By the time I reached the campus and up my dormitory building, and by the time I managed to knock twice on my next-door neighbor's door, at which she opened and peeked her head out before handing me over my dorm's keycard, I was left exhausted.

"You okay?" She asked in a hushed whisper. I wanted to apologize to her for keeping her awake but I'd needed someone to safe-keep my keycard until I returned and she had been the closest option. I could've apologized but I didn't want to talk right now. At all.

"Long night," I replied and turned around towards my own door, sliding the card in the slot and pushing the door open. It took me a moment to realize I hadn't thanked her but when I turned around, she'd already closed her door shut and the hallway was empty once again.

I sighed and went inside my empty dorm room, and only really had the energy to take off my heels, those stupid heels, before I fell face-first on my bed with a weary groan-ish sigh. I crawled up until the top of my head touched the pillows. And then I curled up near the windows and fell asleep.

I woke up with a pounding ache in my head and an awful dry feeling in my mouth, although it wasn't as bad as it normally would've been when I woke up with a hangover. Probably because of that whole bottle of water Ryder made you drink, my awakened mind chirped in helpfully.

Ryder's name brought back awful words and memories from last night and I shuddered under the duvet I'd somehow ended up under during the night. You just need some goddamn alcohol and you'd do anything anyone says. I shuddered again and squeezed my eyes shut.

He wasn't wrong. But how he'd said it hadn't been right either. I wasn't like that. I knew I wasn't like that--a hopeless, pathetic fool.

And there'd been a plan last night, one that both Ryder and Rafael had been aware of. One that I had somehow ruined because I'd pushed Ashby with his silver eyes away from me when he'd been touching me because he'd reminded me an awfully lot of my sister's boyfriend--and now her fiance--Michael. He'd reminded me of Michael and it had felt like I couldn't breathe.

A laugh escaped me as I rubbed my face. "Oh God." My shoulders shook. "I'm so fucking messed up."

No wonder everyone had terrible opinions of me.

I found myself doing something I always did in situations like these. Something I believed I was remarkably good at, the only thing perhaps that I was good at. I pushed everything from last night to the far back of my mind and squared my shoulders, breathing deeply.

It'll be one of those things I would refuse to think about. Because it was making my chest ache and I didn't want to think about Ryder. I didn't want to think about the mad anger in his eyes and the bloodied gun in his hands and his words--those words that had hurt because somehow, deep down in that sick part of my head, I just hadn't expected him to be like everyone else.

Sighing, I sat up on my bed and instinctively looked over at Brooke's side of the room. It was empty. Still empty.

I also happened to look over at the wall clock as well and everything momentarily stilled when I noticed the time.

"Oh...no...fuck." My eyes widened and then I was scrambling out of bed, wincing and cursing as I grabbed the first few things I could find within my clothes, that hopefully didn't smell like booze, before running inside the bathroom.

I could not afford to skip any more classes.

•••

Turns out I skipped them. All of them. Or not skipped them quite exactly but missed them, because by the time I'd been done with a shower, I'd been too busy trying not to hyperventilate too much when I'd looked in the mirror and noticed the two reddish bruise-like hickeys on my neck, and then I'd been pulling all my scarves out because I couldn't just walk out of here looking like that.

And so time had flown by and I'd missed even the last of my classes.

"I can't volunteer today." I'd told Nico stressfully. "I've got five pending assignments to catch up on and notes that I missed of all the classes today."

"You can borrow my notes, Alice."

"I can't."

"And why the hell not?"

"Because..." I'd sputtered. "Because I'm stressed out."

Nico had told me he didn't have time for this specific kind of bullshit so he'd left his notes with me anyway and told me he'd let Professor McAdams know of my tiny little predicament.

I was a little bummed out when Nico mentioned something about the music piece rehearsal today (which would take most of the day and they won't need our help with that anyway, he told me). I couldn't tell him that I'd secretly been looking forward to the rehearsal. I couldn't be standing there among the violins obviously, but I could watch them play from afar. Hear it, even.

Which wasn't going to be happening now that I had five assignments to finish and Nico's notes to go through. A whole night at the campus library is what waited ahead for me.

No violins and no music and no watching the musical notes unfold before me.

It had only just gone dark outside and the only other girl who'd been sitting at my table and flipping through some Medical Physics textbooks had gathered her books and left the library, when I had this absurd feeling that someone was watching me.

I straightened up from my slumped position over my laptop and grimaced at the faint ache at the back of my neck. There wasn't anyone watching me, I noticed as I looked around. Well, no one except...the boy sitting on a table that was at the furthest end of the library, right across from me.

I blinked, wondering if maybe I should recognize him. I even glanced over my shoulder to see if he was looking at someone behind me. But there was no one behind me. And I'd never seen him before in my entire life.

Though his dark, beady gaze was somewhat familiar and--

The shrill ringing of my phone interrupted the quiet silence of the library and I know for a fact that three people, including me and the librarian, were startled by the noise.

"Sorry." I mouthed at the librarian who gave me a look (a little too threatening look for a librarian), hurriedly pulling out my phone and switching down the volume. I looked up at where the boy I'd noticed earlier had been staring at me and frowned when I saw that he was still staring in that...creepy way.

It was Ryder's name on my screen and I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure whether I should've answered but then the boy from across the library stood from his table and his creepy gaze was frankly freaking the fuck out of me so I swiped my finger across the screen and answered the call.

"Hello." I pursed my lips.

The tiniest of pauses before Ryder replied, "I've got to see you."

Which surprised me, but not enough to miss the boy rounding his table and grabbing a black hooded sweatshirt from the back of his chair before exiting the library.

"I'm busy." I frowned.

"Alice." He spoke in that blankly evasive way. "Can I see you?"

"No."

"I have to return something of yours."

"What?" I muttered.

"It's...yours."

I'd never really heard him hesitate like that. I'd never heard him sound uncertain. And the only constant image of him in my head right now, one that I was trying my hardest to push away, was of that gun in his hand, someone else's blood coating its black surface, and blood trickling down the side of his face. And that look in his eyes--that murderous anger which for the shortest of moments had been directed on me.

Nothing of that image consisted of him hesitating before me.

"I don't." I stopped and thought before speaking again. "I don't think that's a good idea." I don't want to think of you, Ryder.

"I know."

"You can...drop that thing by the campus office," I suggested. "It's just across the parking lot." I didn't remember leaving anything behind last night when I'd left Ryder standing by his car on that lonely dark street. What was it?

"I'd rather not." He replied.

I worried my bottom lip between my teeth. "What about..." What about you saying you didn't want me to waste any more of your time? I didn't say it though. Because saying it would make it sound real and I...I was trying not to think about it. "All right, I guess. It's um, I'm at the library. I'll meet you outside?"

"Yes." He answered, waited a second maybe, and then hung up. Just like that. I pulled my phone away from my ear and stared down at it.

He had something of mine. I'd left something behind, maybe in his car last night. And he was coming here to return it to me. That was going to be it then.

He still didn't have to, I thought. He didn't have to tell me that he had something of mine. He didn't have to come here to give it to me himself. Unless there was something else.

Unless he wanted to apologize for how he had acted yesterday night? I gathered up my things and put back the library books on their respective shelves. I placed my laptop back inside the bag I carried and put on my jacket, adjusting my scarf around my neck, and was almost about to leave when I felt it again. The feeling at the very back of my head this time.

I whipped around fast but only saw the glass window on the wall behind me, the night sky outside, and no one out there. Yet it had, for a second there, felt so much like someone had been boring their gaze at the back of my head.

I paced in front of the doors of the library and only just went outside when I noticed someone nearing the library steps, someone with eyes so intense and blue as they met mine.

"Hey," I spoke up as I stopped on the second last step of the stairs with just a short distance between Ryder and me.

He looked different. Not the Ryder I'd had a glimpse of just last night, but the same one I'd seen that time at Soren's apartment. The same one who'd offered to be my fake boyfriend to get my mother off my back for one chaotic family dinner.

There was no dried blood on his face or his hands. None on the grey sweater he wore, one that looked soft and that I knew would feel so soft if I were to brush my fingers against it. Except that I wasn't stupid enough to do any such thing. I just stuffed my hands inside my jacket pockets and pretended there wasn't an itch in my fingers to reach out and...and...

Ryder's gaze didn't waver away from mine and I swallowed. "Um, you said...I left something behind?"

He blinked, looked away, and took something out of his pocket. It took me a few seconds to recognize it as the beaded bracelet I'd worn yesterday. The one with blues and yellows and purples. The one that I knew my father had gifted me sometime before he'd left my mom and me, though I didn't remember it. I didn't remember much about my real father.

I took it from him, careful but not enough apparently since his fingers brushed mine for a second, a microsecond too long. Heat crawled up my neck and I had the urge to clear my throat.

"Thanks," I said, looking down at the bracelet. Could I imagine losing it? Maybe. But I still had to say thank you because Ryder had returned it to me even though he didn't have to.

"About last night," he started and I tried not to notice that our gazes were almost on the same level since I was still standing on the stairs. We seemed practically of the same height that way. I could really and fully well look into his eyes as he looked around, searching for something yet so confused. As if he truly didn't know what to say.

And he didn't. Didn't say anything more, I mean.

I tried not to let it get to me, let it get to my heart when all I'd been wanting was the tiniest of apologies.

"Are you walking back to your dorm?" He asked me, eyes finding mine once again. Wind softly caressed a few dark locks of his hair and I wished. I didn't know why I wished.

"I guess." I nodded.

He glanced over his shoulder at the long stretch of walk ahead of us and then looked back at me. "I'll walk with you."

I blinked, surprised. "Why?"

"I've got some things to discuss." He answered. "About last night."

My heart went racing again because I still pathetically thought he'd apologize. Tell me that he hadn't meant to...to shout at me and tell me I was wasting his time and that I was some kind of an alcoholic freak who was blind and naive and did anything anyone asked from me. I was hoping so I nodded and stepped down from the last two steps before starting to walk. Ryder followed me.

We'd only just crossed half of the street in total silence, because Ryder still wasn't saying anything, when I broke it. "How's Raff doing?"

I thought our arms brushed but when I looked, there was space between us.

"I haven't asked or seen him." He stated.

I toyed with the bracelet I'd put on my wrist, my left wrist, and I noticed the pain from yesterday had toned down to an almost numbing one. It was still there though. When I pressed my thumb over the skin there, it still hurt. It hurt and it was panicking that I could see that dark horrendous gas mask right before me each time.

I needed to tell Ryder and I needed to ask him who that had been. Death, death, death--why had he said that to me?

"But you both are friends."

"Acquaintances." Ryder corrected.

"Friends." I frowned a little. "Or at least he thinks he's your friend. What about the seventh?"

Ryder tensed and I could see my dormitory building nearing. "What do you mean?"

"Raff mentioned something about the seventh and I'm guessing it meant the Seventh of November, which was yesterday." I rambled. "And I also saw this piece of paper with dates written on it, all specifically the seventh of each month, which I found in one of the pockets of your jacket. The one you gave me that time outside Soren's apartment."

"What?" He was frowning now.

"I...um..." I fumbled around with words.

"What the hell are you talking about?" He didn't look happy or as calm as he'd looked just minutes ago.

Good job, Alice, I reprimanded myself. Why could things never go smoothly with me?

"You were angry at me yesterday." We both stopped at the street intersection and I turned around to face him. "Because you were supposed to catch someone. Interrogate someone. Someone important, but I messed it all up. Because I was supposed to stay put with Raff when you asked me to but I didn't which was surprising to you because according to you, as you told me just last night, I was drunk--"

"Alice."

Not querida. Just Alice.

"--and letting Ashby kiss me and manhandle me and fuck me behind that spiral staircase should've come easy to me." I finished.

He stared at me. I stared back because it hurt. His words still hurt. "I killed him." He broke the silence.

My eyes widened in horror. "You did what?"

"I killed him," he repeated patiently.

I couldn't quite believe at that moment that I was hearing him right. "You couldn't have just killed him."

"I did." He blinked. "Why, did you not want me to?"

"What kind of question is that even?" I exclaimed. "Was it him that was so important to interrogate? The...person you needed to catch for the sake of everyone's safety?"

"No." Was his reply.

"But you still killed him." My eyes were still wide and I couldn't. I couldn't believe I'd kissed Ashby minutes before he'd been killed. "Oh my God."

"Either that or let him kill me," Ryder added and something, something so minute seemed to soften in his stormy blue eyes. "Would you have preferred if he killed me, querida?"

I frowned at him. "What the hell is your problem?"

"I'm still trying to figure that one out." He replied before taking a step, the tiniest of steps closer to me. I stiffened. "I... About last night..."

There it was again. The hesitation and confusion and the utter bewilderment.

I waited, staring at him with wide eyes. A part of me was trying to stop thinking of Ashby lying somewhere dead with blood on his face and his heart not beating, while the other part of me was twisting in anxious, hopeful knots as I stared.

"I made a mistake." He said.

I swallowed, fingers curling inside my pockets.

"I shouldn't have taken you along with me last night." He looked away and I saw him clenching his jaw. "That was stupid of me."

I didn't know what to say.

"You mean, that was stupid of me."

He rolled his eyes. "You did drink yourself stupid before leaving the premises without telling anyone. Without telling Raff at least." He said. "And you forgot to take your phone with you because that's apparently what you do when--"

"Are you seriously here just so you could remind me of all of my stupidity?" I asked him, voice a little hysteric and a whole lot hurt.

Ryder blinked and I would've been surprised (maybe even a little delighted) to see him look so taken aback if I weren't obviously berating myself for even expecting anything else from him.

He was right. I had been stupid in all kinds of ways. Though it still angered me so deeply and I didn't like to be angry.

"You left me alone," I spoke through the painful lump in my throat. "You didn't tell me you were taking me to that party to seduce an enemy of yours who you were going to murder anyway."

He tipped his head up to the sky, jaw working. Thinking. Silent.

I inhaled deeply, taking a step back. "You don't know--"

He shook his head. "I don't understand. Why else did you think I'd be taking you to a party that was bound to get bloody? Did Rafael say something about it to you? Did he feed foolish ideas into your head--"

"You didn't once ask me why I left Ashby and went outside," I whispered softly, staring at him. He heard me though. It was awful because for a second I wished he hadn't. "You didn't because you think I find it easy to...to what?" I didn't want to say it. I didn't want to say it.

He looked a little alarmed and a whole lot blankly confused.

"I don't like when people use me, Ryder." Just to throw me away like garbage, I wanted so desperately to add. And even though my voice was quiet, my hands were shaking. Trembling with dread.

There were voices behind me, giggles and laughter before one of them yelled my name from the distance. "Alice!"

I turned to look around and recognized Nico amongst a few other volunteers, looking like they'd just left the theater. Nico was waving at me and shouting my name which meant he likely wasn't sober. Perhaps the music rehearsal had gone too well. My heart gave a longing pang.

I looked back at Ryder whose eyes followed where I'd been looking before they settled back on me.

I pulled my hands out of my pockets and stared down at my left wrist, at the beaded bracelet and the slightly reddish skin beneath. "Thanks for this, I guess," I whispered sadly, nudging my head towards the bracelet.

Then I looked up at him, for a second or two too long, staring into the blue. I didn't know him. I didn't know Ryder. But I knew it and I'd seen it once. The warmth in his eyes that time he'd held my hand and helped me out of those iron bars, taken me out of that cell and that suffocating darkness. Once should be enough, shouldn't it?

Maybe I'd mistaken it. Maybe there really had been nothing when I'd stumbled into him the very first time, held those blue eyes of his with my own, and knew that he'd saved me.

He had. But maybe that too had just been a mistake.

"I should go." I finally looked away from his eyes--those devastatingly blue eyes--and took another step back.

An apology, I could almost hear something deep and ugly laughing inside of me. What a fool I am.

----
ryder is an idiot but i repeat he is not an assholeeeee