Her Spite: A Reverse Harem Bully Romance (The Forgotten Elites Book 2)

by Eden Beck

  And if I get what I want, I’ll be out of here. I’ll leave Ridgecrest behind, and with it, everything here. Everyone here. Up until tonight, I never really thought I’d care.

  But suddenly, after that kiss, I’m not so sure anymore.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Thanksgiving break is fast approaching, and I find myself in an increasingly bad mood.

  Nothing like another break with nowhere to go to do that to a girl.

  After the Halloween costume party, I figured that things between Sterling and I are good—not that there really is anything between Sterling and I, but there was a moment there were at least they didn’t feel as weird anymore.

  But I was wrong, apparently.

  Every time I’m around him on campus, he keeps trying to play it cool as though things are fine when, quite clearly, they’re not. I don’t expect him to suddenly be some kind of open book with me, but I guess I expected more.

  That was my first mistake.

  I don’t know Sterling well, but I kick myself for thinking, even for a moment, that he won’t revert to his usual tactics. I’ve seen the way he treats girls.

  Disposable.

  Or, in my case, as if nothing ever happened at all.

  In and of itself, this would be fine, except for the fact that most of the time he is very obviously trying to avoid me at all costs. I suddenly find I’m not crossing paths with him while walking across campus anymore or running into him to get coffee at the bookstore. Even in the class buildings and hallways, I barely ever see him.

  It’s obvious and intentional, and as much as I keep trying to tell myself that I knew this was coming, I can’t stop wondering what’s going on with him. I need to know he’s okay, or at least going to be okay.

  If that makes me a stupid girl, well then … I guess I’m a very stupid girl.

  And I hate myself for it more than ever.

  I see him a few times during lunch, but everyone else is always around so it makes it impossible to actually talk with him. The gala is scheduled for just a few nights after things resume following Thanksgiving break, and I am honestly not looking forward to it nearly as much as I thought I would be.

  Not with the way Sterling’s shoulder slump like he’s sulking every time he thinks no one is looking—or how his fake smile turns even more plastic every time his gaze happens to meet mine.

  I walk back to my dorm room alone after my last class and think about why I’ve been trying to get close to him to begin with. The whole point was supposed to be to learn more about him and his drug habit … to find anything that I could use against him in order to make him feel as miserable as he made me feel last term.

  But judging by his turbulent and inconsistent behavior lately, he seems to be doing a good job of making himself feel miserable without any help from me. I’m not sure whether to be worried or upset, or to just go back to not caring and all and trying to figure out how best to bring him to his knees.

  I decide that I will give it a bit more thought after my next volunteer shift.

  That’s what I really need.

  Space.

  “Hey, what’s going on?” I ask Warren as I show up for my shift and see that there’s a whole horde of people that aren’t normally here.

  He just shrugs.

  “No idea, I just got here myself.”

  “Okay everyone,” the front desk girl says to the crowd that Warren and I seem to be in the midst of. “So, you are all here to get a ‘first taste’ of the volunteering that you will be required to do when you become enrolled next semester. Well, except for Aubrey and Warren. You guys already are enrolled here. Which is why the two of you will be the trainers for our upcoming new students.”

  “Wait, what?” I ask.

  She gives me a scowl for questioning her authority in front of everyone. I thought that she and I had a mutual understanding, but apparently, I overestimated our acquaintanceship.

  “Today,” she says as she directs her statement right toward me now. “You and Warren will train the rest of these guys how to do your volunteering jobs.”

  “Does that mean that once they’re trained, we can leave, and they’ll do the rest of our volunteering hours for us?” Warren says sarcastically.

  I snicker and she looks at me as if I have suddenly switched teams in the game.

  “No, it means that you have extra work for today’s shift,” she answers punitively. “First, train the newbies, and then do your regular tasks.”

  “But that is going to take us longer than the time we have allotted to our shifts,” I complain, glancing over my shoulder at the grounds outside the window.

  “Then you can stay late tonight,” she says before turning to walk away.

  Grossly underestimated our acquaintanceship.

  I sigh and think about tomorrow’s exam that I still need to study for, and how this girl’s foul mood is going to end up costing me a grade. Warren and I look around at the others, there’s at least a half dozen of them. We decide to split the group and each take half of them, but we also decide to do the training together so that hopefully it will go faster.

  For an assignment that’s literally just cleaning up the administrative building, I’m surprised by how much we end up having to cover. I hadn’t realized until now just how much Warren and I have been doing.

  It actually makes me miss my once-a-week volunteering session at the retirement home. At least there I got to talk. Here, it’s all floor polish, fumes, and rubber gloves.

  About halfway through the training, some of the prospective new enrollees seem to be getting their bearings and are able to start doing some of the menial tasks on their own, which Warren and I gladly let them do because it will lessen our load for the night. A couple of them still don’t seem to get what it is that they’re supposed to be doing though. They don’t seem all that bright if you ask me—but then again, most of the students here are the type who’ve never had to scrub a floor in their lives.

  I mean, I wasn’t that privileged, but I never really had to either I guess.

  One guy in particular asks me a question literally every two minutes, to the point in which I just want to give him a quick smack across the face to knock some common sense into him so that he can finally stop wasting my time.

  “So, does it matter which door you start the mopping at?” he asks me.

  “Huh?” I say. The real response I want to give is something along the lines of ‘why are you asking me such a stupid question?’

  “Because otherwise you could get yourself cornered in and half to walk across a clean floor with your dirty shoes,” he explains.

  Warren pauses from showing a girl how to empty the paper shredder and looks over at him to roll his eyes.

  “No,” I say. “Start wherever you want. None of us really care that much. Just walk over it. No one’s going to even notice.”

  Just like the rest of your time here at Ridgecrest.

  I almost feel bad for them. I only found out I was coming here after my last semester of high school. It must be even worse knowing in advance.

  I get ready to walk away from him and go see if there’s anything else that we still need to show them before Warren and I can start our own work, but the guy reaches out and grabs my arm.

  “Can you show me the best way to hold the mop?” he asks as he lifts up the mop handle with his other hand.

  “Are you serious?” I just can’t even keep my inside voice ‘inside’ anymore. This guy is ridiculous. “Hold the mop however the hell you want to.”

  “But I’m sure you must have a trick to holding it just the right way to make it go faster,” he says without letting go of my wrist. “You know, since you’ve been doing this job for a while now.”

  Something about the way he’s holding my wrist suddenly makes my stomach twist. This guy isn’t an idiot.

  He’s toying with me.

  “Can you let go of me?” I phrase it more like a command than a question.

&
nbsp; He hesitates for a second, but it’s just enough time for Warren to jump in. I don’t even see him coming when all of a sudden, Warren is just standing beside me and grabbing onto the arm of the guy’s hand that has a hold of me. From the look of his knuckles turning white, Warren is gripping him pretty hard.

  Hard enough to bruise.

  “She told you to let her go,” Warren growls.

  “Dude, relax,” the guy says as he releases his fingers from my wrist.

  Instead of just letting him go, Warren almost throws the guy’s hand back toward his body.

  “W fe’re done for today,” Warren announces to the group.

  “But we haven’t finished with the—”

  The girl at the paper shredder doesn’t get a chance to finish her sentence before Warren cuts her off.

  “We’ve done enough, and Aubrey and I still need to finish our shifts. You guys go home. I’ll deal with the staff about it.”

  They give each other confused looks, but none of them were really thrilled about having to be here anyway, so they jump at the opportunity to cut out early, and within minutes the building is cleared with the exception of Warren and me.

  “You okay?” he asks as he lifts my hand to his face to take a better look at my wrist.

  I’m pretty stunned to see this protective side of Warren.

  “Yeah,” I say as I take my hand back and rub my wrist. It does sting a little bit, thanks to that guy’s nails digging into my skin. I didn’t even notice it at the time, my mind was so preoccupied with just what the hell was going on. “I’m fine.”

  “Come on,” he says. “I know where the first aid kit is, and you should probably run some antiseptic on those scratches. It wouldn’t surprise me if that guy had rabies or some shit.”

  I stifle a laugh and follow him into the bathroom. Warren takes out the peroxide and I hold my hand over the sink as he pours it onto my wrist.

  I wince, but don’t draw back.

  “Thanks,” I say with a smile after we’re done. I’m not quite sure how to feel about him acting so kind with me. It definitely seems a bit out of character.

  Though he wouldn’t be the only one acting out of character lately. It must be something in the air.

  “No problem,” he says while we walk back out to finish our work. “That guy shouldn’t have put his hands on you to begin with.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” I agree. “But trust me, I’ve been through worse.”

  Warren sets down the mop bucket that he was just picking up and looks at me with what I can only describe as a briny mix of anger and disgust.

  “I know you have,” he says quietly. “But none of it should have ever happened. That advisor is lucky that he still has a job, and that he still has hands attached to his body.”

  Warren looks the same way that he looked that day at lunch when he snapped his spoon in half.

  “Why does it make you so angry what the advisor did to me?” I ask him. “I mean, I get it that the whole thing was wildly inappropriate. But you act as if you are personally enraged by it. Sometimes I think you’re angrier than me, and I lived through it. Why is that?”

  Warren’s eyes widen and he looks completely caught off guard. He is about to open his mouth and say something, but then he thinks better of it and reaches down to grab the mop bucket again instead.

  “Come on,” he says without looking back at me again. “Let’s get cleaned up and leave. I don’t want to stay here any longer tonight.”

  As soon as we get everything put away, we grab our coats and get ready to go home. We didn’t finish all of our shift work, and I don’t think that either one of us honestly cares. So what if that staff girl is mad about it tomorrow? It’s not as if we can get fired—although I wish we could.

  Outside, it’s just starting to snow and it makes the whole campus look like a winter wonderland covered in a dusting of magical whiteness.

  “I’ll walk you to your dorm,” Warren says.

  That’s highly unusual too. He’s never offered to walk me to my dorm before, and it’s freezing out and his dorm building is in the completely opposite direction.

  “That’s okay,” I say. “You don’t have to do that, I’ll be fine. The streetlamps are all lit, and the paths are clear.”

  Warren turns his head to both sides to look around on the campus.

  “There’s no one else walking out here now,” he says. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to walk alone. I’d feel better if I walked you.”

  I stand there and look in his eyes and for a moment, it feels like one of those movies where the girl and the guy are both about to not do something that they really want to do. The gentle snowfall and the way that the snowflakes stick to the top of his nose for a split second before melting from his body heat, make the moment seem even more intense. I might have actually stood here for a lot longer if he hadn’t said something.

  “Aubrey?” he says, waiting for me to respond.

  “Okay, sure,” I say in regard to being walked back to my dorm. “Thanks.”

  Still, I involuntarily shiver once before we head off down the path together—and it’s not from the cold.

  We don’t talk much on our way, but I notice him glance over at me a few times. I didn’t bring my gloves, so my hands are freezing, and of course the coat I chose to wear today doesn’t have any pockets.

  “Here,” Warren says as he reaches for my hand. Before I even realize what he’s doing, he sticks the hand closest to him inside his pocket, and he doesn’t let go.

  I look over at him to say something—although I’m not sure what, maybe another ‘thank you.’ But his eyes meet mine and I see something in his gaze that makes me think this is one of those moments in which talking will just screw it up. So instead, I let him hold my hands and am silently grateful for the warmth. By the time we reach my dorm building, I am all sorts of confused about yet another one of the guys.

  The way they’ve been acting lately, I’m starting to wonder if maybe they’re all on something.

  “Goodnight,” Warren says simply before turning around to leave and walk back to his own building.

  “Night,” I call after him quietly, and I’m not sure if he hears me.

  I walk through the common area of the dorms and see a fireplace lit in the hearth with a bunch of the girls, including Bridget, gathered around it talking about their Thanksgiving plans.

  “Oh, hey Aubrey,” Tammy says when she sees me walk in. “What are you doing for Thanksgiving break?”

  I’m sure that she meant it as an innocent question, but I can see Bridget smirking beside her because she knows that I don’t have anywhere else to go but here.

  “I’m just going to stay on campus and try to catch up on some of my schoolwork,” I say with a polite smile.

  Bridget knows that I’m just trying to save face, but she doesn’t say anything—smart.

  “Well, at least you should be able to get a lot done since it’ll be so quiet on campus,” Tammy says in what I think is an attempt to be nice.

  “Yeah,” I say as I turn and walk upstairs to my room. I hope that Bridget stays down here until I fall asleep. I could use some time alone with my thoughts to sort out the mixed feelings I’m having about Sterling, and now Warren too.

  I have no energy left for Bridget these days. I know my hold on her is slipping, but I don’t care.

  Chapter Fourteen

  When the break arrives, I see that Tammy wasn’t wrong. It is very quiet here alone on campus—again. Or at least, I think I’m alone.

  I’m walking back from a trip to the bookstore, at least they still have the bookstore and coffee shop open and staffed so that I can get a decent latte. Though calling it staffed is a bit of an understatement. It took me thirty minutes to get this latte, and only after I begged the librarian taking a nap behind the counter with more than a few tears.

  They didn’t even have to be faked.

  I convinced Bridget to leave cash in her dre
sser drawer for me to pull from since I’m still dirt-broke. I kind of get the feeling that every time I ask her to do something, it pushes her one step closer to going off on me, which I really don’t care about anyway since I’m not trying to be her friend.

  At this point, I almost wish she would.

  I’ve been growing increasingly tired lately. Tired of her. Tired of this game. Tired of this place.

  Every time I think I’m getting ahold of myself here, I lose it again.

  And it’s always thanks to the same thing. The same people.

  Warren. Chase. Sterling.

  Bridget plays a part, sure, but it really boils down to them. They have a hold on me that I don’t understand, and maybe I never will.

  I just have to hold it together until the review. Maybe I can convince Sterling’s father that I’m ready to get the hell out of Ridgecrest.

  Or, at the very least, that it’d be better for me to be there than here.

  The snow is coming down heavier on my way back to my dorm. This side of campus is essentially empty since everyone has gone home for the break and any of the staff who stayed on campus is housed in the faculty housing at the other side of the school grounds.

  That’s why it comes as a bit of a surprise when I think I see a figure through the falling snow. It looks like there’s someone up ahead leaning against the wide trunk of one of the trees, but I think I must be making it up.

  No one would be out here of their own free will.

  No one sane, at least.

  As I get closer, it looks like he kicks some bags at his feet around to the other side of the trunk and out of view. I had expected this to be a very lonely Thanksgiving, so seeing anyone else here is certainly a surprise.

  But it’s even more of a surprise when I see who it is.

  “Chase?”

  I must be seeing things because there’s no way that he’d still be here. He, like the rest of the guys, left for break early this morning. I saw him.

  I wasn’t looking on purpose, of course. I just happened to glance out the window and saw them making their way toward the circle of exhaust rising up between the tree trunks in the distance.