Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 121534 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 608(@200wpm)___ 486(@250wpm)___ 405(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121534 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 608(@200wpm)___ 486(@250wpm)___ 405(@300wpm)
I’ve never gone under the damn arch. Not once.
There’s something about it that puts me on edge. Not in some mystical, haunted way—just enough to keep my feet moving in the other direction.
I’ve already experienced enough weird shit in my life. I don’t need to add “creepy magical college architecture” to the list.
“Of course, he’ll go with you,” Reeve volunteers, clapping me on the back. Yup, I’m going to murder him. My own brother. What’s that called again? Fratricide?
By the time we reach the line of freshmen still waiting to go under, many have backed up, some actually silent in awe. Reeve and I have a reputation in school for rarely talking to lowerclassmen, never mind joining them in their ridiculous games. Feels like the whole group has been stunned into silence while Reeve grabs two of the plain black candles from the stack on the wooden stump and lights them, handing one to me and one to Rey. “All right, off you go!”
“I hate you,” Rey says to him under her breath. “I told you I didn’t want to do this.”
“Feeling’s mutual.” Reeve winks, then shares a look with me. Right. I’m supposed to blow out her candle. Of all the elementary things, I swear.
“This is stupid,” I say out loud, my breath fogging in front of my face as the temperature continues to drop outside. A chill runs down my spine as Rey and I stand in front of the basalt archway. “Let’s get this shit over with. I’m tired.”
“Same,” Rey mutters next to me.
We both slowly walk under the archway as a mist crawls from the forest and down the pathway toward our feet. Once we’re all the way under the arch and to the other side, I turn to blow out her candle and notice the flame’s already gone.
Extinguished.
The Gods have forgotten her, then?
I slowly look down at mine.
It’s covered in fucking ice. Completely covered, as if I’ve just dipped it into water and frozen it.
I drop the candle immediately and stomp on it, breaking both the candle and the ice wrapped around it. The last thing I need is Odin’s daughter seeing it. “What’d I say? Dumb.”
Rey does the same and rubs her hands against her pants. “Yeah, weird. Mine didn’t even last. Guess I’m forgotten. Too bad.”
If I didn’t know better, I’d think she looks a little sad.
Reeve groans. “The stupid mist rolling in blew both of them out. You should go again.”
I level him with a hard look. “If you’re so obsessed, you go. I’m headed to bed. It’s been a long day.”
My hands shake the entire walk back to the dorm. It was just a stupid cold snap.
I repeat this in my head over and over again as I make my way to my room. I’m still muttering it as I change and get into bed. I’m still repeating it when I hear Rey’s door open and close and when she finally rustles herself into bed. I turn toward the wall and stare at it. She can’t get comfortable, either.
Annoyance hits long and hard when the sounds of her flipping over only to flip again drill directly into my brain. I’m half tempted to bang on the wall and tell her to lie still before I strap her to her bed. But then a flurry of visions of actually holding her down in that bed and pressing my mouth against hers fills my brain.
I jerk to a sitting position and smack my face. “No. Nope. None of that. No.”
“Stop talking!” Rey yells from her side of the wall, banging with each word.
I bang right back. “I wasn’t talking to you!”
“Then stop talking to yourself! Some people need sleep!”
I’m going to kill both her and Reeve at this point. “You stop yelling.”
She pounds the wall again. “Sleep.”
She says it like a command, and I find myself lying down in obedience, staring at the stupid wall. Again.
“Ass,” I hear her say under her breath.
That’s it. I raise my middle finger toward the wall.
One whole semester.
Only one of us is going to survive.
I gave her a chance to run years ago.
Now I’ll feel zero guilt over a little blood spilled, because she was foolish enough to stay.
Chapter Fifteen
Rey
“Most of the Giants are sleeping, along with the Gods.”
“But why?” I ask.
My father’s grin is menacing.
“Because they have no choice.”
My alarm jolts me awake from my dream, and not for the first time, the familiar tune makes me want to hurl my phone across the room. Why I thought it would be a good idea to use Simon and Garfunkel as my wakeup call is beyond me. I mean, “The Sound of Silence”?
I want silence. I groan. I need more sleep. But by now, I’m committed to the irony, so changing it just feels wrong and messes with my entire headspace.