Fierce (12 page)

“It
is
my business. If you’re
involved with these guys then …”

“To hell I am,” he says.

“Well, you made it my business the moment
you stepped into my life and tried to change me for whatever reason.”

Hunter grasps my wrist and tears it away from
his face. We’re bumping chests now.

 “Whatever it is that you’re doing, it’s
not good,” I say. “I’m telling you, as a friend, that you have to stop this.”

Suddenly, he pushes me against the wall
with my wrist behind my back. He’s trapped me inside his arms. I can’t escape.

“Is that what you think I’m doing?
Befriending you? Trying to change you?” he hisses.

I shudder from his proximity. His lip is
quivering, and my heart is thudding in my throat. My nerve endings are on fire
because his hands are holding my arm tight.

“You have no idea, do you?” he snaps.

I shake my head, my lips smashed together.

He snorts. “Of course you don’t. You have
no idea how fucking hard it is to do this. I don’t
want
to be in this
shit, but I am, and I can’t change that.”

“Yes you can! You can do everything. You’re
Hunter Bane for crying out loud! You’ll fight your way out of it.” The words
slip out of my mouth before I realize it.

He looks up at me with those hawk-like eyes
again, squinting, as if he can’t believe his ears. “You don’t have a fucking
clue. You and everyone else on campus all think you know what you see, but you
don’t. What I do, I do for a reason. I need to do it. There is no other way to
…”

“To what?” I say.

He sighs. “To save him. My brother.”

Hunter closes his eyes and comes closer. I
freeze in place as his head bumps into the wall next to me. He’s pushed up
against me, resting his forehead against the wall. Then he lets out a groan.

I didn’t know the extent of his problems,
but now that I’ve seen a glimpse …

Wow.

He looks so weighed down by stress. I can’t
help but feel pity for him.

No wonder he wanted to do something fun
today. He’s trying to escape.

I wish I could say something, but I have no
idea what to say. Nothing would help change anything for him. He’s trapped in
some kind of shady business, fighting, trading, just so he can save his
brother.

Shit. This is getting more complicated by
the minute.

All I know is that he’s trying not to fall
apart here. I can see it from the way he’s slumped over against me, clinging to
the one thing that’s at least a little good in his life. Me.

My free hand goes up on its own and starts
caressing his back.

Hunter lifts his head and looks at me from
the side. His eyes shine with sadness and unexplainable fury. His plump lips
are parted and the moment I look at them, all I want is to feel them on me. To
comfort him with my love.

Because I want to give it to him.

I’ve really fallen for him.

For a second he hovers close to my face. He
inches forward. Not for a moment do his eyes leave mine as he takes in a sharp
breath.

He’s so close to my lips, all I have to do
is lean in and kiss him.

Suddenly the back door opens, and Hunter leans
back. A guard steps out.

“You!” he yells.

“Shit!” I say.

Before I know it, Hunter’s already grabbed my hand and we’re
running.

Unraveling
the Secrets

Hunter and I go our separate ways when we
reach our dorm. I’m still a little shaken by everything that happened. Breaking
into a movie theatre. Bumping into one of those guys that scared the shit out
of me. Hunter and his brother. Our almost kiss.

It’s not that I’m afraid. It’s more like a
jittery, butterfly-like feeling.

I want to jump and dance, grab Hunter and
just kiss him already.

But I can’t. I’m such a freaking wuss, I
can’t even stand the idea of feeling his cock underneath me.

Well, that part was a bit shocking. Not
sure if it was positive or negative.

Scary as hell. But a compliment, too … I
think.

Still, I’m like a frolicking girl when I
run upstairs and storm into my room.

“Oh my God,” I scream as I enter the room.

Evie jolts up from her bed and looks
spooked.

“Jesus! You almost gave me a heart attack
there,” she says.

“I can’t believe it,” I say, and I slam the
door shut behind me.

“What?”

“Hunter and I went to the movies.”

“So that’s what you were doing. I was
already starting to think you’d never come back, and … Hey, wait a minute. Did
you just say ‘Hunter’?”

I sit down next to her and squeeze my own
hands together out of pure delight. “Yes, Hunter. We snuck inside, and it was
totally against the law, and I loved every second of it.”

She just gapes at me, her eyebrows askew.

“Holy shit, I almost kissed him,” I say.

I flop down on her bed and slap my hand
across my mouth out of disbelief. “This is so unreal.”

“Hold on. You went with him without buying
a ticket?” She turns around and looks at me. “Autumn Blakewood went to the
movies without paying? You? I can’t believe my ears.”

“I know, right … And the weirdest thing is
that I liked it, too! Now I get why people do stuff that’s against the rules.
It’s so freaking exciting!”

I start rolling around in the bed because I
have too much energy. I try to pull Evie with me, but she won’t budge.

“Are you serious? The real Autumn would
never do that.”

“It was only one time,” I say. “Don’t worry
about it so much. I had fun. That’s important.”

“Hunter’s changing you. Can’t you see?
Before you know it, you’ll be just like Brody.”

I snort. “No. I’m not a pot smoker.”

She chuckles and shakes her head. “Well, I
still think it’s not a good idea to hang out with Hunter.”

“I … I think I’m starting to fall for him,”
I say softly.

Her confused face turns into an angry
frown. “What? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I’m not.” I sit up again and grab her
hand. “I know it when I feel it. I like him, Evie. I really, really like him.”

She jerks her hand away. “Please tell me
this is a joke.”

I get up from the bed and change into my
pajamas. “No … I’m serious.”

She sighs and gets under the blankets
without speaking another word.

“I don’t get why you’re acting like this,”
I say, trying not to sound harsh.

She just shrugs and buries her head in her
pillow.

“Evie …” I say, as I crawl into my own bed.

“I don’t want to talk right now,” she says
softly.

“Okay.”

I really don’t know what else to say. I
don’t get why she’s so mad at me. Does she really hate it so much that I’m
hanging around Hunter?

Why can’t she just be happy for me?

“Good night,” she says.

“’Night,” I say, and we turn off our lights
and go to sleep.

♥♥♥

The next morning Evie’s already gone when I
wake up. She’s never an early bird, and it surprises me she managed to get out
of bed without my help. On her bedside table I find a note with a scribbling on
it.

A.

I’m hanging with Scar today. She’s
payin’ up today, plus I’m getting extras if I stay longer, so …

See you tonight, I guess.

E.

The note crumples in my hand. I know what
this is. She’s really avoiding me.

Reading this makes me so goddamn sad, I
could cry.

Someone knocks on my door, and I
immediately brush away the single tear dripping from my eye.

I turn around with the note clenched firmly
between my fingers. It’s Hunter.

“Hey,” he says. At first he looks
confident, but then his gaze turns compassionate and worrisome. “Everything
okay?” He glances at my fist that holds the note.

I briefly close my eyes and sigh. “Not
sure.”

“I was gonna ask you to be my study buddy
today, but if you’re feeling crappy, I can come back another time.”

He’s already turning around, but I walk
toward him and grab his hand. “No, wait.”

He turns back around, and only then do I
realize I’m actually holding his hand. A flush spreads across my cheeks, and I
quickly release him from my grip. “Um … I could use some distraction.”

He smiles. “You sure? I mean, studying
isn’t really a distraction, more a bore.”

I shake my head and laugh. “To you it is. I
think it’s fun.”

Chuckling, he walks back to his room, and I
follow him. “I can think of a few more things that are way more fun to do …” The
low, intimate tone of his voice gives me the shivers, because I always hear
these sexual innuendos in his sentences that I just can’t ignore.

Maybe I’m imagining things.

“Like having girls on my lap.”

Or maybe not.

I don’t think my temperature can get any
higher. It’s so hot, I’m practically swimming in my clothes right now. And I
know it’s not a heating problem; it’s me.

There are books spread out across his bed,
but they’re all closed. It makes me think he just put them there so I’d see
he’s doing his best. Or at least trying.

Grabbing one of the books, he sits down on
his bed and flips through the pages. “I tried this morning,” he says.

I sit down across from him, on his pillow,
and can still smell his scent drifting in the air. It’s such an intoxicating
scent, I just want to sniff and take it in. It’s a mix of aftershave and his
body, but I love the two mixed together. I just love smelling him.

God, I feel so stupid right now for
thinking about how he smells. As if that’s all that matters. As if I can’t
resist his presence, in any form.

I hate to admit it, but I really can’t.

“Could you tell me how you do it?” he says,
holding up the book.

I wake up from my trance and look at him.
“Yeah, of course.”

We work on his homework for the next couple
of hours. Now that I’m spending so much time with him, I can clearly see why he
was cheating the other day. He has so much trouble remembering things he reads.
And not only that; reading itself is hard for him to do, too. It amazes me he
went through all those Harry Potter books with his reading skills. It must’ve
cost him a lot of perseverance.

He keeps insisting he tries it, though. He
doesn’t want me to tell him the answers, even when he tried peeking at my notes
before. He’s too stubborn to admit he can’t do it on his own. Or just too
embarrassed by the fact that he fails every time.

It takes him such a long time to find the
answer, but he keeps trying, never giving up. I admire his tenacity. His
willpower. I admire a lot of things about him.

“I can’t do this,” he says after a while.
He puffs and throws the book aside, dropping his head between his arms.

I pat him on the back. “Don’t say that.
You’ll get it eventually.”

“No, I won’t.” He looks at me with sad
eyes, ones that make me want to hug him tight. “Goddammit … I tried everything.
Asking you to help me out was one of the few things I thought would help.”

“But it can, if you give it some more time.
It takes a little more effort to really get the hang of how to do it fast.”

“No! You don’t get it. I …,” he stammers.

It’s unusual for him not to know what to
say.

“You what?”

He shuts his mouth and starts grating his
teeth again. Seems like he’s hiding something again.

“What, Hunter? You can tell me.” I lower my
head so I can look at him. Only peeking a few times, he’s hesitant to look back
at me. After a while, he lets out a huge breath and opens his mouth. “I think I
have a learning disability. Trouble with remembering …”

My mouth drops open. I don’t know what to
say, but I linger on the words ‘I think,’ which he said.

“Are you sure?” I say.

“Yes, I’m sure,” he says, sighing. “I just
can’t prove it. That’s why I can’t use it as an excuse.”

“But how do you know then?”

He frowns. “I’m not really in the mood to
tell my entire history, all right?”

I bite my lip. “Sorry … I didn’t mean to be
so pushy. I just …”

“I know …” he says. “You want to help me.
You think it’s pitiful, and that’s exactly why I do
not
tell anyone.
Ever.”

I swallow. I can’t believe he’s telling me
this.

However, I feel flattered. It sounds like
something you’d keep to yourself. Especially in college.

I understand what he means, though. I hate
it when people do the same to me. Feel sorry for me because I’ve been teased.
And then they want to help me like they can magically make all the hurt
disappear.

It’s more of an insult to the injury,
really.

So I won’t do that to him. I refuse to be
like that. I will not make him feel bad for having this condition by feeling
sorry for him.

“I don’t think it’s pitiful. It doesn’t
make you weak. You have to work twice as hard as anyone else to memorize the
same material,” I say, smiling. “The only thing it does is make you more
powerful, because you have to overcome this and become stronger in order to
survive.”

It’s quiet for a few seconds. Then he opens
his mouth. “Thanks.”

The smile he flashes back at me makes me
blush so much I feel too embarrassed to look at him. Turning my head, I notice
a framed photograph standing on his desk. It’s a guy with the same hair, only
much longer. He looks older than Hunter, but they share so many features, I
wonder if they’re related.

Before I realize it, I’ve already leaned
forward and grabbed the photo.

My fingers drift over the face that looks
so recognizable, even though I’ve never seen it before. Must be …

“My brother, Jessie,” Hunter says, his
voice switching in tone.

“You two really look alike.”

Hunter chortles. “You’re not the first to
say that.”

“He looks nice.”

He muffles a pathetic laugh. “You wouldn’t
say that if you knew him.”

“Why not? Does he fight everyone he meets, too?”
I say, putting the frame back on his desk.

He squints, carefully assessing my
movements as if he’s not too sure what to say. Or not too sure if he can trust
me.

“Something like that.”

“Worse?”

“Way, way worse.”

I purse my lips and nod in bewilderment.

“He’s in jail.”

And now my jaw drops, too.

“I told you I’d love to trade my life with
someone else,” he says.

“But I thought you said you had to save
your brother, Jessie?”

“Yes, I have to get him out of jail.” He
frowns and cracks his knuckles. “But it’s fucking difficult to get it done, and
it’s fucking hard to deal with right now.”

“Wow … What did he do?” I say, too curious
not to ask. I shouldn’t actually be surprised about this, considering Hunter’s
shady behavior, but I am.

“Does it matter? I just want to get him out
of there as fast as possible. You don’t know how terrible it is in there.” He
gets up from the bed and starts pacing around.

“But … if he’s in there, he’s safe, right?”

Now his nostrils start flaring again, and
I’m feeling antsy already. Shit. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that.

“No. Life in prison is hard. Especially if
you don’t deserve it.” He’s breathing quite loudly now.

Suddenly a roar comes from his mouth.
“Fuck! He’s my fucking big brother, and he’s fucking locked up with murderers
just because he tried to take care of me.”

His fists are so tensed up he’s holding
them up in the air. And then he slams them into the wall.

“Don’t!” I say, and I almost come up from
the bed until I see the vicious look on his face.