Chapter 15

Celine's POV

The drive back to campus was stifling in the car.

Reed’s soldiers were in the front, professional and silent. They didn’t address me, didn’t meet my gaze, didn’t notice my presence except to make sure I stayed in the car.

I put my forehead against the glass of the window, grey cement shaking out of focus. My lips were still tingling from the kiss. My hands could still feel his shirt clenched in them, pressed against the sturdy heat of his body.

What had I done?

I'd kissed him. Kissed Caelum Morano. A guy who’d just admitted to running a crime ring. A man who owned guns in the apartment and had blood on his hands.

And I'd wanted more.

The thought made me slightly nauseated.

We parked outside my dorm building. One of the guys didn’t say anything, just opened my door up. I stood up on unsteady legs, and they pulled out without stopping, vanishing into the night.

I hugged myself against the cold as I stood on the sidewalk. Most students were already in bed, and the campus was still and hushed at this hour. I should go inside. Climb into bed. Pretend this night never happened.

But I couldn't move.

"Celine?"

I turned to see Maddie running down the hall in her pajamas, phone clutched in one hand. Her expression had turned pale, eyes wide with concern.

"Jesus Christ, where the hell have you been? I’ve been ringing you all morning!” She took my arms as she looked me over for injuries. "Are you okay? Did something happen?"

I tried to speak, but could not get the words out.

Maddie's face went from concern to recognition. She put her arms around me, and that was when I finally lost it.

Ugly, raw sobs tore through me. All the fear, confusion and yearning I’d been trying to contain rushed over me in waves. Maddie hugged me close, murmuring reassurances I couldn’t make out over my loud sobbing.

“Remember,” she said sweetly, steering me in. "Let's get you upstairs."

She half-dragged me with one arm to our room, set me down on my bed and draped a blanket over my shoulders. Then she brewed me tea I did not drink, and sat next to me again while we waited.

“I kissed him,” I eventually whispered.

"Who? Professor Reed?"

I nodded, looking down at my hands.

"Okay." Maddie's voice was carefully neutral. "And how does that make you feel?”

"Terrified. Confused. Like I'm losing my mind." I stared at her, still crying. “Maddie, he was not who I thought he was. He's dangerous. Actually dangerous. And I still wanted him. What's wrong with me?"

"Nothing's wrong with you, babe. You're human. Humans are messy and complicated and sometimes we want what isn’t good for us.”

"This isn't just bad for me. This could get me killed."

Maddie went very still. "What do you mean?"

I couldn't tell her everything. He could not drag her into this darkness. But I had to say something.

"He's involved in things. Dangerous things. And people are looking at me because of him. I should run. Transfer schools, and don’t even look back.”

"But you won't."

It wasn't a question.

“I don’t know that I can,” I confessed.

Maddie squeezed my hand. "Then we'll figure it out. Together. But Cee, promise me something. Promise me you'll be careful. That you’re not going to do something stupid.”

I considered the warehouse, the guns, the casual violence I’d seen.

"I'll try," I said.

It was the best I could do.

\---

Days went by as in a fever.

Professor Reed did not show up for clas. A replacement came in, some jittery grad student who obviously had no clue why he’d been summoned at the last minute. Students whispered about where Reed had gone.

"Family emergency," someone said.

"Sabbatical," another guessed.

I said nothing. Took notes from texts I never read and strained not to notice the empty space at the front of the room.

No calls. No texts. Nothing.

I consoled myself that it was for the best. That space was the perfect separation for us both. And yet I couldn’t stop refreshing my phone, couldn’t stop lunging every time it buzzed.

I was obsessively checking news sites, looking for gang violence and murders — anything that might give me an indication of whether he was okay. Nothing, which was somehow worse than something.

At least violence would mean that he was alive.”

I couldn't eat. Food tasted like ash. Maddie kept shoving protein bars and fruit into my hands, then watched me with concerned eyes as I idly moved them from place to place without eating.

Sleep was impossible. Whenever I closed my eyes, there he was. Felt his hands on my waist, his lips pressed against mine, heard him saying my name as though it were a prayer.

I began drawing in my journal. Face by face, he landed on page after page. The sharp line of his jaw. The intensity in his eyes. How his hair fell at the front of his forehead.

Cause I’d take those guys’ pictures and I’d rage all over them, with black ink obliterating his features until the paper gave way.

I was spiraling. I knew I was spiraling. But I couldn't stop.

One night, Maddie came upon me in the middle of a circle of torn pages, pen pointed down at the ground.

She reached down and recovered one of the less shredded drawings, scrutinizing it intently.

“You love him,” she murmured.

"I'm not." The denial came automatically. "I can't be."

"Cee." She perched next to me, clutching the drawing. "Look at this. Look at how you drew him. This isn't just attraction. This is something deeper."

"It's nothing. It’s all just, I don’t know, Stockholm Syndrome or something.”

"He hasn't kidnapped you."

“He has locked me in his apartment!”

"For one night. To keep you safe." Maddie set down the drawing. “I’m not saying the guy’s a good guy. I’m not even suggesting you should be with him. But you know, denial’s not just a river in Egypt, babe. You have feelings for him. Real ones."

I brought my knees to my chest. “Even if I do, it’s irrelevant. He's gone. Guessing they thought I was more trouble than it’s worth.”

“Or he’s trying to protect you, by keeping his distance.”

"Same difference."

Maddie sighed. "You're impossible."

"I know."

Afterward she left me alone with my ruined drawings, and I tried to tell myself I didn’t miss him.

\---

Amaya found me in the library three days later.

She materialized next to my table, slipping into the chair opposite me. I jerked back reflexively, my hand moving to the pepper spray in my bag.

“Calm down,” she said, putting up her hands. "I'm not here to hurt you."

I studied her carefully. Her face was different than the one from inside the abandoned library: cold, calculating. She had bruises on her face, and her split lip was newly scabbed. Dark circles under her eyes. She looked scared.

"What do you want?" I lowered my voice cast I knew students around us.

"I need your help." She leaned forward, urgent. "Nikolai knows I failed. He, he punished me." Her hand moved to her side unconsciously and she winced. “We have no idea, but somehow he is going to kill me Celine. For real this time."

Part of me felt sympathy. She had bruises and looked terrified, obviously in a lot of pain. But another part, the part that had learned not to trust anything in Reed’s world, remained skeptical.

"Why come to me?"

"Because you're the only one who may get it. You have seen what these men can do. You as good as know what they do to the people who don’t work out for them.”

I thought of Reed breaking human bones, smashing a man’s leg without a second to think. She wasn't wrong.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Help me get out. There's a way, a life, where I can disappear; start out somewhere new, change my name and Nikolai will never be able to find me. But I need money. Access. It’s the kind of stuff only someone in Caelum can figure.”

"I'm not close to him."

"You kissed him. You've been to his penthouse. That’s closer than anyone else has come in a decade.” She took my hand across the table. "Please. I'm desperate. And you really should step outside as well. Reed won't come back for you. Guys like him don’t pick love instead of power. They chew you up and spit you out.

The words stung more than they needed to.

Then how can I be sure you're telling me the truth? That this isn't another trap?"

"You don't." She released my hand. "But what choice do I have? Die where you are, if that’s what it is.

I looked at her bruised face, saw real fear in it. Maybe she was lying. Maybe this was all one big tit-for-tat game whose finer points I didn’t get.

But if she was not lying, could I afford to leave her to die?

"What's your plan?" I asked carefully.

Relief flooded her face. "Meet me tomorrow night. I'll explain everything. There’s a place off campus where we can speak in private.”

Every fiber in my being was telling me that this was a terrible idea. That I should tell him no, to walk right away, maybe even say something to Reed.

But I reflected on his words. "You walk away. Deal?"

Perhaps walking away meant helping someone else out of this place too.

"Fine," I said. "Where and when?"

She provided an address and a time. She then stood, feeling her ribs once more.

"Thank you, Celine. You're saving my life."

She made haste and darted in between the bookshelves.

I kept sitting there, frozen, just looking at the address she had written down on a piece of paper. This felt wrong. Everything about it felt wrong.

But what if this time she was being completely honest?

I slipped the paper in my pocket and struggled to study.

What I had not seen was Amaya whip out her phone the moment she walked out of the library. Didn’t witness her typing a message with fingers shaken by frantic worry.

"She's inside now, go with the plan.”