Page 99 of Alluring Darkness
I turn back to Raina and raise my eyebrows.
At last, that unreadable mask cracks and a sly smile blows across her lips.
“This was you,” I say. Half statement, half question.
She nods towards Jace. “Like your brother says, you never know when you might need a good bat. Except…” She lifts her hand and shows us a tiny bottle in her palm before it disappears back into her sleeve. “You never know when you might need a good vial of poison.”
“Ha!” Jace calls, and points at her. “I said that!”
“Yeah, she just said…” Rico begins before heaving a sigh and shaking his head at Jace. “Never mind.”
“You poisoned her?” I say, keeping my eyes on Raina.
With that smirk still playing over her lips, she lifts one shoulder in a nonchalant shrug.
A short distance from us, three people are holding Shelley up and hurrying towards the door.
“How did you even do that without anyone seeing?” Kaden asks.
Raina slides her gaze to him and flashes him a sly smile. “The same way I keep stealing your knives.”
He narrows his eyes at her.
She just grins wider before shrugging again. “I’ve been handling dangerous chemicals since I was ten.” The empty poison bottle appears between her fingers for a second before disappearing again. “I have very steady and very careful fingers.”
“Will she survive?” I ask, nodding towards where Shelley is being hauled across the floor.
“Yes.” Wickedness glitters in Raina’s eyes. “During the next two days, while the poison slowly leaves her body, she’ll just wish she hadn’t.”
An amused breath escapes my lungs, and I slowly shake my head at her. But in my chest, my heart is swelling.
Raina never intended to apologize to Shelley. She never had any plans to back down. Quite the opposite. She went for the kill shot before the war could even start, tricking her enemy into thinking that she had won and then pouring poison into her drink.
The commotion dies down as the small group gets Shelley out the door.
Deafening silence descends on the room instead.
For a few seconds, no one moves.
Then, as one, they all turn to stare straight at Raina.
“You should have waited and poisoned her later instead,” Kaden says in a low voice from my right. His eyes are on Raina as well.
“Why?” she asks.
“Because now, everyone knows that it was you.”
“I know. That was the point.”
We all watch her as she picks up my glass and holds it out in front of her. The entire cafeteria stares at her in silence. A villainous smile curls her lips as she sweeps her gaze over them and raises the glass in a slow salute.
“I wanted them to know that it was me so that they would understand…” She slides her gaze back and locks eyes with me. “That no one touches what belongs to me.”
My heart flips and fire floods my veins.
Fuck, I think I love this girl.
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