Secrets Are For Keeping

Chapter Thirty-One

Pepper watched Zander go, and I stared at her as she did, seeing how her expression turned into one of slight disappointment as she realized he was leaving. But before Zander could get too far, she also stood up. "I think...I should probably go too. I also still need to get ready." She smiled at us, and then turned around to catch up to Zander who was waiting a couple feet ahead of her.

That left me and Kain.

"You know...that wasn't actually as bad as I thought it'd be."

I looked over to Kain with my eyebrows raised, not knowing exactly what he meant by his statement. "How bad did you think it'd be?"

Kain just shrugged. "More like I thought I would have done a lot worse than I actually did."

"Well, nice job then." Kain was staring at me while I continued to stare at the rest of the students in the room, watching people talk and get ready for the night. I tried not to look at him, but after a while the heat of his stare against my cheek forced me to glance at him.

"Thank you," he said softly after some time, and the way he said it made it feel like he wasn't just referring to my last comment.

Then I remembered the pad of paper that he'd had in hand earlier. I saw it out of the corner of my eye, but still couldn't make out anything inked out onto it.

"Do you like to draw?" I asked, looking over at the pad of paper as to show where my question had come from.

He nodded. "Yea, I guess you could say it's a hobby of mine." Now he was also looking over towards his notebook, but he didn't reach for it or anything.

"That's nice..."

There was an awkward tension in the space between us now. I turned to stare back towards the rest of the students, but couldn't help, but look towards his notebook at random intervals.

After about the third time, I realized that the expression on Kain's face had changed. He was looking at me with a knowing smile, his light blue eyes staring up at me underneath lush black lashes and warmth suddenly exploded in my cheeks then made its way down my spine. I quickly turned my face away, trying to hide the blush that was probably making my entire face red.

"Do you want to see my art?" he asked, seeming to already know the answer.

I turned back towards him, wishing that my face would stop feeling so hot. "Yea..."

"Here." He pulled the notebook into his lap and began flipping through the art covered pages, stopping finally once he reached one of the night sky, something I hadn't seen in nearly a week. I sucked in a sharp breath as my eyes took it all in. The dark expanse of the night with random swirls of purple, dark blue, and a variety of other colors filled the entire page. Dotted randomly on top of the darkness were stars, in contrast to the surrounding darkness with their light.

I ran my finger over the page, taking in the rainbow of colors and magnificent etchings. A swirl in the corner created a galaxy on the page, light purple particles spiraling with blue as a shooting star ran across the very top. I looked up at him in awe.

"This is beautiful." My hand was still touching the colored page, unable to let go of it.

He didn't respond, just stared at me with his arctic colored eyes.

"I wish...we could see the stars right now...," I whispered, not planning on actually saying it, but having it come out anyway.

"Yea...we could."

"What?" I looked at him, thinking I was hearing him incorrectly.

"We could try to sneak outside...and see them. Most of the guards go to sleep by this time. Only a couple are actually on watch."

I stared at his face, trying to see if he was kidding. It was an insane idea to even think about. Both of us were already on the warning list, although he didn't know that, and getting caught in doing that would definitely ruin any chance we had of making it through the inspection.

But I could see how much Kain wanted to in his eyes. He was staring towards the door with a look of wanting, and I suspected he'd already planned the entire procedure in his head. Pepper and Zander had still yet to return, and the only inspector that actually was in our room was already asleep. Someone had dimmed the lights not too long ago and they were on a timer so that an hour after they'd been dimmed they would shut off completely so everyone could go to sleep. Technically, there had been no specified curfew, but the entire lights-going-off process kind of implied one.

And even without the curfew, we would still be breaking the rules by just going outside. That was definitely not allowed, since I'd almost done so a couple days before and a guard had stopped me from going further.

Yet I still couldn't shake my own wanting to go. Besides the minutes when I'd been lucky enough to see the world outside through the car's windows, I hadn't felt the outside world since that first day when we'd played Capture the Flag.

Maybe it wouldn't hurt too much to go. Kain had already mentioned that most of the inspectors would likely already be asleep. And it wouldn't even be for that long anyway. It would only be a few minutes of staring up at the night sky and then it would be over.

Why not?

Kain was still looking at me, waiting for my response.

"Okay...what were you planning?"