by Bella King
I laughed, feeling slightly unhinged. “You’re about to be ruined for good if you don’t start talking.”
Molly opened her mouth at the same time the sound of the front door opening broke the tension. Fuck, it was my parents!
I put down the gun, shoving it back in the waistband of my shorts and hiding it with my hoodie. Molly took the opportunity to bolt, running down the hallway and shoving past my mother at the front door, escaping to freedom.
I turned to my mother, who was in shock at the girl running past her. I shook my head, throwing up my hands. I gave up. What was I supposed to do when nobody in this godforsaken town would tell me the truth?
“What’s going on?” My mother said, looking back over her shoulder at Molly running down the road from the house.
I sighed. “Molly is scared of people.”
“Who is Molly?” my mother asked.
“A friend,” I said dryly, turning and walking upstairs, leaving my mother in a state of confusion. She would just have to deal with it. I didn’t have the energy to try to think up a reason why Molly would be running out of the house when my mother arrived home. It was too complicated. I would just have to find her at school and finish what we had started.
I tucked the copy of the house keys that she had given me into my pocket and entered my bedroom.
Chapter 20
War changes you.
It wasn’t long before my mother discovered the hole in the corner from where I had fired the gun. Thankfully, no bullet was recovered, so I didn’t have much to explain. I just said that Molly had been in the house playing with a slingshot, and that she shot a ball bearing at the ceiling by accident. That was why she had fled when my mother came home. It was a convincing enough story for my parents.
Normally, I would have felt a tinge of guilt for having lied to my parents, but the situation was way too extreme for me to admit to. I knew that I might have been taking things too far, but it was my problem that I needed to solve on my own. My parents would get pissed at me and try to move me to another school if they knew the truth, which wasn’t my style at all.
I was going to lead a powerful opposition against Megan, and whoever I could get onto my side was going to help me. I got the sneaking suspicion that Molly and Bradly might join me if given enough incentive. Betty might hop on board too if I got to know her better. Megan’s days as the queen of Palm Valley Academy were numbered.
Nothing was astray in my room when I got there. I tucked the gun away in my dresser and decided that it was time for a shower and some proper clothes before I started my day. It was only Saturday, which meant I had time to work on my dresses before school started again on Monday.
As I got undressed, I thought about Bradly. I wondered if he would be interested in going to Prom with me. I wanted to make a dress for it, and I couldn’t think of anyone else who I would be willing to go with. It was a stretch, but I wanted to show off my design skills somehow. It was the only time where we got to wear something other than a uniform to school.
Into the shower I went, enjoying the steaming hot water on my body. It’s amazing what two days in the woods will do for your appreciation of modern amenities. I savored the lovely feeling of hot water against my sweaty skin. It was a chance for me to recharge and reflect on the week behind me.
I had done a lot this week, but there was even more to do in the days to come. I had to confront Megan and continue trying to extract information from Bradly. Molly wasn’t getting away from me so easily either, but at least I had the keys to my house back. I just hoped there were no more copies made of them.
Lavender did little to ease my mood while I was in the shower, but I often used it after a long day. I heard it was proven to relax your body, but I called bullshit on that. Maybe I had just used it to the point where I had such a high tolerance that I wouldn’t be able to relax with it. Maybe it worked for other people.
I shook my head at the bottle of natural lavender shower gel and placed it on the side of the tub with all the other ones that I had. There was no shortage of them at my house because there was no shortage of money in my family. It also seemed to be the only thing my mother would buy for me during Christmas and my birthday.
She barely knew me enough to know of anything else to buy for me. If she wanted to get me something that I actually needed, it would be more sewing stuff. You could never have enough of the stuff. I always managed to drop needles into the carpet and lose them forever. The sewing room was a bit of a deathtrap at this point, and I had to wear shoes to go in there. I kept a pair right by the door.
Once I was out of the shower, I went down the hallway in my robe, trying to put everything to rest for the time being and work on my dresses. I still couldn’t figure out what to do with the collar of the dress that I had been working on, so I decided to toss it. I placed it in the discard pile to be tossed tomorrow morning. I didn’t even want to look at the thing.
I sat down with my sketchbook and flipped it open, swinging the leather boots that I wore in the sewing room against the bottom of my desk, making a steady rhythm as they hit the thin wood underneath. I flipped through the many pages filled with sketches and writing until I found the page that I had begun to design a prom dress on.
There wasn’t a whole lot on it. I hadn’t wanted to spend so much time designing a prom dress if I wasn’t going to have anyone to go with. Having sex with Bradly may have been an unwise thing to do, but it did give me hope that he might be willing to go to prom with me, especially after I overthrew Megan.
Perhaps it was all a crazy fantasy. I wanted to save the day and be the hero of a school that I barely understood. I didn’t know how many people or resources that Megan had, and I was already struggling to deal with the damage she was doing in my life. I had grown paranoid, aggressive, and I was constantly in a state of defensiveness.
I wished that things could calm down, but it was too late for all that. Molly may or may not have had my best interest in mind when she had given me those warnings, but she was right that this was dangerous for me. I was way in over my head.
I spent the rest of the day holed up in the sewing room, sketching and discarding an unbelievably large number of concepts for a prom dress. I never knew that something so basic could give me such a hard time, but I wanted it to be perfect. I wouldn’t settle for anything less.
I must have pricked my fingers a hundred times that day trying to sew different patterns and materials together to test out ideas, but by the end of it, I had come up with something that I could use to make the whole dress. The design wasn’t anywhere close to done, but at least I had been able to get it started.
I ended up going to bed long after midnight, sleeping with my gun tucked away in the drawer. After what had happened in the hallway with Molly, I didn’t even want to look at it anymore. To be honest, I was more afraid of that gun now than I was of Megan sending someone to my house to kill me in my sleep.
Chapter 21
Monday is the best day of the week.
Sunday passed with no event, and before I had the chance to get any rest at all, Monday was shining through my window in the morning, urging me to wake up and do what needed to be done. I got out of bed and put on my school uniform, which was fresh for the first day of the week. Say what you will about Mondays, but I rather liked them. They provided order in my life at times when my world would have fallen into chaos otherwise.
I hopped into my car and headed off to school, carrying my gun discretely to my car and locking it in the trunk. I really didn’t want to have to deal with it again, and I even considered getting rid of it, but I didn’t know if I might need it again, so I kept it.
I brought my knife with me, slipping it back into the waistband of my leggings. I would probably need it again if I was to stay safe around Megan. I was sure with all the trouble I had stirred up that she would be after me at school. There was no way that she would let everything that I had done slide without some form of retaliation.
>
When I walked into the hallway at school, everything looked as it should. I could almost pretend that there was no crazy war going on between me and half the school who was sided with Megan. Hell, most of them probably didn’t even know who I was
Betty wasn’t informed of my beef with Megan until I had told her, so that probably meant very few people were. As far as I knew, it was just Megan, Molly, and Bradly who knew, but there were probably others. I had to keep my eyes out for enemies. I never knew when someone could strike. It was dangerous for me to be caught alone. I hadn’t forgotten that incident in the classroom that had me tossed in a ditch overnight.
I hadn’t forgotten the hell that I had been through because of Megan, and yet, I had seen her very little. She was sending other people to do her dirty work, and I didn’t like that. To me, it was weak and petty, and I was about to teach her a lesson.
“Hey, bitch,” I called down the hall when I spotted her blonde hair and curvy body. She was unmistakable, even from the back in uniform.
Megan twirled around, but so did everyone else upon my obnoxiously loud profanity. I walked up to her in front of the other students, glaring at her, and her face changed from a cheerful smile to a poisonous stare. She wasn’t happy to see me.
“What do you want, Ava?” Her voice was dripping with irritation.
“I just wanted to tell you that I caught one of your little minions in my house yesterday, and I know what you’re up to. You’re the one who needs to be careful. Watch your back,” I said, standing proudly in front of her.
She looked at the girls to her left and right, and the shocked reactions on their faces. She knew that they were expecting some type of clever comeback, because Megan would never let someone show her up in public like this.
Megan looked back at me, sizing me up with her gaze. “You know what, Ava? While I don’t appreciate you talking to me like that, I’m going to give you one more chance to fall in line before I start taking more drastic measures. Believe me, I can do things that will make you hurt.”
I shrugged. “Bring it on, princess. Just so you know, Molly and Bradly aren’t on your side anymore. They’ve converted to the opposition. How does that make you feel?” I said, bluffing my way into more power.
She wrinkled her nose, looking genuinely disturbed by my statement. I could tell she was trying to figure out if she really was losing her grasp on her followers, or if I was just playing up my position to scare her. I hoped that she would go with the former, but at the very least, this would make her question her ability to lead.
Megan smiled at me, but her face was twitching wildly like she was trying not to have an outburst. She was losing control, and she couldn’t stand it. I was waiting for a mental breakdown, but she widened her smile and spoke. “My supporters would die for me, Ava, and the ones that oppose me might very well be among the fallen. Where does that put you?” She cocked her head to the side, maintaining the increasingly insane smile.
I grew uncomfortable staring at her face. She looked like a woman with very little left to lose. When her mountain crumbled, she would likely self-destruct, doing a lot of damage in the process. I didn’t want to be nearby when it happened.
“I warned you. Go ahead and ask them. Your supporters are dropping like flies,” I said, maintaining my fib. I hoped that I could make it a reality, but for now it would just have to be a tool to spread doubt among Megan’s ranks.
I turned around and walked away, spotting Bradly down the hallway. I winked at him, flashing a seductive smile and crinkling my nose as I walked past him. I wanted him to want me again. I needed him on my side if I was going to pull this whole thing off.
Luckily, I didn’t have to do much to get him drooling over me again. I was surprised that he was so attracted to me in the first place, but it wasn’t like I was hideous. I was just taken aback because he could obviously have any girl he wanted, and he seemed to be more interested in me than anyone else. What was it about me that pulled him in? Was it just my looks, or did my attitude excited him as well?
“Ava, I want to talk to you,” he said grabbing my arm and pulling me back as I attempted to walk past him.
Megan scowled at us from afar but didn’t come over. Bradly glanced up nervously at her and motioned with his head for me to follow him. I didn’t have much of a choice. His grip was like iron on my small arm.
“Ouch, Bradly, you can be a little gentler,” I said as he practically dragged me down the hall.
We arrived at a closet that the janitor stored his stuff in, and Bradly pulled open the unlocked door, shoving me in and cramming his large body in after me. There was barely enough room for both of us in the cramped space.
“Not very romantic, but it’ll do,” I joked.
“Be serious, Ava. I don’t know what your game is, but you need to stop talking to Megan,” Bradly said urgently.
I crossed my arms. “Give me a break. Are you going to threaten me just like all of Megan’s other followers?” I was angry that he would sink this low right after we had made peace during the camping trip.
“It’s not like that, Ava. I care about you. I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s what Molly said too, but she turned out to be a snake. Is that what you are, Bradly? A snake?”
“I’m not. I don’t like Megan either, but some things are better left alone,” he insisted.
It was hot in the closet, but that wasn’t the reason why my face was red. I was frustrated that Bradly was still acting like a total pussy when he could easily pound the life out of Megan. She had something on him, and I wanted to know what.
“Listen, Bradly, either you’re going to tell me what has your panties in a bunch or I’m going to continue to pick fights with Megan. I really doubt she’s all that dangerous. I think you’re just trying to save your own ass from whatever dirt she has on you,” I blurted, spitting little drops of saliva on his face as I fussed at him.
He didn’t even bother to wipe them off, pretending like they weren’t even there. “Megan does have something on me, and it’s bad enough to keep me from opposing her. She might not have shit on you, but you just wait. She’ll find something.”
“What is it that she has on you?” I asked, looking up at his furrowed brow.
“Nothing,” he said, turning his head away from me.
“Oh, you’re full of shit, Bradly. Just tell me already. I’m not going to tell anyone. You could be like a secret agent for me. I would do a lot for you in return,” I said, running a finger down the center of his chest to his stomach, where I could feel his solid abs.
He chuckled. “You’re a real charmer, Ava, but I don’t know you well enough to divulge that kind of information.”
“You don’t think filling me up with cum is enough to get to know me?” I asked. “Maybe you want another go,” I said seductively.
“Fuck, you make this so hard,” he said, breathing out heavily through his nose.
“I can make something else hard,” I replied, eyeing his crotch.
“Believe me, you already have.”
“I can do anything, but please, let’s team-up. You just need to tell me what’s so bad that you’re afraid of Megan. She’s not that scary on her own,” I said, trying to level with him.
Bradly paused, staring off into the distance intensely before returning to me. “Okay, but this is between you and me.”
“I promise.”
Chapter 22
It’s funny how one moment can change your whole life.
“There was this girl that I had a crush on. Her name was Anna Brown. She was beautiful – blonde hair, blue eyes, not unlike you,” Bradly began.
I rolled my eyes. “Okay, get on with it.”
“I am, give me a second,” he said. “Anna was a good girl. She never drank, she didn’t smoke. She was 18 and I wanted to have her. I was a lot stupider back then. I learned how to be a man the hard way, though.” He looked off into the distance again. “Any
way, Megan and I were sort of friends at the time. I didn’t have any big issues with her yet because she always helped me get what I wanted. She was good for the whole football team, providing easy women for us to have fun with, but the only person who I wanted was Anna.”
“Two months of watching that girl and I had to have her. I went to Megan for advice. I explained to her that I would do anything to get to Anna. Megan told me it wasn’t possible. Anna wasn’t into me. You can understand that I was disappointed.”
“I tried to forget about it, but I couldn’t. I went back to Megan and basically begged her to give it her best shot. Maybe she could convince Anna to spend some time with me. That was when I should have stopped, because Megan did make my wish come true, but it also ruined Anna’s life, and mine in the process.”
The air in the room was heavy. Bradly and I were both covered in a thin layer of sweat as he continued the story. “Megan gave me this stuff. She said it was a special drink, and that if I could get Anna to drink it with me, then I could have her. I didn’t know that this stuff was basically poison, designed to knock someone out in just a few shots.”
I gasped. “She made me drink that,” I said.
“Then you’re lucky to be alive,” Bradly said, shaking his head. “This stuff can kill you. I told Anna that I would give her a hundred bucks if she could drink more than me, and being the naive person, she was, she took me up on the challenge. Never mind the fact that I was three times as big as she was.”
I shook my head. “I doubt anyone could outdrink you.”
“Exactly. I knew that, but she had no experience with the stuff. We kept pouring shots in the women’s bathroom, downing them without a chaser. It was all fun and games until I started to feel sick. We parted ways, and I had to go home. I couldn’t stop vomiting, and I felt like I was going to pass out. Jesus, normally I can drink a half half-liter of vodka and keep my bearings, but a few shots of this stuff nearly put me down.”
