Total pages in book: 210
Estimated words: 200837 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1004(@200wpm)___ 803(@250wpm)___ 669(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 200837 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1004(@200wpm)___ 803(@250wpm)___ 669(@300wpm)
Huh. Ironic. Especially since I just spilled some pretty big secrets to Finn Scott. So I suppose their suspicions had cause.
Donal offers me his arm and I dutifully hook my hand around it the way I’m supposed to with an escort. We start walking, turning corners and traveling along one of the many, many, many twisted passageways inside the Maiden Tower.
He remains quiet, nodding his head at every Matron standing guard at each hallway intersection. The thing about Donal that tends to win people over, aside from his brown-nosing, of course, is his good looks. He’s tall, and broad, and handsome. Not only that, he knows how to be charming. I mean, he’s never been charming with me, but he’s been trained up as the legacy for the Tower District, so proper etiquette has been ingrained into him since birth. His manners are impeccable, there’s no denying it. But he’s so ugly on the inside.
“What do you say, Jasina? Should we steal away for a little quickie before I take you back to the dorm?”
And right there is the perfect example of this ugliness. We are not familiar in this way. He has no right to say this to me. I look up at him, disgusted. “Keep dreaming. The Matrons are watching, you idiot.”
“They are. Until they’re not.”
And this is when I realize that they aren’t actually watching. In fact, there are no Matrons at all along this passageway.
The next thing I know he’s pushing me into a dark nook. I make to scream, but his hand is firmly across my mouth. It’s so big, and he’s pressing so hard, a panic floods through me. Not because of his reference to a ‘quickie’ and what his immediate plans might be—though I’m pretty sure he is intending on having his way with me—but because I can’t draw in a breath.
I’ve been paired up with this jerk for nearly five years now and a girl doesn’t have to be a genius to see this moment coming. I’m ready because I’ve practiced for it, so on instincts alone my knee comes up and gets him in the balls so hard, he immediately doubles over, coughing and sputtering.
By the time I’m back in the main corridor, he’s retching his guts out behind me.
I turn the corner, find a Matron—who is very surprised that I am alone—and before she can ask the obvious question, I provide an answer. “He’s getting sick in that nook back there. You might want to take him to the health center.”
There’s a commotion of Matrons after that. All the ones along this corridor go rushing past me to render aid while I just continue my walk back to the dorm in peace.
What a dick. Of course it pisses me off that he pulled this stunt, but I’m angrier about being paired up with him in the first place. If every girl knows that Donal Oslin is this way, how is it possible that every Matron doesn’t?
They do. They just don’t care.
And that’s the nicest conclusion to come to. Because it could be that they know and they do care. In other words, they’ve placed Donal with me on purpose, knowing full well that this would happen.
It’s this belief that I grab onto for two reasons. The first is to ease my guilt about what I just told Finn Scott. I am not a traitor. I am loyal. I, as much as anyone, want this evil god in the tower gone. I want this barbaric ritual of Extraction to be over. Spilling all those secrets wasn’t in the plan. I didn’t actually have a plan—not after last night, at least. But Finn revealed a part of himself to me by mistake. He doesn’t want this either. Why should we be enemies when we can be allies?
Of course, that’s not the only reason. The way he touched me held a lot of sway in the end. And I get it. He’s missing Clara. He wants Clara. I was nothing but a convenient substitute. But when he came out of the building this morning and walked across the bridge, I saw him in a new light. Vulnerable, regretful, and not the monster I had made him out to be in my head all these years.
He loved Clara. He doesn’t want to do this. He said that. And I believe him.
So he’s not on their side. He’s not even aware there are sides, from the way he tells it. So why should he be our enemy? Why couldn’t he help us?
Then there’s that. The term ‘us.’
Because when Auntie came up to the table during our talk, I suddenly stopped feeling like part of her ‘us.’ Why was she so confrontational? I wasn’t doing anything weird. Does she suspect that he and I…? No. Surely not. Why would she jump to that conclusion?