^^Above, chapter title credit: Song by Tears for Fears.^^

{Raina}

"So Geoff Cromwell is your boyfriend?" Felicia asks with a sly look in her eye.

"Yes," I say warily. Watching her kiss him with the freedom of a girl who knows exactly what she's doing sends a twinge of jealousy up my nerves. And I don't want to admit it, but with her looks and her obvious experience in seducing guys makes the feeling stronger. "Why do you ask?"

"I was only wondering how the Red Knight managed to snap up a pretty little thing like you." She gives me a wry wink.

I bristle. "Are you saying I'm not his type?"

"It's not you, it's him. He'll screw anything, if it's wearing a skirt."

"Shut up," I snap, trying not to let that comment get to me. "You don't know anything about my relationship with him."

"I may not know, Raina." She bars my path, so that I run into her. She catches me before I fall, but only to run one finger down my sternum. It stops right where my dress starts. "But I see it. Once he gets what he wants from you, he'll move on. Mark my words."

"Stop it." My words stick on the way out, and I feel hot tears rushing to my eyes. "Geoff loves me. I know it."

"For now," she whispers in my ear, her breath hot against my skin.

Just then, there's a thunderous crash, making the floor shudder and the lights flicker. The noise from the party nearby stops, and when it happens again, I hear cries of panic. Then, completely without warning, the sprinklers go on, drenching us to the skin in seconds. That's followed by a metallic bang and a thud, like somebody being thrown into a sheet of metal.

A few seconds of silence pass before the fire alarm goes off, and the doors to the ballroom burst open. The fraternity guys come flooding out, and all but Jake and Damon, the guy who drove us here, make a break for the exit.

"What the hell is going on?" Jake yells over the blaring of the alarm, wet hair plastered to his forehead. He looks scared, which means he has as good of an idea of that answer as anyone else.

"Ridley!" I shout back, and he seems to understand exactly what that means.

"C'mon! Let's get outta here!" He grabs my hand, and I see Damon grab Felicia, and we sprint towards the front doors.

A loud whoomph comes from behind, and a second later I feel a heat wave push us forward and down, tumbling out the front doors and onto the circular driveway. I roll over just in time to see the entire country club go up in flames, all the windows shattering outward and showering us with glass.

I don't know how long it takes for the police, the fire department, and the ambulances to arrive, but somehow I find myself sitting in the back of an ambulance, an EMT dressing the long deep cut on my shoulder. Through the haze of smoke and flashing lights, I see Geoff limping around, his eyes swinging back and forth. He's looking for me.

"Geoff!" I cry, and his gaze snaps to mine. He hobbles towards me, and a second later he's wrapping me tightly in his arms, his body shaking. I throw mine around his middle, burying my face in his tattered shirt. He kisses the top of my head, and then rests his chin there.

"Oh my God, Raina," he says, his voice hoarse. "I thought...when the place blew..."

"It's okay, Geoff." I breathe him in — smoke, beer, singed hair — and a wave of relief washes over me. "I'm okay."

He holds me tightly, until the EMT comes back and tells him to be careful, or I'll tear open my cut again. I feel Geoff nod before burying his nose in my hair, cupping the back of my head.

"I'm so sorry, Raina," he says, his voice quiet.

"For what?" I ask, in the same tone. "None of this is your fault."

"Everything. All of this. I never meant for you to get hurt."

"Of course you didn't. It just happened." I curl my fingers around his lapels. 

He just holds me tighter and says nothing. He blames himself, I know it. And I wish he didn't have to.

≈

Geoff asks Damon to drop him off outside my dorm complex, not the frat house. At first he seems dubious, but when Geoff refuses to budge, he does it. We climb out of the car, and Geoff waits until we can't hear the sound of the engine anymore to cup my face in his hands, eyes searching my face.

"You cut your head," he says, pushing my hair away from my forehead. "It looks deep."

I reach up to touch it and wince as a sting shoots across it. "It just hurts, Geoff. I'm sure it's fine."

"Raina—" he starts, but I press two fingers against his lips to stop him.

"I'm okay, Geoff. Really." I hate to see him worried, especially this much. He must know more about it than I do, but at the moment, I don't want to know anything. "What we should worry about right now is you. You're a mess."

I take his hand and lead him inside, and he follows without protest. Under the light, his injuries come into sharper relief. He has sluggishly bleeding cuts on his cheek, forehead, bottom lip, and down the side of his neck. One of his eyes is already bruising, and so is the bridge of his nose.

On the elevator ride up, he says nothing, but I can hear his breathing, harsh and irregular. This might take more than just a few Band-Aids. Especially if he's got injuries on his torso, or if they're internal. And I highly doubt any of the EMTs got a good look at him.

When we make it to the bathroom, he leans against the sinks, closing his eyes and wincing.

"Geoff, sit here," I say, indicating the stepping stool under the counter.

"Raina–" he says, his voice strained.

"Sit, Geoff." I don't want it to sound like I'm talking to a dog, but he's being so uncooperative that I have to resort to it. "Now."

Reluctantly he pulls it out with his foot, sinking down on it. "Woof woof."

That finally gets a smile out of me. "Good boy."

He closes his eyes and tries not to wince as I wipe the cuts clean. We don't speak, and I'm grateful for it. Besides, his face isn't covered in blood anymore, and he looks much better.

"Now your torso, Geoff," I say, feeling my ears burn. It occurs to me that it's the first time I've seen him shirtless.

"Aw, come on," he says, exhaling and wincing.

"Don't 'come on' me, Geoff." I have to be firm. He had to know that getting involved with me wouldn't entail any coddling on my part. "I saw you wincing all the way up here. Just let me have a look."

He exhales, scowling. But he still slides his blazer off, and then begins to unbutton his shirt. I bite down on my lip and look away, trying to dispel some of the awkwardness. Out of the corner of my eye, though, I see his shirt drop away, and it's then I have to look.

"Oh, Geoff..." I can't help gasping, because he's covered in bruises. They're up and down his rib cage, across his washboard stomach, and even on his arms and shoulders. One of them is shredded to ribbons, like somebody dragged him across a rough surface.

"Should see the other guy," he says, hissing with pain when I gently press the paper towel on his shoulder wound.

"Any worse than you?" I ask, not because I want to know but because I need something to distract me from the well-defined shapes of his muscles under his skin.

He smiles, more like a grimace. "Probably not."

Fortunately, his shoulder's the worst of it there. When I've finished, I wipe my hands off on my dress, trying to think of what I should say now.

"Come here," he says, saving me the trouble.

"Geoff..."

"Come here." He extends his hand out to me. "Please."

I take his hand, and he tugs me forward, standing up at the same time. He catches my face in his other hand, and so suddenly I don't see it, he bends down and is kissing me a second later.

I gasp with surprise, but that only encourages him. He grunts and slides his hands down my legs to the backs of my knees. Then he lifts me, and I have to wrap my arms around his neck to keep from tumbling backwards. He pushes his lips against mine, and I taste blood a second later. The cut there reopened.

"Don't stop, Raina," he breathes when I pull away.

"I don't want to hurt you," I whisper.

"You won't," he says against my lips. "Promise."

Then he's kissing me harder, raking his hands through my hair as he lifts me onto the bathroom counter. I dig my own into his back, on either side of his spine. But I can't fight back. I can't combat his kisses when every one is different, each one undoing me a little bit more.

"Geoff..." I pant when he moves to kiss my neck. "Wait a second."

"What?" He pulls back only slightly, brow furrowed.

"I'm not ready to..." I can't seem to finish the sentence. It seems so taboo, that subject.

"Sleep together?" he says, and I nod. "That's okay, and you know why?"

"No, why?" I feel my heart hammering against my ribs, so hard it hurts.

"Because when we do, I don't want it to be because I'm angry at Ridley. Or angry at all, really."

I relax with relief, glad that he understands. "Thank you, Geoff."

"Don't thank me. Just kiss me."

I don't have any trouble with doing that afterward.

≈

I wake slowly, out of a warm fuzzy darkness I'm reluctant to leave. My eyes are sticky when I blink, and the first thing I see is a hand sprawled on my pillow, a man's hand. I jerk away from it, the back of my head bumping into something hard and warm. It's then that I realize there's an arm wrapped around me, and a body pressed up close to me.

Then I remember: Geoff, asking if he could spend the night. And me answering yes. I roll partway over and gently kiss the bruise on his chin. He murmurs something and his hand slips up my back, stopping between my shoulder blades.

"Geoff," I say softly, rubbing his cheek with my thumb. When he doesn't respond, I say it again, a little more forceful. "Geoff."

"Hmm?" His eyes open halfway, watching me. He smiles slightly, and I feel his fingers moving slightly back and forth over my skin.

"Your bruises are looking better," I say, more as a distraction to myself as his hand moves again, slipping one of my bra straps off my shoulder.

"Are they?" he says, his voice still heavy with sleep. His finger runs across my collarbone, back and forth. Each sweep sends tingles over my skin.

I nod and sit up, his touch falling away. What I'm about to ask him requires that he's not distracting me with his fingers.

"I like this look on you," he says with a lazy gesture. "Bra and panties and nothing else."

"Geoff, stop. Just for a second." I don't like it, because it puts all my scars on display, something I'm not used to doing. "I want to ask you something."

"'Kay. Ask away." He puts a hand on my knee and rubs.

"I want you to tell me what happened with you and Ridley last night. Why the whole country club blew up."

"He got mad, long story short. Did you know one of his powers involves exploding water pipes with the pressure?" Geoff shrugs, drawing a line up my thigh with his finger.

"What about?" I catch his hand, folding it between both of mine.

"He knows it's me that's been trying to thwart him, all these months." Geoff's voice gets heavy and serious, and his hand goes slack. "He knew it was me the second I stopped him from using the green stuff on that girl."

"How?" Ridley didn't strike me as the most discerning type, but then again, he'd figured me out before we even knew each other.

"I can turn invisible. I did it as a defense mechanism, but I think he knows that the Red Knight can turn invisible too, and then it's easy to connect the dots." He lets out a heavy exhale. "It's not a very common power to have, just in case you were going to ask. First time I did it, I couldn't get back. It scared the s—t out of me."

"Geoff," I scold. "Don't talk like that."

"Sorry, it's just..." He rolls on his back, wincing. "I don't like not knowing why Ridley explodes. He just sort of does it."

"Has he ever complained about anything?" I rake one hand through my hair, ripping out some knots. "Any sign that he's unhappy with something?"

"Listen to you." Geoff grins. "You sound like a psychologist."

I roll my eyes, irritated. "Just answer the question, Geoff."

"Yeah." Geoff runs his finger over the bottom of my Depeche Mode concert poster. "He said something about how he wishes he wasn't super. He wants to feel normal for a change."

"That is a weird thing to say." A super that didn't want to be super? That didn't sound like something to aspire to.

"That green stuff that takes powers away...I don't even know what's in it. And I don't know how the hell he got his hands on it in the first place." Geoff runs both hands over his face. "Ow."

"You don't have any ideas?" He's right, though. An average college chemistry lab doesn't even store chemicals like that. Ordered in small batches, maybe, for a class session. And kept under lock and key.

"No, I just..." He sits up, stops, blinks at me and then furrows his brow. "You've got that look on your face. What're you thinking?"

"What's Ridley's major?" I ask suddenly.

Geoff shakes his head. "What's that got to do with anyth—"

"Geoff." I hold up a hand, stopping him. "Because you asked, I'm thinking Ridley might have access to things he wouldn't normally if he's in the Chem building all the time. That's why I'm asking again: What's his major?"

"Biochem," he says finally. "Can I ask why now?"

"Because I think I know how the hell he got his hands on those chemicals."

≈

After my classes end that day, instead of heading back to my dorm I make a detour and strike out for the Chem building. I've never been in it, and it even smells new when I step inside the automatic sliding doors. The ceiling in the lobby is high and vaulted, like a church, and the glass wall on one side look out over a hill and a dark line of trees just above the roofs of the school buildings.

I take a deep breath and tighten my hand on the strap of my bag. Geoff wanted to come with me to do this, but I'd insisted that he didn't. Besides, he had a tendency to lose his cool under pressure, especially when the pressure was remaining calm.

A few more signs and a climb up an impossibly long staircase later, I find the professors' offices. I knew you couldn't take a biochemistry class without some intro-level chemistry first, but I run into a problem there. There's three chem professors, and all of them teach a general chemistry course. Ridley could be in any one of these.

I decide to make a go with the first professor, a Dr. Stowe. I don't have the advantage of being in any of his classes, but it's worth a try. So I take a step inside his doorway and knock on it. He looks up, adjusting his glasses.

"Can I help you?" he says, clearly not recognizing me.

"Hi, Dr. Stowe?" I affect a shy smile. "I'm sorry to interrupt you, but...it's my first couple weeks in this building, and I'm kind of lost."

"Sure." He sits forward, hands linked on his desktop. I take a glance down quickly. No wedding ring. "What're you looking for?"

"Some tutoring." I bite my lip, scuffing the ground with my heel. "Chemistry's not really my best subject, see, and..."

He raises one eyebrow. "You have Professor Walker, I assume?"

I nod, too surprised that he's so willing to disparage a colleague.

"Turns out Walker makes everyone feel like that. Doctorate in chemistry, and never lets anyone forget it." Dr. Stowe rolls his eyes, running a hand over his thinning hair. "Tutoring's right across from the research lab, room 226."

"Thank you." I begin to turn around and then stop, like I remembered something at the last minute. "I almost forgot...I left my notebook in the research lab. Do you suppose I could go in and get it on the way?"

"Well, we don't usually let students in the labs unsupervised, but I can let you in." He stands up, scooping a ring of keys out of the top drawer of his desk. I wheel around as he passes me, lengthening my stride to keep up.

"I have another question," I say when I catch him. "Professor Walker...is there a reason why he makes people feel like they're never going to get good at chem?"

"You know, I've never really figured it out." Dr. Stowe shrugs. "He's kind of antisocial, if you take my meaning. Why he's teaching here and not at a big university I don't know."

"Antisocial? How does he teach his classes if he doesn't like anybody?"

"Beats me," he says. "But there's this one kid...I see him in his office all the time. Asking him all these weird questions about chemical brain inhibitors and everything. And if it's one thing Walker likes to talk about, it's his doctoral thesis subject."

Now we're getting somewhere. "Who is he? The kid?"

"I don't know his name. I think he's in Walker's section. But he's got these big black Buddy Holly glasses, and that thing the kids do nowadays where they bleach the ends of their hair blond. And he always says 'y'all.' Like he's from the South."

I stop in my tracks. That fits Ridley's description to a tee.

Stowe stops too. "Something wrong?"

"No, I just thought..." I have to try and think of a way to bring this up casually. "He never shows it, but it sounds like Professor Walker has a favorite."

"Oh, yeah. All professors do, especially if the student makes our job easier. Or if they share a common interest." He shakes his head. "Those two are like peas in a pod, I swear. That kid'll do anything to gain Walker's favor."

It makes sense now. Ridley wants something bad enough, he'll stop at nothing to get it. So if it means unrestricted access to somewhere off-limits to other students, he'd want the permission of one of the faculty to do it. And as manipulative as Ridley is, I have no doubt that's how he's obtaining those dangerous chemicals. Not to mention learning everything he needs to know about chemical brain inhibitors.

We reach the research lab, and just to make it seem that I wasn't completely ad-libbing the whole time, I make a visible effort to look around the room.

"I must have left it somewhere else," I say with some feigned apology. "Sorry I made you walk all the way down here."

"Hey, I needed the exercise," he says casually. "My fiancée tells me diabetes runs in families. Don't exactly want to inherit that from my mother."

"Yeah." I hope I don't sound distracted, but my mind's already somewhere else. "I wouldn't either."

Won't Geoff be thrilled to hear this.