CHAPTER SIX: A HOT UNPLANNED KISS

ANNA'S POV

I choke and cough trying to catch my breath. Jace lowers himself beside me whispering death threats into my ears, I turn around angrily to berate him but instead our lips join together. And as if by some stronger force, none of us moves; instead, he stares at me through long lashes, and I close my eyes and suck on his button lips. I've wanted this for so long, to kiss Jace CruelHart, and the heart takes what it wants. Maybe if I kiss him well, he will remember us. Maybe he will stop hurting and forgive me.

 

I think I'm dreaming because he parts his lips for me, and I take full advantage, forcing my tongue into his mouth. His kiss is rough and barbaric; it's not romantic in any way. It's forceful, as if he is trying to make a point...to score a point of dominance, but I know he can do better.

 

"Bro!" 

 

Jace pushes me roughly, and I hit my back on the marble floor... that's when my eyes go to the door, and I realize Dash is standing, fists folded at his side, steam radiating from his nose and his entire body hot with rage. He looks like he wants to kill me for kissing Jace.

 

What the fuck was I doing kissing Jace? Not the Jace that bought me flowers, not the Jace I had a crush on, but the badass Cruel Prince. The fucking man that wants me dead... 

 

I sit up and turn around to see Jace gagging in the sink, like actually vomiting. He rinses his mouth with clean water and spits it out. "That was so fucking disgusting. Your mouth reeks. Have you seen a dentist recently?"

 

Hot tears roll down my cheek at his hurtful words. My mouth doesn't smell. I cover my palms around my mouth and breathe it. It doesn't stink.

 

Dash joins us in the bathroom hallway, and I'm still sitting on the floor. Jace blows smoke and drags me up from the ground by my shirt, joining our bodies together. I can feel something heavy beneath his towel; he's turned on. "This shit should never happen again; if it does?" He blows smoke into my nose before bringing the reddish part of his cigar close to my lips, not close enough to burn but close enough to make me feel the heat. "I will burn your lips to ashes." He pushes me away from him and tilts his head to the door. "Get out."

 

I wipe at my eyes and rub my damp cheeks as I rush out of the locker room like it's on fire. I overhear them still talking.

 

"The fuck, bro? Is that how you want to do this revenge thing?"

 

"Shut the fuck up! The bitch forced herself on me, and for the record, I didn't kiss her back."

 

Fucking liar! I joggle down the stone stairs of the building, making my way back to the Great Hall where I find Jessica already waiting for me.

 

"Anna, where have you been? I've been looking everywhere for you. The magical abilities class is about to start in thirty minutes."

 

Finally, a class I have interest in; maybe I can learn how to read truths into the future.

 

"Sorry, Telepathy was shit. I promise it's not always like that. I think Master Damian Wolf woke up on the wrong side today."

 

"Thirty minutes? How do you tell time around here?" I look around.

 

Jessica laughs. "Because the academy is made of stone doesn't mean we are so archaic. There's a wall clock in the Great Hall." She replies and passes me more snacks from her bag. "For now, there's a viral trend that everyone in the school is participating in; we should join it too."

 

I groan and try to enter the Great Hall but Jessica stops me. "This way." She pulls me towards her. We turn around the Great Hall to the direction of the dorms. "The predators always start a viral task once in while which every student of the academy must participate in."

 

"And if you don't?" I chew on bacon and cheese. 

 

"You become the predators public enemy no.1, nothing will stop them from playing with you."

 

"I don't like the way you said playing."

 

"Yeah because it's dangerous."

 

We enter the lobby of the hostel, but instead of taking the right wing to the female rooms, we take the left. "That's the boy's section." I inform her.

 

"Relax, we are not going to the boys room." 

 

We take only a few steps to the left before stopping in front of a door. Jessica smiles at me and unlocks it. I step forward to peek in, and all I can see is a spiral staircase all the way down. "An underground?" My voice is heavy with excitement.

 

She nods. "We call it the Secret Hub."

 

We descend more than five flights of stairs until we reach the base, an empty room with its wall covered in graffiti of inks and text. It looks like a fucking ink museum. The writing looks like carvings on the wall, and if you turn your neck or look from different perspectives, it looks like the write-ups are trying to form images. 

 

"From students past. All secrets are stored here; each student makes a ritual of adding their names to the wall the night before their graduation. The predators, since joining the Academy two years ago, have made sure to preserve it and turn it into our own secret hub by giving students a series of tasks once or twice a semester to perform, the process and results to be entered here."

 

"It's beautiful." I run my fingers on the wall; the letters are so jammed together, some words too faint to read and some others too scattered to comprehend. But some ink shines boldly like it was just written. "There's so much text here; how will the predators know if a particular student doesn't participate?"

 

"Graves has exceptional eyesight, plus she is a handwriting expert... I don't know if her wolf connects to it...or how she does it. But Anna, they always know. Seeing that you are already on their bad list, I think this may be a perfect way to redeem yourself."

 

"What's this task anyways?"

 

"Since the semester is still fresh, it's not going to be a hard task. It's always going viral, and every student in the academy is talking about it."

 

I twist my lips. "How does Jace juggle being the alpha of the entire Westward pack while being locked up in this place?"

 

Jessica scratches her brows and adjusts her lens. I think I may have just asked her a question she may not have an answer to. "Whenever duty calls, or there's a need for him to be with his pack, the academy senses it and releases it. The task is to write out your worst failure."

 

I have a phobia of failure. I can't share my failure publicly. Jace knows this.

 

"Come on." Jessica redraws a marker from her bag. "The worst failure I have ever encountered was trying to locate my way back to our packhouse after a camp in the woods went sour. I couldn't remember my way back home; it was funny."

 

She thinks failure is funny. Failure is one of the worst things I fear, being unable to do what you have set your mind to do or what you are expected to do. And I've failed in many things in my life, particularly during childhood.

I tried to start a winning record from teenage -hood because failure made me feel so miserable—the taunts, the constant comparison, the feeling of always being second best to Jace no matter how hard I tried. I didn't despise him, far from it. I loathed myself and admired him, hoping that one day I would become as tough, strong, and wise as him.

 

The cruel words of Jace's late father were my only motivation. If you fail today, child, you will fail for the rest of your life.

 

Jessica finish writing and turns to me, handing the marker to me.

 

"But one particular failure continued haunting me from age ten to fifteen, and I never want to remember that awful experience. Failure terrifies me; it scares me." 

 

I hadn't realized I said that out loud until Jessica replied. "Just write it out and get over it. The only way to conquer your fear is to face it." Jessica smooths my shoulder.

 

"That shit is not true." I wrap my arms around my body, feeling the goosebumps spreading on my skin. My eyes grow watery. "I don't want to do this."

 

"Just write it; no one will read your failure or know who wrote it." She hands me the marker and turn her back to the opposite direction to give me privacy to write.

 

"Thank you." I murmur and move to the wall to start writing. 

 

The word puzzle was a mystery to me. I tried solving a word puzzle once with my best friend, and he beat me at it. He jeered and taunted me for days, but when he saw how deeply I was hurting, he dedicated his time to teaching me, but I was a slow learner.

At age ten, he convinced me to join a word puzzle competition, which I failed. My best friend's dad who is also my dad by extension, was mad that no child of his will ever fail. He punished me and began 'training' me secretly. Age eleven, I failed again... And year after year, the punishments were changing in form; he started making me bleed with his fingers...

I stop writing and cross the words, cancelling everything I had written. I can't do this. 

 

I won't do it.

 

But what I had written was just a small part of what actually happened during those five years of my life... No one will actually know the full story; that's my secret, and I'm taking it to the grave.

 

I tap Jessica's shoulders. "I'm done."

 

 "You did well." She hugs me. We ascend the stairs.

 

 My head starts hurting me out of nowhere. I clutch my head tightly as if to stop the throbbing ache. Visions of lunar storms, destruction of celestial bodies and werewolves plague my mind's eye. I scream as I fall on the floor, convulsing and rolling down the stairs. What is happening to me? I haven't turned eighteen yet; it's still three fucking months until my eighteenth birthday.

 

"What is wrong with you? Are you okay?" Jessica's voice sounds so distant, like she is in a faraway world or another time. "Your skin is turning blue!" She shrieks in fear.