Free Cursed Hearts (A Crossroads Novel) by Light and Lowell

roles were reversed, I’d be doing the exact same
thing you are. I respect the fact that you care about her, and I know I look
like the kind of guy you’d want to protect her from—and maybe in some ways I
am—but… I just want to get to know her. Besides,
what about what she wants? Doesn’t that matter?”
    Dallas
frowned thoughtfully at the spoiler as they pushed the car over the crest of
the hill. Almost there, he thought. This night, and this awful conversation,
was almost over.
    “You
know, you still haven’t answered my question,” Rome said. “Do you like her?”
    Dallas
smiled, looking over at him with warm eyes.
    “…It
would be impossible not to.”

Chapter 6
    The
cafeteria was bustling with students. Smiling, laughing faces filled the tables
and lined the walls near every cuisine station. Everyone was catching up and
reconnecting with friends. Most everyone, anyways.
    Ariahna shifted her folded blazer over her arms, looking
around for a place to sit as she walked timidly through the large, noisy room. By the reactions she was
receiving, people either still saw her as invisible, or, and this was a new
one, diseased. Available seats were filled
quickly by coats, books, and legs. She could feel her face flushing with
embarrassment and her heart beating anxiously in her chest. If she
didn’t find a seat soon, she was just going to turn around and run from the
room.
    “Hey, new girl!” someone called from a table over. Aria
turned slightly, looking at the person who had shouted with a frown. It had sounded like they’d been trying to get her attention. The owner of the voice was an
older girl with perfect straight hair and full, red lips. She was that pretty and popular
type. She remembered her from yesterday, in the auditorium. She’d been teasing
Christian and badmouthing Rome. Was she really talking to her, though? She
wasn’t a new student, and she definitely wasn’t the type of person Scarlet
Bellaway would be seen addressing. She pointed to herself uncertainly, glancing
around in confusion.
    “Yeah, you – the redhead with the baffled look on her
face,” Scarlet said, her voice smoky and filled with sarcasm. “Take a
seat. You can sit with me.”
    Aria
slipped into a chair beside her, clutching her jacket like she was afraid she’d
have to use it as a weapon. Was this some kind of trick?
    “I’m
not new,” she said quietly.
    “What?”
    “I
said I’m not new. I was enrolled here last year.”
    Scarlet
waved a hand at her.
    “You weren’t even worthy of recognition last year. You
might as well be a
transfer student or a new arrival.”
    Aria didn’t know how to take that statement. She stared
at her for a short moment before realizing she was being rude. “Ariahna,” she
said, extending a
hand in introduction. Scarlet took it with a mischievous smile, not bothering
to offer her own name.
    “I
know who you are,” she said.
    “You
do?”
    “Of
course; you come from a very well-known family. Honestly, I don’t know how you
ended up as such an outcast with an old and powerful name like VayRenn to carry
you along.”
    “Oh, right,” she mumbled, dropping her gaze. “I suppose it helps that most
people don’t know my last name… or my first.”
    “Well,
lucky me, I’ve got the rest of them beat then. I know both. And I know
something else they don’t know.”
    “What’s
that?”
    “That
you and I are going to become very, very good friends.”
     
    ***
     
    Rome
wandered down the stairs for breakfast. He was drifting through a sea of
people, caught up in the sensation of them washing around him in a cool haze. The school was buzzing with energy, and if it
weren’t for yesterday’s craziness, he might have been just as excited as
the rest of them. It didn’t help that he’d been up most of the night, either.
He shuffled towards the cafeteria, his eyes moving away from the tile beneath
his boots at the familiar sound of Christian’s voice.
    “Hey
Jacobs, what was it