And I wondered if I’d ever stop disappointing the men I loved so much.

7

Some days, like that night in the rain, I felt alive. But most days I felt like I was falling deeper and deeper into a despair that I couldn’t climb out of. I started to question whether or not I would ever be able to get out of Charlotte, and the more I questioned it, the more desperate I felt.

David continued to push drugs on the students, and the guys and I continued to do as much damage control as we could without going against David and getting ourselves killed. The guys each tried to convince me, during quiet moments alone, that running away from here at the first chance we got was the best plan of action. But they each thought that the chances of it being a successful getaway only worked when we left the others behind. I didn’t want to think about it anymore, because the more I thought about having to choose one of them over the others, the more I felt myself sinking down into that deep pit.

There was an empty dorm room at the end of the hall on our floor that had a view of an old cemetery outside that was stuffed between two buildings. I remember having the conversation once—I think it was with Adam, or maybe it was Julian, I can’t remember—about why there was even a cemetery on college campus grounds. We had come to the conclusion that it was because of all the horrible and murderous things that Lineage Academy had been involved in. Come to find out, there were several cemeteries on the campus, not just a couple. This cemetery was actually more comforting than creepy though. It was overgrown with deep, green grass and had a little black iron gate that surrounded it in the shape of a small rectangle.

Sometimes, there were even fireflies that flitted above the tombstones and made it look more magical than morbid.

Looking at it through the little window of the empty room gave me time to get lost in my own thoughts for a while. It was a place that I could disappear to for a while. But, eventually, I was found.

And by the exact person I was attempting to avoid.

“Enjoying the view?” David said as he walked in and broke the silence of the room.

I had been coming here for days and no one had yet thought to look for me here. Of course, he would be the first to find me and interrupt my peace and quiet.

I sighed and turned my head back toward the window to ignore him.

“You seem like you’d prefer to stay holed up in here than join the others,” David said as he came to sit down on the bed beside me.

“I would,” I said. “For now, anyway.”

David chuckled under his breath. “You get that from your mother, you know. She never minded being alone either. In fact, I think she rather preferred it.”

“You don’t know a thing about my mother,” I said flatly.

“Not true,” he said. “I actually know quite a bit about her. Definitely more than you think.”

“I don’t claim to think that I know about anything anymore,” I said wistfully.

“That’s wise. It’s best not to assume things I would say.” David crossed his legs and shifted his position where he was siting. It looked like he was getting comfortable and planning to stay for a while.

I wished that he would just leave me alone.

“For example,” he said, as if I had given some indication that I actually wanted to hear his tinny little voice. “I bet you would assume that my own parents made me into the monster that you now think me to be, don’t you?”

Alright, I’ll bite. “I would assume they had something to do with it, yes.”

“And see, that is where you would be wrong,” he said as if he were correcting my answer on a test. “My parents had nothing to do with shaping who I became. You can blame your own mother for turning me into the monster that I am.”

“My mother?” I laughed. “Yeah, right. Okay. That’s cool.”

It wasn’t funny, but instead kind of ironic. And the mere mention of my mother out of his mouth made me want to slap him.

Still, I kept my poise as I tilted my head lazily off to the side. “My mother was an excellent parent, a decent human, and a strong woman. There’s nothing that she could have possibly done to you that you can put such blame on. Besides, she wasn’t even your mother.”

Typical for him to blame anyone other than himself, and to choose a person that he thought would hurt me the most.

David clicked his tongue. “True, she was not my mother. And that was precisely the problem. She didn’t need to do anything to me in order to cause me such suffering that it would one day be the driving force behind everything that I would do. All your mother needed to do was show me what I didn’t have. That was enough to tip the scales of which path I would take in life.”

I scoffed. “My mother never did that. She never showed you what you didn’t have; she always tried to include you with us in everything. Hell, sometimes I even felt like she was being more lenient with you than she was with me.”

“She was, and that was part of the problem. She always tried so hard to make me feel like I was wanted there with you and her. She tried so hard to include me and to give me fun things to do that would take my mind off all the awful things that went on in my own family behind closed doors. Your mother tried too hard. It made it obvious that I was the guest and that I didn’t really belong there.”

I rolled my eyes. “Jesus Christ. So, instead of blaming our murderous father or your evil mother, you choose to blame my own mother who had never been anything other than kind and accepting of you?”

“It’s not something that I chose, Lisette. It’s just the way that it was.”

“Fuck you,” I snarled as I kept my gaze out the window.

He sat there staring at me while I ignored him and tried to calm my blood from boiling over with rage. How dare he blame my mother for his own malignant choices in life. I didn’t know why she helped him as much as she did. She should have thrown him right back to the wolves.

“Do you want to leave here?” he asked after a little while.

I was still really hoping that you might leave. “Is that a trick question?” I asked.

Because of course I wanted to leave. Fucking idiot.

But still, David pressed on. “No, it’s a straightforward one. Do you?”

I didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

“I’m going to give you one chance to leave, Lisette, without ever having to come back or worry about being followed.”

“Now that definitely sounds like a trick,” I said, knowing full-well that David would never just let me leave.

“No, not a trick at all. More like… a game.”

Wonderful. “What kind of game?” I asked.

“What do you mean what kind of game? A fun one! What other kind of games are there?” he asked as he mocked me.

“I don’t like to play games,” I answered flatly and continued to stare down at the little cemetery.

“Well I do, and I think I’m going to really enjoy this one. Play the game and you can leave, without ever having to come back.”

That obviously sounded way too good to be true.

Still, I was intrigued. If anything, it would give me more insight into how his twisted little brain worked for later.

“How do I play?” I asked.

He turned toward me, but I didn’t give him the courtesy of allowing him a glance of my eyes. “I’m going to make you a deal. The Lineage Academy Winter Gala is coming up. By the end of the evening of the gala, you can choose one of your three men to go with you, and you must also choose one of the three men to die.”