The pounding in my head only intensifies as the day goes on and the students get worse in their attempts to single me out. I don’t care about them. I know I don’t belong here, and I wouldn’t want to. I’m nothing like them, I don’t have thewealth or the status that they do. They haven’t seen the horrors of life that I have. They’re lucky in their naivety, and I’ll let them continue to live in their delusion of the world being a nice place to be, since they’re better off being none the wiser.
Finally seated in my last class of the day, I sit in the back of the lecture hall, hoping and praying that Cole will be his usual fashionably late self and stay far away from me. But of course, hope is a bitch, and he walks in just after the bell goes, heading directly for me and ignoring all the students ogling him and whispering to themselves about why he would be coming to sit by me again.
“What do I have to do to get you to stay the fuck away from me?” I ask through clenched teeth as soon as he takes his seat next to mine.
“Really, little menace? I thought you’d have missed me,” he says with a mock pout.
“I’ll miss you when I’m dead.”
“By the way you’re going, you’ll be dead by the end of the week, so I guess you’ll be missing me sooner rather than later,” he says with a grin, and I glare at him before focusing on the laptop in front of me. Cole continues to talk throughout the class but I tune him out, not having the energy to spar back and forth with him today.
The professor is just wrapping the class up when a man I’ve never seen before enters through a side door, garnering the attention of everyone in the room.
He clears his throat, glancing around nervously as he’s stared at. “Dean Barraclough would like to see Miss Lana James,” he announces, and I sigh.
Figuresthe deanwould pull me out of class in the most public way possible.
“You’re supposed to be lying low,” Dare muses from behind his desk. He’s a complete contrast here to how I’ve always known him. Growing up, I’d always seen him in full combat gear, his tattooed arms on full display and usually covered in blood. Here, he’s known as Dean Darren Barraclough, who wears tweed suits and sits behind his mahogany desk all day.
“Have you met the assholes that you call students, Dare? I don’t know why you and Dad thought it would be a good idea for this place to be my contingency plan when I’m nothing like the people here. How the fuck am I supposed to blend in when they’re them and I’m…me?”
“First of all, you’ll call me dean when on campus. And secondly, you’re meant to blend in,” he says with a pointed look before waving a hand towards his godawful attire. “You’re meant to play the part, Lana. I don’t think I’ve seen you in anything other than black hunting attire since you’ve arrived.”
“Fucking ridiculous,” I mumble under my breath before sitting up straighter and steeling myself to have the conversation he brought me in here for. “So, have you heard anything? Was it just the one of them, or should I expect more guys to come looking for me? Do we know if it’s the Richardson’s who are sending them directly, or is it just from the hits that were put out before?”
He sighs and rakes a hand through his graying hair. “For now, I think we’re okay and I don’t think Callum Richardson knows where you are yet. But keep your guard up, keep an eye out, and don’t forget your training. You might be safe right now, but I don’t know how long that’ll last. Thesepeople… they have power, sunshine, and while it’d be easy to just kill them… we can’t afford the attention. We can’t afford for the company to become public knowledge. Not for their sake, but for yours and what they’ll do to you if they’re exposed.”
Sighing, I slump back in my chair and glance around the room. It’s plain. Boring. None of what’s in this room shows who Dare really is. He’s changed his entire life so that he can fit into a place like this. I’ll never be able to shed the skin of my past, but the least I can do is make an effort to not stick out so much. I don’t care about the company or any of those men, but I do care about Dare, and I want us both to live.
I want us both to stop having to live a lie.
FIFTEEN
COLE
Ilean against the wall, my hands in my pockets while I wait for Lana to come out of Dean Barraclough’s office.
As soon as Lana left the lecture to come and see the dean, I got up and followed. Why would the dean need to see her? Did he find out about whatever she did that resulted in her being covered in blood? Is it about the pictures that those freshman assholes hung up all over the school? Did she do something else? It honestly wouldn’t surprise me, since this girl seems to find trouble wherever she goes.
The door to his office opens, and Lana walks backwards, still talking to the dean. I’m not quite sure what she says since I’m not close enough to hear, though her tone sounds… friendly? Warm? What the fuck? I swear, if I find out this girl is fucking the dean of the university to get a place in this school, I’m going to lose my shit.
I clear my throat, and Lana’s head snaps towards me before she closes the door behind her and clenches her jaw at the sight of me. Oh, my pretty little menace is so beautiful whenshe’s angry.
“Lana,” I drawl, kicking off the wall and stalking towards her. “What was that about?”
“None of your fucking business,” she snaps and goes to storm past me, only I grab her arm before she can get too far.
“Didn’t seem that way to me. In fact, it seemed like you know the dean a little morepersonallythan the rest of us.”
Her eyes widen as the words leave my mouth, and a group of students pass us, not being subtle about the curious looks they’re giving us. She shrugs out of my hold, and I expect her to storm away from me. Of course, my little menace would never do what I expect her to do and instead grabs my arm and pulls me through the nearest door, which just so happens to be the guys’ bathroom on this side of the building.
Once we’re inside, she closes the door behind us and checks to make sure we’re alone before locking the door. Her gaze meets mine once more, and I swear if she clenches her jaw any harder, her teeth will crack.
“I knew there was something about you that was different to the other girls that go here, but I never took you for a whore.” I sneer and take a step towards her. “Is that why you brought me in here? To offer to suck my dick in exchange for me keeping my mouth shut? Gotta say, I wouldn’t mind seeing you on your knees for me.”
“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” she spits, and I reward her for the adorable scowl on her face with a shit-eating grin.
“You’re right, baby. I have no idea what I’m talking about, so why don’t you enlighten me?”
