Wayward Prince

An entry from Shelby's journal

August 16

I met Raymond Wayward today, Steve's twin. He's not what I expected. Steve was right when he said that they're night and day. I mean, Steve just oozes friendliness. He's the kind of person that couldn't hurt a fly. Raymond is... well, I imagine if he found an injured animal on the side of the road, he'd kick it just to entertain himself.

It happened right before my last class. I was running across campus from my cooking class trying to make it to my medical class on time--I seriously don't understand why they put those classrooms so far away from each other--and I saw an alley that would probably cut off a good two minutes of running, so I turned down it. That's when I saw him. He stood probably twenty feet from me, his back to me, and he held a terrified kid up by his shirt. There were junkies standing next to Raymond, watching him intimidate the hell out of this tiny kid, and I froze. I recognized my roommate's boyfriend as one of the junkies standing on Raymond's right. He looked over at me and it just froze every muscle in my body. He said something to Raymond I couldn't hear. Raymond let go of the kid and turned to look at me over his shoulder. The terrified kid in front of him saw his chance and booked it.

My brain kind of struggled to process what it was seeing. The air was frozen with the kind of cold that came from a dangerous situation. Like, you could just tell something bad had happened here. Or would have happened here, if I'd shown up any later. But it was too weird to feel that intensity and see Steve's face in the middle of it.

Well, it wasn't really Steve's face. Raymond's hair was a deeper brown than Steve's, and he let his facial hair grow out a bit, just enough to make him look almost... hot. Okay, not almost. Definitely hot. But in the moment my fear was greater than my lust, so that thought fell to the back of my mind. Raymond's stance was defensive. He looked ready to charge at me, and I knew I was too scared out of my mind to run.

He said something to his friends, taking his attention off of me.

Somehow my legs started working again. I ran in the opposite direction. Not that it did any good.

I didn't make it ten steps before he grabbed me by the arm and yanked me backwards. He pressed me against the wall, though he had the decency to not me slam me against the brick building. He put his hands on either side of my head, blocking me in with his body.

My heart was in my throat. "Please--I'm late to class."

He ignored me. "You didn't see anything." There was a threat in his voice. The message was clear: if I told anyone about this, I would be worse off than that scared little kid who managed to get away from Raymond and his friends.

And like the idiot I was, all I could think was that his eyes weren't the same shade of blue as Steve's. Steve's were a green-blue, but Raymond's were all blue. Ice blue. There was no warmth in them, nothing but anger.

"You're Steve's brother." I didn't know why I said it, but my mouth was moving before my brain told it to.

That took him by surprised. His scowl disappeared from his face, replaced by a frown of confusion. His scowl returned as he questioned, "how do you know Steve?"

"He's my best friend." I couldn't get the words out quickly enough, as if telling Raymond I was close with his brother would save me from this situation.

Once again, surprise made his eyes widen. "You're Shelby."

It wasn't a question, not the way he said it, but I nodded anyways.

Raymond lowered his hands. Stepped back from me. Took in the sight of me.

"What were you going to do to that kid?" I wondered like an idiot.

He looked back at me, and the look he gave me said he wasn't going to answer a question we both knew the answer to.

"I mean, what could he have possibly done to you?" I really needed to stop talking.

His eyes narrowed. "Look, Steve cares about you, so I'm going to let you walk away from this. But if you tell anyone about this--and I mean anyone, even Steve--I'll make sure you regret it for the rest of your days at Wayward."

I nodded meekly.

He motioned towards the courtyard. "Go to class before I change my mind."

"Don't you have a class you should be in?" I asked.

He laughed. There was no warmth in it. "Yeah, I do." He made no move to leave.

I tightened my bag over my shoulder and ran.