Chapter 22

“Tell him you aren’t interested,” Asher said, crossing his arms.

I lowered my gaze to the phone in my hands. The nervous boy’s innocent message stared back at me.

Do you want to go out on a date this weekend?

At first my fingers moved to comply with Asher’s demand, almost on reflex. I even opened a new message to reply. Yet before I typed a single letter, I stopped myself.

Why should I turn him down?

Despite how nice this night with Asher had been, it wasn’t a date. He was just doing what he always did, taking over my life under the guise of protection.

He only wanted to have dinner with me every night so that he could decide what I got to eat.

I backed out of my message, and clicked off the screen to my phone.

“What are you doing?” Asher said.

I returned my phone to my purse. “I need to think about it.”

“What is there to think about? Tell him no.”

His insistent demands began to scorch my already aching heart. If I lied to myself, I could maybe believe he was just jealous. But the reality was, he was only trying to be Dylan.

“Why do you care, Asher?” I snapped, more hurt than I wanted to admit.

If he saw me as anything other than my brother’s sister, maybe we could have a different conversation. But he didn’t, so we couldn’t.

My bitterness tasted sour on my tongue. “What does it matter to you who I date?”

“I don’t care,” Asher growled.

The words stung like a blow. I tried not to let it show, but inside, I was cut to my core.

In my mind, I don’t care so easily shifted into I don’t care about you.

“But that guy doesn’t know a thing about you, or what’s going on,” Asher continued. “If you want to keep your secret –”

“It’s my secret, Asher. Not yours.”

“You’re being reckless again.” Muslces flexing, he was as tense as a coiled spring. “And childish.”

My cheeks burned hot. Tears welled in my eyes, but I blinked them back.

I wished with all my heart that he would see me as more than a kid, but I knew he never would.

Everything hurt. Any progress I thought I had made with him vanished in an instant.

“I’m allowed to make decisions for myself. Who I date is up to me,” I said.

He opened his mouth to likely argue. I spoke quickly to stop him. I didn’t want to hear anything else he had to say, afraid to hurt worse.

“You think I’m the childish one, but this time, you’re wrong.”

The words came fast and hot, I couldn’t hold them back.

“You are treating me like some toy that you get to control. But I am my own person! With my own wants and needs –”

“’Wants and needs?’” Asher stormed forward, into my space. I had to crane my neck to glare up at him. “What would that boy know about fulfilling your wants and needs?”

At once, my mouth went dry. He was so hot like this, powerful and insistent. His ice cold eyes sent shivers through me, down to between my thighs.

I ached with want of him. I wouldn’t need to date that boy if Asher would step up and fulfill those needs himself.

But he wouldn’t. He never would.

Those thoughts cooled me. I stepped back, away from the hard, delicious lines of his body. Away from the tempting desires that would never bear fruit.

He must have noticed the shift in me, because he shifted too, half-turning from me.

“Do what you want,” he said lowly, then went to the sink.

I had offered to help with the dishes, but I couldn’t stand to be in the same room with him any longer.

So I threw the towel down beside him, grabbed my purse, and ran away.

The next morning, I went to cheerleading practice.

Coach had kept his promise to help me. He moved me to the back line, which traditionally required less demanding movements. He even changed the routine to draw attention elsewhere in the squad when I was supposed to be doing a move I couldn’t quite manage.

Thanks to him, the practice was going better than the others had recently. As we took a break, everyone was chatting about other things. No one paid me any mind this time.

Well, no one except Nicole, who joined me as I rested on the bleachers.

“What’s got you so down?” Nicole asked as she sat beside me.

I blinked in surprise. “How could you tell?”

“You look like you might cry any second,” Nicole said. “What happened? Boy problems?”

“Boy problems barely covers it,” I said, downhearted.

I still hadn’t replied to the nervous boy, who seemed to be patiently waiting for a reply. Meanwhile, Joseph had texted me after I left Asher’s, five or six times through the night. Of course, Asher hadn’t sent anything.

“Is it that boy from the other night? What, did Asher scare him off?” Nicole laughed.

Her laugh made me smile a little, for a moment. Asher certainly had tried to scare him off, then tried to scare me too. Asher didn’t seem to realize his attempts to scare me had the opposite effect.

“That boy asked me out, but I don’t know what to do,” I said.

He wasn’t who I wanted, but who I wanted would never want me. And then there was Joseph…

I dropped my head into my hands.

“Hey, it’s okay.” Nicole rubbed my back in comfort. “You don’t have to say yes.”

I shook my head.

With the way I behaved at Asher’s, I almost had to say yes now, didn’t I? If I didn’t go on a date with the nervous boy, wouldn’t that mean Asher ended up getting his way, after all?

“Cynthia,” Nicole said with patience. “You just have to follow your heart.”

I frowned miserably. “But what if my heart wants the wrong person?”

She squeezed my shoulder. “You have to see it through. The heart will want what it wants, no matter how hard you try to fight it.”

I thanked her for her kindness, but I didn’t believe her. If my heart wanted Asher, I would fight against it until my dying breath.

Maybe I should say yes to a date with the nervous boy.

Cheerleading practice resumed, and despite my distraction, I did well enough to continue to be unnoticed.

At the end of practice, Coach called the whole squad to gather around him for an announcement.

“As you know, the Academy holds all of its students up to a higher standard,” Coach said. “This means that every one of you must become exceptional, not just in skills that can brighten your own future, but also skills that will benefit us all as a whole.”

A tingle of dread curled in my stomach.

“Therefore, in the coming weeks, you will be subjected to a specific kind of training. We call it Warrior Training. You’ll learn fighting and survival skills. Hand to hand combat. Defense.”

That dread feeling grew and grew, crawling out to my fingers and toes.

Coach’s eyes found mine. He looked apologetic. “There will be competitions. War games. You might get hurt.”

My stomach dropped entirely. War games?

How would I ever protect my baby?