Void(63)

“Who got me out of the gym?” I asked curiously.

“Gritt was tearing back like his ass was on fire. Guess he felt your pain or something,” Quade said. “He ran into Render on the way, so the vamp flashed to you, and they both got you out. Hyde had some dead sparrow or some shit spying in through the window, so he got alerted that something was going down, and he called me. We all met at Render’s since his room was the closest.”

I nodded, trying to visualize what I’d remembered versus the gaps he was filling in for me. “Why would you show up?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean exactly that,” I said. “Why would you care if the vampires attacked me?”

Anger settled over his features. “I don’t want you to get hurt, Devi.”

“You wouldn’t have cared before,” I pressed.

“That was before—” he cut himself off when we rounded a hallway and saw that it was full of students. As soon as they spotted me in a male’s shirt and nothing else, covered in smears of blood and matted hair, the whispers started.

Quade was quiet as we walked, ignoring everyone we passed despite how they pointed and snickered and muttered. My life at the human boarding school had been better than this. I missed Reed in that moment so much that tears filled my eyes. When the girls at Coxcomb’s had been particularly awful, he’d always stood up for me and then planned for us to sneak out later. He knew what made me feel better.

When we finally reached the exit and pushed our way outside, I blew out a puff of breath. Just once, I wanted to walk down a hallway without being watched like a bug under a microscope. The door had barely shut behind us when Quade suddenly gripped my arm. He tugged me to the side of the building until my back was pressed against the wall between two tall shrubs.

I looked at him with wide eyes. “What are you doing?”

Just like in Render’s room, his eyes dropped down to my mouth, but this time, he brought his hand up and traced a finger along my bottom lip. I stood, frozen, unsure what to do or what to think. Quade Sandwood was touching me. Voluntarily. He was looking at me like he missed me—almost a decade of longing was in his dark eyes. I didn’t understand.

I pushed his hand away and crossed my arms, and I saw a flash of hurt cross his features before he dropped his hand and stuffed it into his pocket. “Sorry. I couldn’t help it.”

“You guys are giving me whiplash. What happened to hating me? To trying to get me kicked out of school?” His eyes widened at that little morsel. “You’ve hated me since we were kids, Quade,” I reminded him angrily.

He ran a frustrated hand over his dark buzzed hair before looking away. “I know. Fuck, I know, Dev.”

“Then what are you doing? Why are you all acting so differently all of a sudden?” I demanded. “And what did you mean when you said your parents had been wrong about me?”

He blew out a frustrated breath. “We’re acting differently because...we realized we were fucking wrong, okay?”

I blinked at him, the words not registering. “Wrong?”

“About you.”

My brain hurt from all the conflicting thoughts that started to lash into me.

“When I was little, my parents said that your Void had turned you feral. They told me that you admitted to wanting to steal my power.”

“What?” My heart pounded behind my bones, scraping me raw. “I never—”

“I know,” he cut me off. “I know that now. I...fuck. I was young, you know? I just always believed them. I had no reason not to. And it wasn’t just that one time. They’d come home from days at the council and tell me things…”

I gritted my teeth. “What things?”

He shook his head and looked down at his feet. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Answer the question, Quade.”

He glanced back up at me. “They’d tell me every time you were summoned to the council. They told me how you would laugh. That you would drain the supers of their power like you got high off of it, and that you’d ask for more. That you’d mock them openly and threaten anyone who even looked your way. They made you out to be a monster who revelled in stealing powers.”

I was so angry that I turned red-hot, instantly slick with heat. “Why would they say that? And how could you believe that about me?”

It hurt. It hurt a lot. I know we’d stopped being friends when we were little, but he should’ve known that wasn’t me. That wasn’t who I was.

“They made it seem like the Void had taken over you. Changed you.”

“You should’ve talked to me.”

“They forbade me from speaking to you. They hadn’t even wanted me to be present during this last summoning, but they couldn’t stop it since all the paragons had to be present.”

“Why would they lie?”

He shook his head, at a loss. “I guess because they didn’t want me near you just in case…”

“In case I accidentally took your powers.”

He looked at me guiltily. “Yeah.”

“Well, I’m glad you were able to finally see things for yourself,” I gritted before shoving him away and walking past him. I couldn’t look him in the eye and see how much he distrusted me. I couldn’t stand to hear how he’d blindly believed that I was a fucking monster despite everything we’d been through.