Saying it out loud to Hawthorne, one of the few people who was actually there, makes everything feel so much more real. It makes it hurt all over again.
Hawthorne can’t even look at me.
She stands up suddenly and sighs. “She should be cooled down now. Hopefully, she’s asleep.” Hawthorne tilts her head as she looks down at me. “We were friends, Adina. And I don’t want you to get hurt any more than you have been. But that’s it. That’s all I can give you. I can’t let you win. Esme has always protected me from my fears and I have to return the favor, because you… you terrify her.”
“Everything I do is self-defense. Everyone says I’m such a threat. I don’t want to hurt anybody. All I want is to live through this and get back into school,” I say.
Hawthorne smiles. “That’s what makes you so dangerous, don’t you know? You see all of this and you still want. When has a girl ever been allowed to want?”
CHAPTER 19
I NEVER QUITE MANAGE A deep sleep, but I do get some, I realize as sunlight wakes me up, unkind in how bright it is. Sinking into the overplushness of the bed, I stretch, my spine cracking and relieving pressure. I twist, looking over at Saint. She’s sitting on top of her bed, cross-legged, staring down at a book. She doesn’t look fragile anymore, even with the brace on her wrist.
“We need to talk,” I groan into my pillow, pushing myself up halfway.
“I agree,” Saint says. She closes her book with an audible thud. “I’m not going to win. I’ve always been aware of this.”
“What?” I ask, raising an eyebrow.
“It’s never been about winning this. It was about gaining leverage. I’m the leverage. And what I’ve experienced and what I know. I just have to make it out of here,” Saint says firmly. She sounds so blasé about it, using her trauma as a linchpin in her plan. But her word won’t be enough.
“It’ll only work if you have someone who would corroborate. You want me to win,” I say as I catch on. Saint nods once. I lean in. “Good, because I want to win too. I’m going to win.”
It’s something I’ve gone over—my exchanges with both Aunt Leighton and Hawthorne. Their pretty words turn over in my head even now, and for all their euphemisms and half answers, there is a simple truth to it all. Only one of us is meant to survive. And I meant what I said, I don’t want to hurt anyone, but I do want. I want what was stolen from me. I want to make this worth something, before it’s too late.
“We’ll be the last two standing. I’ll forfeit at the last possible moment,” Saint says simply.
“Will they let you forfeit?” I ask.
“If not, I have the distinct feeling all you need to do is ask. Ask for them to let me live, and Pierce will let me. Then you’ll get your future back, and I close a deal that will help make my family even more powerful than the Remingtons,” Saint says, and there’s a revitalization to her now. She looks brand-new after just a night, and I can’t tell whether this confidence is felt or manufactured.
“Agreed,” I say. There are things we’ll need to do to get there. Things I might not be able to, but in this moment I feel bigger than I have since the Ride.
“You should go shower,” Saint says coolly. “It’s nearly ten. You have brunch with Pierce at ten.”
“Excuse me?”
“Pierce doesn’t have anything to offer me. But he has everything to offer you,” Saint says. “You’re never going to get his father to like you. He’s a bigot. But you have Leighton and Graham. Now you have to keep Pierce on your side. All that time he spent with Penthesilea last night? You have to undo the work she might have put in.”
Her words and the truth of them start to take shape in my mind. To the Remingtons, winning means securing Pierce’s hand in marriage, as absurd as it sounds. The other girls—besides Esme and Hawthorne maybe—have their sights set on that. They want to be a Remington.
To me, winning Pierce is a means to an end. It means access. It means Yale, and the means to pay for it.
I’m not here for the right reasons, and Penthesilea could be reminding him of that.
“The other girls want Pierce, and he knows,” Saint continues, echoing my thoughts. “But he’s barely spared any of them a glance. He’s interested in your success. In you. And they all notice. I suspect they’ll come harder in the next event. Especially Jacqueline. She was humiliated by you and Leighton, and Pierce looked disgusted with her when she lost it. He was pleased when you made it and that you rose above. We use that to our advantage and show him you’re just as interested in him as he wants you to be.”
I hesitate. “But what about Penthesilea? They’ve been together so long.”
“He has her already,” Saint says sharply. She leans back on her hands, staring into my eyes. “All men like him are the same. They want the things they haven’t had.”
I know what Pierce wants. Pierce called me his choice in a roundabout way. He likes me. He likes what he sees. And most of all, he thinks choosing me makes him “good.” Inviting me here gives him the chance to say that he’s done something noble and benevolent, and it’s my trump card. Because Pen doesn’t “need” him the way he thinks I do.
“So, go to breakfast with him. Smile when he says you look nice. Laugh at his stupid jokes. You don’t have to do much. He’s been impressed with your dismal performance already,” Saint drawls.
“Hey!” I snap.
Saint shrugs. “It’s true. While you’re doing very well for someone who is dreadfully underprepared, you’ve not done anything that particularly makes you stand out, and he still finds a reason to bend the rules for you. He wants to be a white knight. And you rejected him. I bet his dick is so hard.”
“Jesus, Saint, it’s, like, ten in the morning,” I say, my face growing hot. I roll out of bed and stalk past her as she laughs, jackal-like.
I feel like a caricature of myself as I get ready, dressing up pretty for this boy that I feel nothing for beyond attraction. But that attraction is strong, and it has overwhelmed my sense in sharp, gutting moments of want before. I have to control it and use it, not let it control me.
Hawthorne’s words from last night cut me all over again, and I shove all thoughts of want from my mind. I square my shoulders as I get dressed and make myself look as close to perfect as I can when I am a collage of bruises and exhaustion makes its mark under my eyes. When I finally emerge from our room, I make sure to look both ways before stepping out. I watch as Jacqueline slips into Esme’s room, giggling, and keep still, so as not to draw her eyes. Then I fly down the empty corridor as soon as the door shuts, scurrying down the stairs before someone can see me slipping away, dressed well enough to garner suspicion about where I’m going, though I realize I don’t know which room I am meant to be going to anyway.
“Miss Walker?”
I jerk on the second landing, looking up to find Mr. Caine. He moves with the silence of a shadow. He looks at me like I’ve done something wrong, or been seen somewhere I shouldn’t be.
“I’m… I have brunch with Pierce,” I say. “Do you know where he is?”