“My ghost is my mum. I lost her when I was very young, and I vowed to never love someone as much as I loved her, so I wouldn’t have to go through the pain of losing them, too. Losing her almost broke me. But because I don’t get attached to people, I wasn’t scared to get in bed with the devil himself. I finally realized I can’t fall in love with you, but that doesn’t mean I should give you the time of the day,” she paused.

I could make out the shape of her head as she shook it.

“As it happens, I really shouldn’t. Now, take me to my room and lock my door after you. I don’t want to see my father.”

I did as I was told.

I left her with a bottle of water, two Advils, and a scowl.

“Goodbye, Spencer,” she said, watching from her bed as I locked her door and slipped the key back into her room, protecting her from myself.

Yeah, good fucking riddance.

The boy snored softly when I entered his room.

He was in the upper bunk bed, in the boys’ dorms on the third floor. The lower one hadn’t been occupied, so I guessed his roommate was hooking up somewhere. It was embarrassingly easy to find him. Fairhurst kept his name on his phone’s contact list along with a picture of him, the sloppy fucker, and I had access to every single detail on Fairhurst’s phone now, thanks to The Fixer.

I was feeling a little unhinged and a lot trigger-happy from my encounter with Len earlier tonight, but I doubted it was the reason I nearly tore the boy’s head from his spine when I clawed at his throat and brought his face down to mine. I wore a hoodie, a black ball cap, and a black bandana on my lower face.

His eyes popped open in the dark, frightened, like he’d just seen a ghost.

“Out,” I hissed.

I wasn’t hot on using too many words. He wasn’t supposed to pick up on the American accent. I squeezed the back of his neck, bringing my point home. He nodded frantically, jumping to the floor with a thud and grabbing a hoodie from the back of his chair by his desk. He slipped into his slides, then waited for instructions. I poked my knife into his back from behind and opened the door for him, forever the fucking gentleman. Once we were out in the hallway, I followed closely behind him. Four in the morning or not, there was little room for error.

We took the stairway up to the fourth floor, to Fairhurst’s bedroom. I knew he was staying in London tonight because he’d said as much after I got back downstairs from Lenora’s room and made excuses for her. Edgar had looked wrecked, Arabella triumphant, and Poppy was bawling. Harry said he’d deposit Lenora’s present at her door and take her to dinner when she was feeling better.

Inwardly, I told him I’d die a thousand deaths before I let them spend one-on-one time together.

When the boy and I reached Harry’s room, I picked at the lock, broke in, and closed the door after us. I opened the double doors of Harry’s walk-in closet and motioned for the kid to get in.

“G-get into the closet?” he stammered, rubbing at his arms. It wasn’t even cold.

I nodded curtly.

“W-what will you do to me? I’m just…I’m not… We’re not together or anything like that. I didn’t know he had a boyfriend. He was just a pull.”

Sure. That’s why he was here. Because I wanted Fairhurst’s cock all to myself.

“In,” I snapped, poking the knife in the guy’s throat.

He scurried into the closet, turning around and looking at me expectantly. I knew he was a senior. I knew his name was Dominic Maples, that he was originally from Edinburgh, that he’d been fucking Fairhurst for a year now, since before he was legal. Of course, dangling it in my enemy’s face was futile at this point.

I didn’t want to cause harm.

I wanted full destruction.

And locking Harry’s ass in jail simply wasn’t enough.

Once Dominic was inside, I used my gloved hands to place his palms on the shelves of the walk-in closet, widening his stance by kicking his feet apart.

“Get naked,” I said gruffly.

“Why…how…”

Rather than answer his half-finished questions, I shoved his sweatpants down myself. He kicked them off obediently, along with the slides, getting the point and taking off his hoodie and shirt.

He turned around to look at me, and that’s when I noticed he was hard. His damn cock was pressed against a drawer, purple and engorged. Yeah. He really was Harry’s boyfriend. They were both sick.

Once Dominic was stark-ass naked, I took a graffiti chalk can and sprayed his back. He shivered as the cold liquid splashed over his skin, biting into one of Harry’s sweaters to keep quiet, but his damn cock was still pressed into the mirrored drawer, and it was still rod-straight.

When I was done with the black paint, I tossed the can aside, took the kid’s phone out, and shoved it in his face, standing behind his back.

“Unlock.”

He stared into it, using face recognition. I took a picture of the guy’s back, sent it to Fairhurst through Dominic’s phone, and tucked said phone into my pocket.

Showtime, motherfucker, and you got a front-row seat.

I entertained the idea of letting Len know I was going out of town, before remembering there wasn’t a point, because she didn’t want to hear from me.

She hadn’t left room for interpretation—our hookups were over.

She couldn’t have been clearer if she’d tattooed her forehead with Property of Pope (whom I was still going to kill, because fuck him).

Just as well. If she was dumb enough to say I never gave her a birthday present, I really had no goddamn interest in tapping her ass, anyway.

And still.

And still.

I was going to send another motherfucking basket to her room this morning, as I had every single day since Arabella sucked me off on the last day of school. At first, I’d sent chocolate, because I didn’t want it to be too obvious, but I figured she’d know where they came from on her birthday when I sent brownies. They were handmade and in different shapes, for her entertainment. Clouds, unicorns, stars, animals, letters. Anything but a heart—that was my careful instruction to the chocolatier. Each was individually wrapped in fantasy-book wrappers: Lord of the Rings, A Song of Ice and Fire, Harry Potter, Northern Lights.

Cost a little extra to pull off, but half-assing shit wasn’t in my nature.

It wasn’t about wanting to fuck her, or trying to make her feel better, God forbid. I didn’t even leave a note. I just knew she liked sweet things since that day behind the fountain, and I pitied her ass because she was an orphan and friendless and fucked up.

That’s all it was. Pity.

I called the chocolaterie, and the lady there recognized me by my accent and the fact that I’d used them for a few weeks now. Also, I was probably the only bastard who called before their opening hours, when they’d just started their day baking.

“Another one? You’re persistent, lad.” She giggled.

I rolled my eyes, watching the English countryside zip by on the first train into Hertfordshire. It was a quarter to six. Even the birds were still asleep.

“Maybe you should personalize it this time? She obviously needs a bit of thawing. You’ve been sending them for quite a long time now.”

A note was a bad idea. She’d think I cared, and fuck, did I not give a damn about her. It was cruel to pretend otherwise. Especially now, when we were done.