“Open,” I commanded in a hoarse voice.
“No.” She gritted her teeth, eyes dilating.
“Then no strawberry.”
“I think I’ll survive.” She jerked away and stood, her entire body shaking. I reached for her wrist and tugged.
“Sit.”
Slowly she collapsed back into the chair. My hand was still pressed against her wrist. The pulse on that girl was racing about as crazy as mine.
“I don’t want to make your life hell. You know that, right? I don’t want you to cry to sleep every night or curse me every morning. Know that you make your own choices. You create your own destiny. And baby, I have the keys. So either play by my rules or don’t. The choice is yours.” Worst speech in the history of threatening speeches, but as far as warning her away, it would do.
“Why does it matter anyways? Either way, I could never trust you.”
I felt that statement in my gut like she’d just punched me over and over again. Because she did see through the mask, but what she saw wasn’t worth saving, it wasn’t worth trusting, and in my business, trust was more than love. It was everything. She may as well have taken my heart and twisted it until all the blood pooled to the floor.
“Trust is like love. It doesn’t exist. It’s a fairytale society feeds us in order to get us to conform. I don’t expect you to trust me. I expect you to follow the rules. Rules keep you safe.” There were only so many ways I could explain why it was important for her to stay away from the Elect but listen to us at the same time. If people saw the way I treated her, if they saw her as different, she was a target. So if she didn’t trust me, if she refused to, then because of who I was, because of how I ran the school, I would have to destroy her. I would have to make her feel so little that she needed me.
And damn, I wanted to feel needed.
I knew what I was doing the minute the decision was made in my mind. I would embarrass her in front of everyone — set her apart, make her look weak and picked on — because if I did it, hopefully they wouldn’t. If by hurting her I was protecting her, I’d do it, but at the same time, I felt angry that she was forcing my hand. Anger that she wouldn’t just listen to me and do whatever I said.
“And if I don’t?” she challenged like I knew she would.
I stood and dropped the strawberry on the plate. “Then you will be forcing my hand, and the last thing I want is to hear stories from my sister about how you cry yourself to sleep every damn night just because you couldn’t follow a few simple guidelines.”
Her nostrils flared. “Fine.”
With a fake smirk, I straightened my tie. “I knew we’d understand one another… eventually.”
“I’m not agreeing with you. I just knew that would be the quickest way to get you to leave.”
I fought to keep the bark of laughter in. That was more like it. The spark. The students would destroy her, break her, then make her suicidal. Damn, her spirit was beautiful, and it was going to get broken all because she was a pawn in a game she didn’t even know she was participating in. It was my school, my job, my family. And she was standing in the way of me doing my job, in the way of me avenging her death — her parents’ death.
Silently, I gathered my thoughts and then reached up and touched her cheek.
She shuddered against my palm, and again, it felt like the universe was giving me a choice to back off.
A choice I ignored. Again.
“Dance with me.” It was a command, not a request.
She opened her mouth, probably to reprimand me again, so I tugged her toward the dance floor.
People gaped. After all, I rarely gave any girl attention, let alone a new student who was four years younger than me.
She started shaking the minute I tugged her into my arms.
When I looked into her eyes, I knew she knew. It was going to get worse before it got better.
We danced, and I imagined it wasn’t because I was trying to make an example out of her — but because I truly wanted to dance with her.
I imagined a world where my family didn’t exist, where it was only us dancing in college. It was a nice dream.
But I wasn’t nice.
I’d never been nice.
And she was just about to find out how horrible of a person I could be, and this wasn’t even the beginning of what I had planned for her.
The song ended, and I pushed her away, feeling the loss all the way down to my toes as she stumbled backward.
“What?” I yelled and then laughed, making sure I drew everyone’s attention. It had to look realistic. “Are you insane?”
Trace shook her head then hugged her arms around her body.
“You think I would actually sleep with someone like you? What type of girl are you anyway? Do they do things different out on the farm?”