In three, two, one…
“You’re blind if you don’t think so, but I’m convinced you already know. Maybe that’s why you broke up with me? Maybe you just…”
I tune him out again, singing the chorus to “My Own Summer” in my head, when a sense of awareness trickles down my spine.
My eyes snap up and a little to the left, narrowing on the tunnel across the way. A group of guys stand there, one with his attention pointed this way…I think.
His hair is as dark as his hoodie, but he’s too far for me to notice anything else. It doesn’t matter, though, because I still can’t look away. My eyes travel the length of him, snapping to another dark-haired guy to his left when he joins, slinging an arm over the first one’s shoulder. There are equipment bags hanging from their hands.
So they play for Rathe U…but how did they get changed so quickly?
The guys take a few backward steps, and I swear they’re staring right at me. I can almost feel it; it’s as if the weight of their eyes is pressing against my neck, causing me to swallow.
If they’re not looking at me, then I’m going crazy and becoming too much of a lightweight, ’cause I only poured a couple shots into my cup.
“Are you serious right now?!” Trevor seethes.
Suddenly, my chin is gripped, my head snapped to the side, and I shoot to my feet so fast my vision blurs. Before he has time to process, I’m standing and shoving him so hard he nearly falls over the seats, but unfortunately, he doesn’t. He catches himself at the last second.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” I snap, storming into the aisle and taking the stairs two at a time.
Anger heats my skin, and my fingers begin to tremble the way they always do when I’m pissed, so I shove them into my jeans pockets to hide them. Fuck, if I’ll allow him to think I’m shaking in fear.
There’s nothing about him that scares me.
“You’re unbelievable, London! You’ve been ignoring me this entire time and you want to stare off at some stupid group of jocks from the other school while I’m still right beside you? What kind of shit is that?”
Jesus. This guy.
“I can stare at whoever I want, Trevor. I can fuck whoever I want, too—something you decided to do while we were still together.” I use that word loosely. “So excuse me if the mere sight of you makes me want to vomit all over my shoes. And that’s saying something because these are Jordan 4s and I just got them.”
We reach the entrance to the tunnel, and he bumps his shoulder into mine as he stocks off with a muttered “bitch.”
I wait until he rounds the corner, and then a smile breaks free.
Fucking finally!
I take a step in the same direction, fully intending on curving the opposite way as he did, even if it’s the long way around to where Ben will be coming out of the locker room, but my feet lock in place.
A knot forms low in my stomach, and I wonder if the vodka isn’t sitting well with the nachos I had during the second intermission, but then my feet lock in place as if invisible chains have broken through the cement to hold them there. My head whips over my shoulder, eyes called to the same place they were a few moments ago. To the tunnel where four of Rathe U’s finest stood.
Only this time, there’s no one there…
Two
Knight
Creed passes me another cup of shitty stale beer, the irritation on his face mirroring my own. If we knew the Giftless would be going cheap tonight, we would have found ourselves someone to play with at the game and headed straight to party with our own kind from there.
It takes a fuck ton of liquor for us to get a buzz on, let alone faded, which is exactly what I’m trying to do after the week I’ve had. Shit…after the month I’ve had.
My brothers and I spent most of summer at our family’s estate up north before we had to report back for practice. Why we bother with pre-season preparations, I don’t know.
We’re superior to the Giftless in every way, but I guess that’s the whole point. We’re forced to live at this fucking school for four years, so of course they dumb down our sport for the useless sake of the humans surrounding us. We’re not allowed to use our gifts in any way.
Reason number one-fucking-hundred forcing the graduated gifted to attend Rathe U is bullshit.
No motherfucker should be allowed to tell us when we can and can’t use the abilities we were born with, yet here we are, playing by their rules just so we can have some sort of time on the ice while we’re stuck here.
Creed goes along with it, ever the fucking diplomat when others are looking, but Sinner feels the same way as me when it comes to rules and regulations—he fucking hates and ignores them.
Our youngest brother, Legend, feels the same , but he’ll bend when he feels it’s right.
Sin and me? Ask us when it’s “right” not to stand superior to everyone else, and we’ll tell you never. Not fucking ever.
To think differently is to spit on our kind and pretend you did so to polish it, when really, it’s about control. We’re not meant to be controlled. It’s unnatural.
Of course, not everyone agrees, but the fuck do I care?
Sin and I get up to what some would call shady shit, and they might not be wrong if they’re thinking with the humanity we all possess. So while we think they’re fucking fools, we’re not about to waste our time forcing them to see it. We leave that to our old man until the crown is passed down and we’re forced to worry about that shit. And by we, I mean Creed.
Anyway, we’ve been back at Rathe U for a little over six weeks now, and since the day we portaled back into Daragan, this poor excuse of a town, my nerves have been shot. Last year was no more than the bullshit I expected it to be, not to mention a total waste of our time, but there’s something about this semester that’s got me on edge, and I don’t fucking like it. It’s got nothing to do with the trials we’ll be forced to face soon; I know where I belong when it comes to Light and Dark magic.
Sin says we need to play a little harder, but we’ve tried that, and still I’m in a constant state of I wanna rip your fucking head off.
And if the pretty boy of Rathe U, Zeke Mortar, doesn’t stop looking my way, I’m going to tear his teeth from his skull, including the ones that haven’t shown themselves yet, and stab him in the eyes with them.
Gotta say, it’s a compelling way to force our coaches to stop pretending Zeke’s half as good as Legend and making them split time on the ice. That shit would never fly in Rathe, but with the human world comes human politics and a twisted type of daddy ball is the shit they’re playing here.
Or mommy ball, since the coaches do it all to please the headmaster of Rathe U.
Pathetic.
“Boy wants his pretty white hair turned to ash, don’t he?” My boy Silver walks up.
I scoff, loudly saying, “I’m starting to think he wants my cock.”
Zeke looks off, bringing his bottle to his lips and I smirk at Silver.
He shakes his head with a grin, steps between our small circle, and plops down next to Creed. He elbows him lightly in the ribs.
“Easy win for us tonight, eh, captain?”
“When isn’t it?” He finishes off his fourth cup, still stone-cold sober and growing more irritable by the second. “Even without using our gifts, the competition is weak. No stamina.” His dark-blue eyes flick up to mine, narrowing. “You pick one yet?”