8. Burn

EIGHT

Burn

I glanced up from the vision of my sneakers hitting the sand-speckled pavement just as Jean pulled up beside me.

"Pick up the speed," she grunted, her dark curls whipping out behind her.

There was a layer of sweat working its way over both of us. I could feel it soaking my neck and see it sticking my tank to my skin. My sneakers were muddy, my legs splattered with rain and dirt.

I … loved it.

I loved something.

I loved running .

I loved running with Jean.

"That's it!" A brief smile was peeking through Jean's exhaustion. "Keep going like this, Grey, and you'll get kicked off the team. "

My step faltered, barely, and she pulled ahead.

"What?" I managed, regaining my momentum.

She increased her speed, keeping herself in front of me, but I could see the wobble in her step. She was faltering. I felt that I could go on for hours.

"Kells will kick you off because you'll be better than her!" Jean called over her shoulder before veering to the side and heading in the direction of the beach.

As soon as her feet hit the sand, she collapsed, her laugh lifting into the air. "Crap," she moaned, rolling onto her back and pulling one of her legs to her chest, "that burns."

I flopped down beside her, my legs buzzing with the need to push further, to feel the kind of burn she was feeling.

"You should have stretched for longer first," I told her.

"And the student becomes the master," she returned, her tone sarcastic, her eyes glimmering with humour.

"Thanks, sensei."

"Speaking of sensei, did you hear about what happened to Mrs Dunn's shop?"

"Mrs. Dunn?" I frowned, recalling the economics teacher who always wore flowery dresses to school. I hadn't had her as a teacher, but I knew that Jean did.

Jean was a year below me and still didn't know what she wanted to do with her life. I suspected that she was avoiding having to take any kind of decisive action: there were signs in her that I recognised in myself. She never spoke about her future. She didn't even seem to think she had one.

"Well, it wasn't her shop. It was her husband's shop, he owns the butcher down Main?—"

"Dunn's Meats," I supplied, my eyebrows drawing together.

"You'd think an economics teacher would be able to come up with a name that wasn't so bad for business, right? Anyway, it burned down over the weekend."

"Was anyone inside?"

"Not that I've heard, but Trip—their kid—wasn't at school today."

"I met him. I went into that shop last Monday."

"Duke hates him. They have some intense rivalry thing going on."

"Seemed like it."

Jean let her head fall back to the sand, her eyes scanning the sky. "What the hell are you doing with my brother, Grey?"

I glanced up to the sky, too, but the afternoon sun was too bright, forcing me to lower my head again.

"Killing time," I answered, standing and yanking off my tank to reveal the sky-blue bikini top beneath .

"There are better ways," she pointed out, struggling to her feet as well and fighting her way out of her own workout clothes.

She had turned up at Duke's trailer the Monday I skipped school, wondering where I was. I was surprised to learn that she and Marcus had sought me out at school, but not as surprised as I was when she lied to Duke, telling him that she had come to pick me up, because we had made plans to go running that afternoon. I was aware that she just wanted to get me away from her brother, but I didn't mind.

After only a week, my apathy had turned to anticipation. I lived for our afternoon training sessions. I lived to chase that elusive burn.

We left our clothes in a pile on the beach, racing toward the water. It was licking the sweat off my skin in no time as I stood waist-deep, letting the warm waves soothe me while Jean dived in head-first and swam out, getting closer to a few guys who were paddling out on surfboards. I turned my back on the expanse of the ocean, ignoring the way the sunlight glinted off the cold blue of the water. The colour made me think of Nicholai, and I didn't want to think about him at that moment. I had managed to avoid him all week, but I couldn't run from the thoughts.

His words had been ringing inside my skull, my mind warping the memory until I was sure that it had been a dream. I wanted to stay angry at him, but it soon became clear to me that he knew what he was doing, in a messed-up kind of way. My mind had been so preoccupied with the things that he had said and the way his eyes had burned into me that I hadn't once blacked out. My mind wouldn't allow it anymore. It was on high alert.

Tuned into him.

Waiting for his next move.

My obsessive, fucked up little head had a new puzzle to hyper-fixate on, and his name was Nicholai Fucking Fell.

I'm going to push your limits, break you down, make you cry, and in the end … I'll save you .

I growled as the memory tried to force its way back into my consciousness, ducking down to let the water flow over my head. It was too tempting to think about him when I was there, the water licking at my thighs, the turquoise ripple of colour merging into a memory of the way his eyes flickered between dark indigo and heavy black.

I didn't know eyes could do that.

Wasn't it a sign of a serial killer?

I started back toward the shore, finally feeling that fire in my legs as I pulled through the current. There were a few runners on the sand—light joggers, social exercisers—ordinary people who weren't trying to outrun their demons like Jean and I seemed to be doing. One of them had stopped, his arm raised to shield his gaze from the sunlight reflecting from the water. It was setting with a ferocity. I could feel the intense heat of it prickling along my front.

I averted my eyes, not wanting to stare at him, but he wasn't moving … and he was directly in my path. I was about to cut to the side, out of his way, when the tattoo caught my attention. His entire raised arm was inked, from a few inches above the wrist to past the sleeve of his shirt. He was wearing exercise clothes, but the shirt stuck to his chest, patches of sweat barely visible behind the dark navy colour. My heart started to beat faster, thumping viciously against the barrier of my ribcage. It tugged me toward him—recognising him before my eyes even had the chance to travel up to his face.

"Nicholai," I muttered, finding myself in front of him.

His eyes were flashing, fixed on my face. His breaths were heavy. He must have only just stopped running.

"You've been avoiding me," he said.

I waited, expecting his gaze to drag lower, as Duke's always did … but it didn't. He was fixed to my face, puzzling something out in my eyes.

"Yeah."

I wasn't even paying attention anymore, because I had caught sight of his other arm. Both of them were covered in musical notation. Line after line wrapped around his biceps and scrawled down to his wrists. As though reacting to my gaze, his fingers curled into fists, causing veins to appear along his forearms, giving the notes the illusion of movement.

He chuckled, the sound lacking emotion. "Yeah … so I take it you're not spending your lunchtimes sitting alone on the fence by the parking lot every day? I take it you've decided to get back out there and re-join the world again? Got a bunch of new friends, have you, Mika?"

"The new you is a dick—you know that?" I glanced back up into his face.

"It's not the new me. It's the real me. See you tomorrow at lunch." His eyes slipped over my shoulder for a moment, and something ticked in his expression, but he was quick to wipe it away. "Tomorrow," he repeated, spinning on his heel and continuing on his way.

"Um …" I could hear Jean behind me, her voice shaking. I spun around, taking in the wary emotion on her face. She was staring after Nicholai with her mouth just barely unhinged. "Am I imagining shit, or did you just tell the guidance counsellor—who's way too hot to be giving anyone advice, by the way—that he's a dick ?"

"You're imagining shit," I muttered, stepping onto the sand and making my way back to our pile of clothing.

"I wasn't imagining the way he was staring at you."

"Like he wanted to hold my head under?"

She chuckled, opting not to answer.

I paused in the tiny waiting room outside Nicholai's office, my eyes drawn to the guy sitting in one of the upholstered chairs pushed up against the wall. It took me a moment to figure out where I had seen his collar tattoo before, but I knew who it was when he raised his head, running a hand through his dirty blond hair and fixing his grey eyes on me.

"Trip." I sat next to him, tilting my head to the side. "Sorry about your dad's shop."

He surged to his feet, a storm rolling over his face. "Was it him?" he seethed quietly.

"What?"

His hand whipped out, fingers curling around my neck, pressing my head into the back of the chair.

"Are you fucking deaf? Did your boyfriend set my dad's shop on fire ? "

"No idea," I rasped. "We only discuss arson on Thursdays."

He scoffed, bending so that his eyes were level with mine. "Be careful, Grey. If he took something of mine, I'll take something of his."

"Mr. Dunn." A familiar voice called, tone sharp. "Get your hands off her."

We both glanced toward the door of the office, where Nicholai now stood. He was wearing his teacher persona again, his face guarded, eyes cool. He seemed unaffected, but the order had been delivered with enough force that Trip released me, turning and falling into the chair beside mine.

"Just getting acquainted, Mr. Fell," he muttered.

"Mika. Come on in." Nicholai disappeared, leaving the door open.

I stood, but Trip grabbed my wrist, stopping me from going any further. "Relay my message to our mutual friend, won't you, pup?" He squeezed once, and then pushed me toward the door.

I moved into the office, the sound of the door closing behind me sharp against my ears. Nicholai was sitting behind his desk, tapping a pen against the surface. There was a form of some kind pushed to the side, half filled in. Nicholai was a stickler for order. The form not lining up perfectly with the edge of his desk meant that he was upset .

"What's Trip doing here?" I asked, sitting in the chair facing his desk.

"That doesn't matter." He stood, dropping the teacher fa?ade. "What matters is that you need to stay the hell away from him."

His mouth was pulled into a scowl as he tossed the pen to the desk. I watched it slide over to the side and teeter, on the edge of falling off. Nicholai rounded the desk and leaned against it, directly in front of me.

"Because you know all about deviant teenage boys?" I goaded. "Wasn't that long ago for you, was it?"

Nicholai watched me for a moment before his mouth lifted into a smirk. "Don't get confused, Mika. I'm not what you're used to. I'm not a high school bad boy with daddy issues and a drug problem."

"You've got a problem; I just don't know what it is. And …" I glanced at one of his arms, where the tattoos were hidden.

He reached behind him for his laptop, opening it on his lap and typing something in, before turning it around so that I could see the screen.

I blinked at the video he had pulled up on YouTube. It was a still painting of a woman sitting cross-legged amid a heap of blankets, her head so far lowered that her hair tumbled over her face to the ground, her arms bent and limp in her lap. I flicked a look to the video description, which said Nuvole Bianche – Ludovico Einaudi … and then I realised that he wasn't showing me a video, he was showing me a song.

I stood on shaky legs, taking the step forward needed to bring me closer to his laptop. He seemed to stiffen, but I kept myself focused, quickly clicking the button to restart the song. It started off slow, the notes of a piano building to something that swelled with sadness and lingered with more. I kept waiting for it to mean something, to get better, to fill me with an epiphany, but it never happened. It grew, it billowed, it festered … and all the while, I was acutely aware of Nicholai. I could see the whiteness of his knuckles as he clutched the base of the laptop. I could see the tension in his thighs beneath the dark material of his pants, and I could feel his eyes on me the entire time—heavier than usual, weighed with inspection.

"Is this the song on your arms?" I asked once it was over, glancing up at him.

Another song had begun to play automatically, but he didn't stop it. We were locked into a stare, a secret, and the sad music seemed to be the perfect background for it all.

"One of them," he finally replied. "And now you know. I'm not like them. Don't get mixed up with them just because they look like me. "

"That's not why."

He snapped the laptop shut, setting it on the table behind him and standing. The office became silent again, the spell between us broken. I didn't want to back down, but I couldn't bear to be so close to him, so I quickly re-took my seat.

"No?" He leaned over, his hands on the arms of my chair. "I've seen the one who picks you up from school sometimes."

I didn't think that Duke looked anything like Nicholai, but now that he had mentioned it, there were a few similarities. Both of them had tattoos, both of them were tall and fit, with dark hair … and Trip shared those same similarities, only with lighter hair.

"I …" I trailed off, my brow creasing with indecision. Was that why I stayed with Duke ? Because he looked like Nicholai?

"Don't get confused," Nicholai repeated, backing away and returning to his seat behind the desk. "Don't assume that you know me. It's my place to know everything about you, but it doesn't need to go both ways."

And with those words, it suddenly became obvious to me that I had no idea who this man was. I had been studying his smallest idiosyncrasies for months, but I still didn't know anything about him. I knew that there was a woman named Jennifer who he sometimes saw, but I didn't know the nature of their relationship. I knew that his appearance and his surroundings were kept clean, controlled, and uncluttered … but I didn't know whether that was out of simple preference, or a compulsion. I knew that he was different with me, but I didn't know what had brought about the change, or what his reasons for being different were. I knew that he must have worked himself to the bone for years and years of study to be finishing his doctorate so young, and I knew that he was smart , but I had no idea what had driven him to work so hard. I knew so many basic facts about him, and I didn't have a single explanation for any of them.

"Why the song?" I blurted. "Do you play the piano?"

"No." His mouth hardened, but I could see the hint of amusement that flashed in his eyes. He thought it was funny that I was already ignoring his warning. "I used to, a little, but not anymore."

"What's the other song?"

"That's not important right now."

"What do they mean?"

"Whatever I want them to mean." The smile was back on his face. It was sharp and disarming, cutting right through me until my hand rose of its own accord, pressing against the ache in my chest.

"Who are you?" I whispered .

"You don't want to know."

"Tell me anything."

"Who I am isn't important, but I will tell you what I am, because that has everything to do with you." He paused, waiting for something.

"Anything," I repeated. "Just tell me anything."

"I'm your new shadow, Mika. I'm the hand that's going to smother every match you decide to light. I'm the harness you're going to feel at every bridge you decide to jump off. I'm the shield between you and every wall you try to hit your head against. I'm your new conscience because your old one is fucked."

It was time to go. I could hear the bell ringing, and Trip was still waiting outside. I was sure that I had stolen his appointment. I forced myself to my feet, holding onto the arm of the chair for support before I managed to muster enough anger to straighten my spine.

I was terrified. Not of the depths he was obviously willing to go to in his mission to save me, but of the concept of being saved. I wasn't ready. I probably never would be.

"You're nobody to me," I said, staring directly into his eyes, saying what needed to be said. Tossing all of his beautiful, terrifying words straight back into his beautiful, terrifying face. "You're just a passing train, tumbleweed in the breeze, a face in a sea of faces. I have no future , and nothing you do is going to change that fact. I'll destroy whatever I want to destroy, burn whatever I want to burn, jump off whatever I feel like jumping off, talk to whatever boy I want to talk to, fuck whoever I?—"

He was suddenly before me, his hand wrapping over the lower half of my face, his body pressing mine into the door.

"Stop," he murmured, his eyes a frightening shade, as though the steely cerulean streaks in his iris were melting up in blue flame. "If you think I'm doing this for no reason, you're delusional. If you think I'm going to let you spit in my face and climb into the back of someone's truck …" he dipped forward, his head lowering beside mine, his words whispered over my ear, "You're about to learn your second lesson."

"What's that?" I was surprised that my words had sounded unaffected, because the feel of his breath on my neck was pooling heat through my body, making my breath sound uncomfortably loud to my own ears.

I shouldn't be reacting like this .

"There's no point in giving it all away." He sounded amused again, and I felt, for the first time, an answering spark of satisfaction.

Fighting with him made me feel alive.

I wanted to push forward, to wrap my arms and legs around him and squeeze as much emotion out of him as I could. It seemed fair, since he was the only person capable of squeezing emotion out of me.

"Well then, it seems you're all talk, Mr. Fell ." I sucked in a quick breath and slid away from him, opening the door and slamming it behind me.

Trip was gone, but I didn't linger over that fact. I hurried to Spanish, keeping my head down to mask the fact that blood had flooded my face, singeing my cheeks. I slipped into my seat, ignoring Mrs. Ruiz, who was trying to divide the class into study pairs. When someone fell into the seat next to me, I turned my face toward the window, intent on replaying every single one of Nicholai's words in my mind until they started to make some kind of sense.

"Hey, Grey-girl," a male voice murmured, an arm landing over the back of my chair.

I turned my head, finding my face a few inches from Marcus'. He was grinning, and I was pretty sure I smiled back without even realising it.

"Hey," I said, as he eased back slightly.

"Why is Trip staring at you?" he asked, jerking his head to the side.

"Trip?" I glanced in the direction that Marcus had indicated, finding the guy with the collar tattoo sitting a few rows behind us. He was ignoring his partner, a small girl in a pretty, flower-patterned overall that ended in short denim shorts. She had a pink pen tucked behind her ear, and she was edging away from Trip.

I knew her name … didn't I?

Trip seemed pissed, his eyes burning as they flicked between Marcus and me.

"See?" Marcus poked my side, swinging in his chair to face the front again, giving Trip his back. "I wasn't even aware that you two knew each other. I wasn't aware that you really knew anyone. You're like the resident zombie or something."

"I know all these guys," I lied, waving my hand around the room. "I just don't remember meeting you before."

"Or Trip."

"Or Trip," I allowed.

"Well, okay, see … I know you're lying because I'm memorable as fuck, and we've been in the same class all year."

I rolled my eyes, deciding to join Marcus in the "ignore Trip" game as I turned to face the front of the room again. "The year only just started, and why would I remember you? We've never spoken before this year."

Please be true, please be true.

I slitted him a look only to find him staring back at me with a raised brow.

"Right?" I pressed.

His brow inched up even higher. "Right. So you're gonna pretend I'm not the hottest guy in class?"

I scoffed. "That's exactly what I'm going to do."

"I can't tell if we're flirting or fighting."

"You're not my type."

"You're not my type either, but we could still flirt, just to fill the time."

I chewed my lip, biting back an unwilling smile. Marcus was just too easy to get along with.

"Anyway, now that the niceties are out of the way …" he trailed off.

I sighed. "I have no idea why Trip is staring at us."

" You ."

"Us."

"So it has something to do with Duke, then?" Marcus mused, tapping his chin. "I wouldn't get in the middle of that sandwich. Duke is bad news, Trip is bad news, and two wrongs don't make a right."

"What does make a right?"

"Hanging out with some cool people Friday night. I'll invite Jean. You like Jean, don't you?"

"I like Jean," I admitted.

"That's two rights—me and Jean. Two rights make a right."

"Fine."

"So you'll come?" He picked up a pen, copying the exercises from the screen at the front of the class in a way that seemed to be deliberately casual.

"I guess."

He grinned, still looking at his page. "Good. Give me your number. I'll text you the address."

"I don't have a phone."

"You can just come with me after school then."

If you think I'm going to let you spit in my face and climb into the back of someone's truck … you're about to learn your second lesson . Nicholai's words rushed back to me, and despite the fact that I was determined to fight his self-appointed command over my life, I still didn't want to land Marcus in trouble.

But Marcus didn't have a truck.

He had a sedan.

"Sure," I said, finally making a move to copy down the exercises.