hates my freaking guts and targets me every damn time we cross the starting line. Vivian works her game plan out instantly and starts to make it harder for her to get to me, mostly to teach her how to strategize and to teach me to evade the bitch, but she’s like a goddamn bloodhound.
I hate her.
Naturally, Zoey is in love with Gabe and spends every second she can flirting with him in front of me. This should probably bother me more than it does but there’s some pissed off, cruel part of me that enjoys just how badly Gabe wants me to react. Every time I watch Zoey brush a hand across his bicep without so much as a flinch, I can see how much it pisses him off.
He never pushes her away though and that says far too much about how he really feels.
The only silver lining to taking this class with Gabe is that after we’re done for the day, he drives me over to North’s place for dinner each week, cutting down the time I have to be trapped in a small, confined space with North and his driver.
The motorbike is intimate but the flirting with death makes it my preferred method of being dragged to these stupid weekly dinners. Gabe also doesn’t try to talk to me or belittle me for my general existence like North does, more marks in his favor.
He also always sits next to me at the table, adding little comments and snippets of information whenever one of Nox’s guests starts shit with me, which is all the freaking time.
I’m convinced Nox only brings the most confrontational and completely insane girls that he can find to the table.
Tonight is no different and while Lana is less obvious with her infatuation with Nox, her barbed jabs at me cut a little closer to the bone than the other giggling airheads.
“I heard that you lived on the street for years, selling yourself to eat. It must be hard to go back to living a ‘straight’ life again after being used like that.”
Selling myself.
Gabe stiffens and shoots her a glare, his lip curling up. I already know he’s not going to actually do anything about it though and when he glances down at me, there’s this hesitancy in him that burns me because there’s a part of him that believes that bullshit about me.
I’m about to unleash a whole world of pain on him when North interrupts, “We need to discuss some ground rules for the party.”
I almost choke on air. “Why would we need to do that? I’ll avoid you like the plague, Gabe will stick to my ass like glue, and I’ll hang out in the corner with Sage while both of us pray that death will take us so we can get out of there.”
Nox finally leans away from Lana, who is still smirking at me like she’s won something, taking interest in the conversation for the first time. “I fucked a Flame once. She came so hard she set the bed on fire. I should call your little friend and see if she needs some… loosening up.”
It’s the biggest challenge I’ve had at keeping my gift under wraps and my teeth take the brunt of it, my jaw clenching so hard I feel my teeth crack and grind brutally together.
It’s the first time the bond in my chest hasn’t keened for him, mourning the thought of him touching anyone else but me, and I’m thankful for the small mercies because maybe it’s finally caught on to the fact that there’s no way out of this.
He’ll hate me until he dies.
I push my plate away from myself, bile creeping up my throat at the thought of him fucking my one and only friend, and Gabe glances at it and then back up at me. “North needs me to look over some paperwork, we can’t leave yet.”
I look down to find my hands shaking violently and immediately tuck them under my thighs. “I’m walking back then. I’m not staying here with him.”
"I'll take you,” Gryphon says, and I blanch.
He hasn't even tried to talk to me, never even looked at me, really. I thought he'd do everything he could to get the hell away from me.
"Thanks," I say, and he pushes away from the table without another word or so much as a glance my way. I don’t care about niceties, I just need to get the fuck out of here.
He leads me