The library smelled of musty books and pages that hadn't been read in at least five years.

Staying until close and leaving the back door cracked so as to not trip the security override was an easy feat, and I set my things up in my usual corner facing the outward windows as I waited for Kalen to show up. 

Five minutes to the dot and there was a message on my phone.

Two minutes later and my heart was hammering over the beat of a disastrous melody, something carved from the panic withering in my chest at seeing him again. 

And then his footsteps echoed through the silent, hollowed out library.

Each step was like a death march, beckoning me closer and screaming at me to get as far away from him as possible. 

But there was something that kept me rooted to the spot earlier, even when he got far too close than I should have let him. 

I should have pushed him as far as the strength of my arms would've allowed me, but there was a weakness inside of me. 

One look into his eyes, and the icy distance I'd tried to encapsulate my heart in began to thaw. 

One moment in his presence and I instantly folded to what he wanted, nevermind the fact that I was the one who'd gone to speak with him first. 

When he'd pushed me into that wall...

"Hey," his gruff whisper bounced off the walls, and I stopped those thoughts in their tracks. 

There would be no time for those kinds of distractions when it came to what I had to show him. 

"Hey."

Standing in front of him was another matter entirely, though, especially considering the fact that I had to crane my neck so dramatically to see him in the dim light of the library, the moon and stray beams of streetlights ricocheting off the glass panes shining through the windows.

His pale eyes glinted in the low lighting and his inky hair disappeared into the dark as it swept across his forehead, highlighting his icy irises as they assessed my body up and down, like he was checking to make sure I wasn't hurt in some way. 

It made sense in a way—taking into account the fact that I was acting more than strange considering the last interaction we had prior to that day—and all the awful things he'd said and done. 

"Follow me."

I turned on my heel and could finally breathe normally again once I was away from his lingering gaze. 

Fuck, this was going to be harder than I thought. 

"Not gonna explain why you're being so mysterious?"

"It'll just be easier to...show you."

"Well now I'm even more curious.  I thought you were done with me."

"I am.  I also happen to be a decent human being, which is why I asked you here."

"Not sure what luring me to the library after hours has anything to do with you being a decent human—unless you found the information your mother stole from my father and you're ready to give it up."

To that, I stayed silent. 

So, it was still all just a game to him then. 

He had no care for me at all. 

That would make it easier then, in the end. 

I could just show him the evidence I'd found, prove to him that his father wasn't who he said he was, and then he could go on his merry little fucking way. 

God, when did the lines become so blurred?

One minute, I was spitting in his face and telling him that whatever the fuck it was between us was over, and the next I was melting into his eyes?

No, I refused to allow myself to fall for his little tricks and games again. 

It was obvious what he wanted, and it clearly wasn't me. 

When he found out what his father had done, though, I wouldn't be so cruel as to say 'I told you so.'

No, I wouldn't gloat over the fact that his father was a veritable monster, because mine had the capacity to be just as awful, if not worse, and god knew I didn't have it the best when it came to parentage. 

It wasn't Kalen's fault who he was born to—but it was his fault the way he let his childhood affect his choices as a grown adult. 

"Let's just say you're going to want to see what I have to show you."

We reached my little corner of the library and I sat while he stood behind me, hovering, and I could practically feel the air shifting behind me as he crossed his arms. 

After booting up my computer and clicking on the pop-up from the USB, I held my breath as the new screen came to life. 

Edging himself closer to me, he leaned in and the scent of his cologne almost had me waiting to press the play button, knowing that this was going to change absolutely everything. 

But wasn't everything all gone to shit anyway?

I'd lost my virginity to someone who'd only been tricking me all along, and there I was, trying to do him a fucking favor by showing him who his father truly was?

Or did he already know what kind of a person he was, and he just didn't even care?

My heartbeat throbbed in the hollow of my throat as nausea roiled in my gut at the thought. 

What if Kalen already knew, or worse—what if he didn't care?

What if he mocked me for bringing him here under the guise of all this cloak and dagger bullshit just to make fun of me?

But it didn't matter—my fears and insecurities about the man leaning over me with his entire torso touching my back didn't matter one bit. 

Not as he stared, wide-eyed and mouth slack-jawed at the footage playing out before him on my computer. 

"What the fuck is this, Gracie?"

"Just...just watch."

"How am I supposed to know what's happening when I don't—"

And then he finally caught on when he focused on the face in that hospital bed. 

"Where the fuck did you get this?"

"Let's just say you were right about one thing—my mother did steal something from your father."

I just didn't tell him about the money part. 

It wasn't like I had stolen it.  Finder's keepers and all that jazz...especially when the person losing the money was someone as vile as Kalen's father. 

People like that didn't deserve money. 

They deserved to rot in prison for their crimes, but instead they lavished in their nice homes with their gilded bathtubs and gold leaf wallpaper.

Kalen began shaking behind me as he planted one hand on the desk in front of us and the other on the back of my chair. 

His chest was heaving in and out, breaths like a manual saw cutting a log in half as it tried to tear through sinew and bark. 

The video ended and began again just as he slammed his hand on the desk. 

"Turn it off."

The calm lethality in his voice brought chills to my arms, prickling needles of apprehension starting at the base of my neck at his reaction. 

I turned off the video just as he tore himself away from me and the desk, his hands going to his face just as he began to walk quickly back and forth, as if it was some kind of soothing mechanism to keep him from completely and totally losing it. 

"Kalen..."

"I think a part of me has always known, really."

I held my breath, terrified of the fact that he would stop talking. 

"She was getting better, you know?  I remember one time, they were talking about her labs.  I didn't really know what labs even were back then, but I knew it was a bad day when they came back wrong, and a great day when they came back good.  And they were coming back good a lot of the time.  Too many times.  Every day was a good day, and she was smiling again.  They were talking about in-home care—about her leaving the hospital.  It was always me and my grandma up there, never my dad.  He was always too busy working, but we head another great day, more great labs.  He came, and he braided her hair...he kissed her more than he ever usually did.  And—fuck—he never kissed her, not since she was sick, because of her immune system.  But it wouldn't matter anymore.  Not if he was planning on—"

He cut himself off, not daring to continue and put into words what he'd just witnessed, what he knew the truth of in his heart. 

What he'd apparently always guessed at. 

And then he whipped his head around to me, eyes calculated and intent on mine. 

"Why did you show me this?"

"I—I just thought you deserved to see it.  That you deserved to know what really happened.  I would have wanted for someone else to do the same for me."

"But why, after everything I said to you, are you willing to help me?"

"Because I'm trying to do the right thing, Kalen, and doing the right thing doesn't discriminate when it comes to someone who tricked me and made me look like a complete and total idiot for trusting them."

He hung his head and let it fall into his hands as a bitter chuckle fell from his lips. 

"Yeah, yeah, you're a good fucking person, Gracie.  Too good.  You never should've shown me this."

"Why?  Are you planning on doing something now that you've seen it?"

"Nothing I'd ever let you in on."

"Right.  Because I was just someone you were using to get your Daddy's approval, to get him to give you more money?  Because all you care about is fucking basketball and money.  God, what a greedy bastard you turned out to be."

I cursed some more under my breath as a hollow aching filled my chest and I willed myself not to cry. 

It was just a lesson in trust and red flags.  

He was nothing but a cautionary tale I'd tell to myself before bed, before gazing longingly into any other man's eyes, before giving away another piece of myself to anyone. 

"It's good that you hate me.  Maybe I can make sure it stays that way, too.  I'm gonna need that USB."

"What?  No.  I showed you the video, my good deed is done."

That same self deprecating, vacant laugh filled the library and I tensed in preparation of what he was going to say next. 

"You need to give it to me, Gracie, or you're not going to like what will happen if you don't."

Suddenly it was like a re-make of the scene that had happened earlier in the quad when I'd asked him to meet me in the library. 

He had me backed up into the desk, his form towering over me while something unhinged and completely mad had glazed over in his eyes. 

"It's mine, and while I know you need that one specific video on it, there's still tons of files I haven't even been able to go through myself.  I can make a copy of it with that video on it for you, but I'm not going to give it to you without looking through everything myself first."

"Fine, then let's go through it together."

His breath moved the strands of hair on my face and I shivered under the weight of his gaze as it latched onto the ever quickening rise and fall of my chest. 

"Why?  So you can see how much damning evidence there is against your family and then try to steal it anyway?"

"Do you really think I'd try to defend him—to be on his side—after the video you just showed me?  I have hated that man my entire life, Gracie.  Why the hell do you think I'd ever want to help him?"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe it was the fact that you were doing his fucking bidding not two days ago when you tricked me into bed to get information from him about my mother!"

He recoiled back sharply as if I'd hit him, but not once did the gravitational force of his gaze leave mine. 

"You have every right to hate me for trying to get information for him that way, but I never—not once—did it so that you would sleep with me.  I should've stopped it before it went too far, but—"

"But what?  You just couldn't help yourself?  I mean, you probably do it to every girl, don't you?  Just get what you want and then leave?  Is that why no one on campus sees you with anyone, because you've already thrown them to the side?"

Kalen's face turned to stone before my very eyes.  It was like a switch was flipped inside of him and then suddenly the lights went out behind his glacial irises. 

His face was dangerously close to mine, and there was an electric current of heat that was flitting back and forth between us and all I desperately wanted to do was either slap him in his stupid, arrogant, disgusting face or smash our faces together and lose myself in him until he made me forget just exactly what I was so angry about in the first place. 

How hard could it have been, to turn everything off for a while and let him make me feel good and forget just how fucked up everything had become between us?

"Sure, Gracie.  You were just the next girl in line, is that what you want to fucking hear?  Would it make it easier on you?  Your mother gave you the USB but she left my dad years ago, this shouldn't mean anything to you.  If anyone is going to use it to get revenge on him, it's going to be me."

"Revenge?  Oh, but I thought you were just his little minion, doing everything he says?"

Nothing flashed behind his facade—no rage, no disgust, no condescension—nothing but pure, unabated nothingness.

"If that's what you really think, that I'd still pretend to be on his side after what you just showed me, then I gave you more credit than you deserved."

"Well what the fuck am I supposed to think, Kalen?  After everything your family has done to mine, how could I put anything past them?  How could I put anything past you after what you did?!"

There was that flinch again, though this time it was imperceptible before a crack appeared in his stony exterior.

Something a little bit like heartbreak quivered his upper lip while his his eyebrows dipped and sorrow filled his features. 

"All you have to think about right now is how much trouble that could get you in, with my father.  If he can do that to his own wife, what's to stop him from coming after you next, huh?"

And then he was cupping my face in his hands as pure panic washed over him, his face turning pale in the shining moonlight. 

"Don't keep this shit on you, Gracie.  Either give it to me, or hide it somewhere no one will ever think to look.  Make sure no one's following you on campus, and hide it.  Don't give it to the police, they wouldn't know how to find their own ass if it wasn't attached to them.  You don't have to give it to me, but you need to know you're going to be in danger if you keep it.  Are you willing to handle that?"

"I'm willing to keep it if it means you don't take it from me before I can figure out what's on it.  What if there's information about my mom on this thing?  What if he did something to her and it wasn't really an OD?  How can I be sure of anything when it comes to your family if I don't cover my bases?  This was me doing you a favor by showing you what I have, because I need a clear conscience, and because I would want someone to do it for me if it was my mother.  I can take care of myself, Kalen."

He smiled sadly as that gleam in his eyes faded and he released me before stepping back slowly. 

My skin missed the contact of his own on mine. 

I hated myself for feeling that way. 

"I know you can."

Clearing my throat and turning around to grab my things, he was quiet. 

Turning back around to face him again, he was still quiet. 

Pensive. 

Thoughtful. 

Reserved and utterly breathtaking in the soft moonlit glow streaming in through the windows casting him in a reverent shine. 

"I'll...let you know if I find out anything else out about your mother on here, but I won't be giving it to you unless I don't find anything about my own mom or my family on here.  I have to protect myself first."

Still, he was silent. I made to move past him, but he caught my elbow in his fingers in a soft, tingling grasp. 

"Be careful, Gracie."

"I will be."

His glassy eyes held mine until I walked forward a few more steps and then kept walking, my steps feeling leaden as they moved. 

He followed me out of the library and we breathed a collective sigh of relief as the alarm didn't trip after shutting the back door behind us. 

I didn't turn back to him to give him a goodbye that I didn't really mean. 

I had no idea what to make of his hot and cold attitude—of how he seemed to care about me and then simultaneously want me to hate him at the same time. 

Sometimes it felt like I didn't know anything at all. 

Nothing except the soft cadence of footfalls behind me as they tried to be discreet. 

Nothing except the soft, laden weight of a stare pinned on my back as I walked back to my dorm. 

No, I didn't know anything at all—except for the fact that Kalen had watched me the entire walk back to my dorm, and that I didn't think he would stop watching me for a good long while. 

Some twisted part of me didn't mind that one bit.

***

Author's Note:

What did you think of this chapter?

What do you think will happen next?

Any plot twists coming our way??

Until next time my lovely readers,
Kristen :)