KAI POV
By the time I crept back into the room, it was way past midnight.
Not that I’d been watching the time—there was no clock ticking in the woods while I sat up in the trees like some deranged forest goblin, spying on the dorm building. No, I’d just counted the lights as they blinked off one by one, window after window, until only the hallway lamps and a few stubborn lights filtered in the windowsills. Until the dark swallowed the building whole.
I’d waited even longer just to be sure. Climbing down like a paranoid cat and jogging barefoot through the fields to the training complex. I knew the locker rooms would be empty at this hour, so I took my time. The cold water didn’t help. Didn’t rinse away the shame, the heat, the phantom feel of Derrick pressed against me or the image of D
