No shield from the burning sun, not that it ever really mattered… I’ve been getting burned my entire life, what’s two lenses? I tell myself this as I grab the glasses and clutch them in my hand.

Quinn snatches the bag out of my hands before I know what’s even happening; he reaches in and pulls out the sunglasses like he knows. Gently, he sets the lenses down on the desk and starts trying to put them back in the glasses.

“It’s fine,” I say.

“You’re shaking.” His response.

I bite down on my lip to keep from crying. Seeing them on the desk feels so dumb, so stupid, so annoyingly childish, but I want to cry.

I miss my twenty-four hours with Ambrose.

I miss the peace.

I even miss my black trash bag with all of my belongings that nobody would ever care about.

It’s my treasure.

Quinn meticulously starts adjusting the lenses and then goes into his backpack and pulls out gorilla glue.

I frown. “Didn’t see that on the class list for supplies.”

“Because they’re idiots.” He glares up at Tessa. “Clearly.”

I swallow my tears as he works like a surgeon, then puts the glasses gently back on my table.

They look normal.

No broken pieces. “She’s a witch.”

“She raped us,” Quinn says under his breath like he’s talking about the weather.

I still. “Did you just say—“

“—Mary-Belle, can you please stop distracting the class?” Mr. Dekker sighs again, but I literally have trouble inhaling air into my mouth.

Rape.

He was raped?

No. He said us.

I don’t think I move for the next twenty minutes, and when the bell finally rings, Quinn strolls right past me like he didn’t just drop a bomb.

I run after him, but he’s faster, and I lose him in the crowd of everyone trying to make it to their next class.

Us.

He said us.

I finally stop chasing him and look up.

It’s Ambrose, his face is still pale, and Tessa is standing right in front of him.

I don’t even think. I just run toward him, press my mouth against his shoving her out of the way, and nearly collapse against him when he kisses me back, not with passion or sexual tension or even fury.

But relief.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Ambrose

“Been bulking up, I see.” Tessa leans against my locker like she owns the space, and I’m finding it harder and harder to breathe—the worst part is she knows it. She knows how she affects me.

It gets her off, and I hate her for it. Sweat starts pooling at my temples all by itself; people are seeing this, seeing the perfect guy panic, seeing the strong one break.

And she wants to be the one to do the breaking.

It’s what she likes.

Some might say it’s her kink—broken pieces she can rearrange and keep for her own sick pleasure.

I tell myself it’s going to be fine, the bell will ring, and I’ll be off to my next class, leaving Satan behind me, but the seconds are going by so slowly that it feels like an eternity. She steps closer. She’s wearing the same sweet perfume of my nightmares, the same perfume. I don’t know the name of it, but I do know that the last time I was in the perfume section, I not only ran to the bathroom to puke but had a panic attack and then had to lie to my parents and say I had the flu.