Chapter 4: The Kiss

Rain fell softly over Crestfall, the kind that soaked you before you even noticed it.

Pearl walked the path behind the east garden, a lesser-known trail lined with ivy-choked statues and tall, broken windows of the old art building. It was quiet, overgrown, forgotten—like everything else she found herself drawn to.

She wasn’t surprised when he appeared behind her.

She didn’t turn around.

Raven Voss didn’t announce himself, not with footsteps, not with sound. He simply arrived, like a shadow deciding to wear flesh.

“I didn’t take you for the kind who sneaks out during rain,” he said.

“I didn’t think you watched me enough to guess.”

“I watch everything,” he said smoothly. “You just started mattering.”

Pearl turned now, slowly, letting the damp wind tug her hair loose from its pin. She met his gaze, level and unmoved. “Am I supposed to feel flattered?”

He stepped closer. “You’re supposed to feel seen.”

That word curled through her like smoke.

Seen.

Her entire identity was fake. Her name, her records, her history—fabricated to pass clean through the walls of Crestfall and into the lion’s den. She came to make Raven fall, to draw him out from the inside and bring him to his knees.

But when he said seen, she felt something tighten in her chest.

Because even her lies couldn’t shield her from those eyes.

“I want to ask you something,” Raven said, voice lower now, closer.

Pearl stood still. The statue garden pressed silence between them, the rain murmuring over leaves and stone.

“Go ahead.”

“The first kiss,” he said. “Was it a game to you?”

She knew how she should answer.

Yes. A dare. Nothing more. I barely even remember it.

But her throat tightened. Her heart beat once—hard—before she forced the ice back into her voice.

“It wasn’t real.”

“Then why didn’t you stop?” he asked. “Why didn’t you pull away when you saw it was me?”

“Why didn’t you?”

He smiled—slow, dangerous, and unlike the others. “Because I wanted to see what you tasted like when you thought no one else was watching.”

A chill ran up her spine. She hated how her body betrayed her, how that voice—so calm, so cruel—set fire beneath her skin.

“You’re used to girls falling for you,” she said. “That’s what this is about. Control.”

“No,” he said, stepping even closer. “That’s what it’s always been for them. But not with you.”

His breath touched her skin now. Her back pressed lightly to the ivy wall. The damp stone was cold. He was colder.

“You don’t bend,” he said. “You don’t break. You lie like it’s your first language. And that makes me curious.”

“I’m not here to entertain your curiosity.”

“Then why are you here?”

She hesitated.

The real answer was: To make you suffer. To bury you the way your family buried mine.

But what came out instead was—

“I’m not sure anymore.”

That cracked something open.

And then his hand came up, brushing a strand of wet hair from her cheek. His touch was soft. Incongruously gentle for a boy known for breaking things.

“You kissed me once,” he said. “Because they told you to.”

He leaned closer, breath on her lips.

“I want to see what it feels like when it’s your idea.”

Pearl didn’t move.

His eyes flicked to her mouth, then back to her eyes.

“Do it,” he whispered. “Or walk away.”

The rain thickened, wind howling around them like the breath of gods waiting for sin.

Pearl reached up.

Her fingers slid behind his neck.

And she kissed him.

Not like the dare. Not like a stranger.

This time, it was slow. Measured. Her mouth moved against his like she was trying to learn him by touch. His lips responded—testing at first, then parting, drawing her deeper.

His hand found her waist, firm, possessive.

She pushed him back into the stone, lips devouring his.

For a moment, there was nothing but the sound of rain and the taste of things neither of them wanted to admit.

When she finally broke the kiss, they were both breathing heavier.

Raven’s eyes were on her like she was fire.

“That didn’t feel fake,” he murmured.

“I never said it was.”

He touched her bottom lip with his thumb, almost reverent.

Then she stepped back.

And said something she knew would haunt him.

“Don’t fall for me, Raven.”

A beat of silence.

“I don’t catch what falls,” he said. “I destroy it.”

The next day, nothing changed—and everything did.

They didn’t talk about the kiss.

They didn’t even sit together in class.

But the energy between them was molten. Dangerous. Intimate in ways no one else could see but everyone could feel.

People whispered. Teachers paused mid-sentence when the two of them entered the room. The entire campus buzzed with tension.

Andrea tried to approach Pearl in the hallway.

“Think he actually cares about you? You’re just the flavor of the month, bitch. He’ll chew you up and spit you out like everyone else.”

Pearl looked her dead in the eyes and smiled.

“I’m not like everyone else.”

Andrea sneered. “No. You’re worse. At least the others pretended not to want him.”

Pearl said nothing.

She didn’t need to.

Because just behind her, Raven appeared.

He didn’t say a word.

He just walked up, wrapped an arm around Pearl’s waist, and kissed her cheek—deliberate, slow, watching Andrea’s face the whole time.

Then he whispered into Pearl’s ear, “Told you I don’t get bored easily.”

Andrea turned and stormed away.

That night, Pearl sat by her window, rain still trickling down the glass, her journal open on her lap.

But this time, she didn’t write strategy. She didn’t list his weaknesses.

She wrote:

> “The second kiss wasn’t a trick. I meant it.

And that’s more dangerous than anything else I’ve done.

I don’t know if I want him to love me…

or if I want to ruin him so completely he never loves again.”

She slammed the book shut.

Because she didn’t know which was worse—

That he might be falling for her…

Or that she might be falling for him.

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