown. She dyed her hair black last year, and now it’s silvery-gray. Almost like stainless steel. She pairs it with dark eye makeup and lipstick that reminds me of drying blood.

  I hate her face.

  I hate that my heart does this weird little jump.

  Dumbass.

  My notifications are haywire. I’m regularly tagged in screen recordings of the fight, even two years later, and I get to relive my anger every day. Some of the comments cheer me on, and others say I should be arrested.

  When it first happened, my whole life exploded.

  Sky deleting it wasn’t the end that I thought it would be—of course not. As soon as the news got ahold of it, I was a goner.

  Ashburn College is small, but suddenly national media was on them. And me.

  I had to meet with the higher-ups of the college that I never thought I’d have to see. Not in a bad light, anyway. They revoked my existing scholarships and left me to sink or swim. And with Howl done for, I was screwed.

  So, I left.

  I went home with my fucking tail between my legs. My parents had been living in shame, and Jake couldn’t do much to get me out of the hole I had fallen into. There was too much press around it, around me. It followed me all the way home to Stone Ridge.

  Theo and Caleb showed up one day and convinced me to go back. Theo had a spare room in his apartment. He got access to the trust fund his parents set up for him when he turned eighteen, and he put it to fine use. He bought a brownstone with eight apartments in it and rents out all but one. Any cracks about being similar to Caleb are met with his fists, but I can’t help thinking he followed in our best friend’s footsteps.

  Real estate is where the money is, apparently.

  Like I would know.

  Except when I came back, everything was worse. Reporters hounded my steps like I was a celebrity, but, well, I was more living in infamy than anything else.

  Another meeting with the dean of students, although I’d classify it as a fucking interrogation. They wanted to know everything about Howl—who ran it, where, when.

  I gave them nothing.

  It made me wonder if Sky was keeping her mouth shut. If everyone was doing their due diligence and not fucking talking about it.

  Instead of worrying, I got a job. I worked in the campus IT department during the week, then as a bartender. I scraped by.

  And I watched Sky. I kept one eye on her. Every time I clocked into my shifts, pulled on my uniform shirt, I thought of how I was going to make her pay.

  Revenge fueled me through countless questions, beratements, punishments. Everyone had an opinion, but my patience wore thin quickly.

  RJ and Colt were the first to spread the truth: that Sky had brought about the end of Howl. It was amazing to watch the tide turn against her—and then all I had to do was seal the deal.

  A public declaration of hate.

  I shake my head and strip, stepping into the shower. I was at my IT job prior to going to Sky’s apartment. My job really just meant sitting on my phone in the back of the tech room until some freshman called, unable to figure out the Wi-Fi, or the printers, or the student portal.

  Idiots.

  But it also left me restless. The email came to us first, and my chest tightened when I saw the girl. Amber Huck. Never saw her before in my life, but for a split second I thought she was Skylar. Same full, rosy cheeks and blonde hair.

  Well, Sky’s hair used to be blonde.

  Our department head came in and personally helped the aide from the president’s office send it to the whole school.

  My heart seemed to live in my throat for the rest of the day. We didn’t have any details, but the longer I sat with the panic, the angrier I got.

  At myself.

  At Sky.

  At Amber Huck, for being an idiot and getting herself kidnapped.

  I shove all my thoughts away and focus on the positives: I had successful contact with Sky, and I didn’t kill her. The thought crossed my mind once or twice, but the fear in her eyes was enough to satiate the beast.

  One thing’s for sure, though: I can’t stop thinking about the way she trembled against me. The shiver in her muscles as she struggled to break free. How fucking wet my touch made her.

  And now I’m pissed all over again. My dick gets hard, and I give in to the memories. I savor every last second of our encounter as I stroke myself. I groan and lean my forearm on the tiles. I picture Sky kneeling in front of me, mouth open, and I come with a groan.

  She’s a drug I’m helpless against—and I’m done following orders. I can’t just pretend she doesn’t exist.

  I’ve kept my distance for six years. But no longer.

  5

  Sky

  Whitney is awake when I come out of my room. She sits at the dining room table, clutching a mug in both hands. Her eyes are closed.

  “You okay?” I ask. The fact that she’s even upright suggests something major happened. I can’t imagine what time she walked through the door last night—but then I
remember that girl, and suddenly I’m glad that she even made it back, at all.

  We don’t know if it was a one-time thing.

  She flinches, then jumps up. “You splurged,” she accuses.

  “What?”

  She points to the door, where a shiny new panel sits. There’s a blue sticky note attached to it. “It scared me half to death when I came in. It started beeping.”

  I examine it closer. “An alarm system.”

  “Yes, brainiac,” Whitney says.

  I shrug. “I didn’t do it. Did we get a notice from the building owners?”

  “Nope.”

  Hmm. I almost tell her about Liam but think better of it. Instead, I take a closer look at my roommate. There are dark circles under her eyes, and her light-brown hair is piled on top of her head—uncharacteristic from the girl who curls her hair before even thinking about showing her face in public.

  “It’s expensive,” she says woodenly. “I researched it. There’s sensors on our windows, too.”

  I grunt and pour myself a cup of coffee. “Why are you awake so early?”

  She hesitates. “I thought you’d want to go to school together.”

  Ah.

  I drop into the seat across from her. “This is about Amber?”

  “It’s probably just a fluke, right?” She sips, then wraps her arm around her leg. “She could’ve skipped town with a boyfriend.”

  I find myself nodding, although I don’t know if I believe it.

  So instead, I ask, “When’s your first class?”

  “One. But I can do homework in the library. Natalie said she and Jeff would walk me home from work tonight.” She bites her lip. “I met Amber once. She was nice.”

  I shake my head. “There’s no use worrying about it now. We’ll stick together going to campus. But serial abduction? Seems kind of rare.”

  Don’t do anything stupid, Liam had warned.

  “I need a shower,” Whitney says suddenly, shoving back from the table.

  She disappears down the hall, and I scroll through the local news sites on my phone. There isn’t too much today, just a brief headline about Amber still being missing. Already, the shock of it is dying down. One source suggests, like Whitney did, that maybe she just left town.

  It takes less than an hour for Whitney and me to get ready, then we head to campus together. We walk side by side, heads down against the icy chill. We pass the locked walking entrance, and Whitney huffs.

  “Ridiculous,” she mutters.

  “They’ll probably unlock it by tomorrow,” I say. “They’re kind of overreacting.”

  We sign ourselves in at the guard booth and go our separate ways. I make a beeline for the coffee stand, and Whitney heads for the library.

  “Morning,” the girl at the stand says. “Your regular?”

  I come here a lot.

  I nod and slide a five-dollar bill across the counter.

  She gives me my change, and I step aside while her coworker constructs my drink.

  “I like your hair,” a boy says. He’s just a few feet away, his hands in his pockets. “Kinda emo, you know?”

  “Right.” I make a show of inspecting him up and down.

  Short haircut, a navy-blue peacoat, sockless loafers.

  “You from the Cape?” I ask.

  He snorts and extends his hand. “Mitchel Norton.”

  I take that as a yes.

  “Skylar Buckley.”

  “Nice to meet you, Skylar.” He squeezes my hand, then releases me. “I don’t think I’ve seen you around here.”

  “No? This is my favorite coffee spot.”

  “Skylar,” the barista says.

  I hoist my bag and pick up my coffee: an iced white chocolate mocha, plus an extra shot of espresso and a chocolate drizzle on top. Perfect for a sweet tooth junkie like me. I take a sip, then barely stop my obnoxious smile.

  “Mitch,” the barista calls.

  He grabs the cup.

  “Well, I’ll see you around,” I say, backing away.

  He nods and smiles.

  I’ve been fine with the lack of boy attention. My missteps as a freshman ensured that no guy even wanted to look at me, let alone talk to me. But now, under Mitchel’s eye, I feel… nervous.

  Not the sort of nervous that Liam brings out, but… butterflies?

  Do I have butterflies?

  I wave goodbye, cementing the fact that I’m the most awkward person alive, then spin around and hurry toward class.

  I used to talk to boys. I used to kiss them on occasion, too. This isn’t new, but it is foreign. I’ve suddenly forgotten the language. I’m not even sure I want to speak the language. I could just adopt a dog and stay single forever.

  At the rate things are going, that isn’t too hard of a scenario to imagine.

  I’m one of the first people to arrive for class, and I take my seat in the back. Per usual, a bubble of empty seats forms around me. I pull my books out and flip through them, rereading a section we had for homework.

  Liam walks into the room, taking the seat he usually chooses by the window. Automatically, I sink a bit lower. He doesn’t spare me a second glance, and I’m glad for it.

  After last night…

  And then Mitchel enters, glancing around. He spots me and grins. Before I can register, he’s slid into the seat next to me.

  A second later, he’s gone.

  And in his place is Liam Morrison, staring straight ahead and scowling at the whiteboard.

  Mitchel stands beside him for a moment, eyes wide, then meets my gaze. “Skylar—”

  “Thought I made myself pretty clear,” Liam says quietly.

  “Seriously?” I hiss.

  He smirks, but he doesn’t even deign to look at me. It’s unnerving—this hulking version of the boy I knew, sprawled in his chair. He could own the room with his attitude, and he probably knows it.

  Mitchel hovers for another few seconds, then takes a seat elsewhere. I can’t even think about it, because the professor walks in and starts class.

  Still, I’m visibly aware of Liam.

  The whole fucking time.

  He radiates… I don’t know, heat? Animosity?

  Feels the same.

  My cheeks stay hot—and probably bright red—the whole class. He’s not doing anything to me, but my nerves are on fire. Questions sweep through me: why is he suddenly sitting next to me? Or paying me any attention at all? Finally, the professor stops talking and motions for us to go.

  “See you next week,” he says on an end note. “Have a safe weekend.”

  Liam gathers his things and strolls out without a backward glance.

  “Overbearing brother?” Mitchel asks, coming up the row and pausing in front of me.

  I snort. “Something like that.”

  “Seems a bit… protective.”

  “It’s a new thing,” I mutter. “I didn’t realize you were in this class.”

  He takes my bag from me, putting it on his shoulder over his own. “I transferred in. Actually, I just switched from part-time commuter to full-time student, so I transferred in to a lot of new classes.”

  “They let you do that mid-semester?”

  He shrugs. “Mom’s a big donor, which probably had a lot to do with their leniency.”

  Huh. The blatant money is a bit much for me, but I don’t voice my opinion. He still has my bag hostage, after all.

  “Do you have another class right now?” he asks.

  I shift. “No, but—”

  “It’s almost lunchtime.”

  I narrow my eyes. “And?”

  “And I’m hungry. I’m hoping you’ll join me.”

  I weigh my options: eat lunch alone in the library, which would involve sneaking my food in and finding an alcove… or I could go with him.

  What’s the worst that could happen?

  We draw more than a few stares crossing the quad, and I know they’re aimed at me.

  The black hair last year was a s
pontaneous choice. Sort of like the final piece of a puzzle coming together. I wanted to look different, but I couldn’t seem to pinpoint what I was missing until I saw a girl with jet-black hair in the grocery store.

  She seemed cool, but also like she didn’t give a fuck.

  I didn’t really care about the cool part. I just wanted a dose of her confidence.

  Whitney was working late, and I grabbed a box of the darkest color hair dye that grocery store had. I was already rocking black clothes, the boots that made me feel like I could stomp the world. And I was sinking slowly into invisibility.

  It had been over a year since the Howl incident. The video still popped up, but it came in waves. RJ and Colt started shit occasionally, but they took their cues from Liam. I don’t know what he said behind the scenes, or how angry he got at me. It always came back around to bite me in the ass.

  Whitney arrived home in time to stop my home-dying attempt, and she literally dragged me to a hair salon. Her own hair changed with the seasons, so I wasn’t surprised that she was on a first-name basis with everyone there.

  They set me up for The Transformation: a blue-black that would fade to gray, then silver if I took care of it properly. I got my septum pierced the same weekend, and you know what? It did boost my confidence.

  A piece of metal and a change in my hair.

  “Skylar?” Mitchel nudges me. “Was that a yes?”

  We’re outside the dining hall. I nod, forcing a smile. He grins and scans in, and I do the same. We grab seats, leaving our bags there, then separate to hunt down food. He beats me back to the table, and I sit across from him with a sigh.

  “What do you think of that class?” he asks.

  I shrug. “It’s fine. The professor is pretty cool.”

  “I don’t know why I picked a math class,” he admits. “I don’t need any credits in that subject.”

  “Are you fond of math, then?” I need at least one more math class before I graduate, but it’s part of my double major—economics and mathematics. My options post-grad are wide open.

  “I like the idea of it. Numbers and rigidity. There’s always a solution, you know?”

  “An answer to every problem,” I muse. “That is appealing.”