If he thought we were, would I tell him we weren’t? He wasn’t a good guy; the very opposite, actually. Did I want to date a psycho? I’d claimed him and Vaughn as mine, but going so far as to date him…
Oh, who was I kidding? I’d been weak for him since the beginning, since he’d threatened my mom and kidnapped me. Yes, I liked the psychos.
I headed to homeroom, my spirits higher than they should’ve been. Archer was in his seat, looking quite glum and morose, though his azure stare did lock with mine. I held his eyes, refusing to back down. Whatever he thought I did, I didn’t. The truth getting out was not my fault, regardless of what he thought.
Still, all that said, I did feel bad for him.
I slid into my seat, setting my books down. Silence stretched between us like a desert, barren and still, and yet I found myself tossing a look at him over my shoulder, wanting to talk to him.
He wasn’t even looking at me.
“Archer,” I started, even though I knew I shouldn’t.
“You got what you wanted,” he muttered, blue gaze turning icy. “Leave it at that. Don’t pick at the wound you created, Jaz. Just leave it be. Let me be. I’m done with you.”
I had three boyfriends—though it wasn’t like any of them had ever used the official label—so it wasn’t like I needed to go begging for dick. Somehow though, I found myself wanting to make things right with him.
Everything had gotten out of hand, out of control. Couldn’t we have a fresh start?
“I know you think everything is my fault,” I said, leaning over the aisle between us, “but it’s not. I really want to start over, Archer.”
He looked at me, and for just the quickest of moments, his expression softened, and he looked like the boy I’d fallen for in the beginning. The one who joked around and smiled all the time.
The one who lied to me, but that was beside the point.
But then that expression turned to stone, and he looked away, not saying a single thing.
I sighed, and I kept to myself as the announcements came on. More grief counselors would be available this week, and every student who wished to go to the funerals of the slain students would have a free pass to do so, without affecting their attendance. Then, strangely, a prayer was said over the speakers for Ryan’s untimely passing, even though this wasn’t a religious school.
All these people, praying for a rapist and his rapist friends. How wrong it was.
Thankfully the announcements were over soon enough, and class began not long after that. I had my textbook open and a notebook under my hand, trying to take notes, but it was not ten minutes into class when a knock echoed throughout the room.
The teacher abruptly stopped—though he did roll his eyes, as he hated interruptions, along with any type of technology that didn’t work one hundred percent of the time—and headed to the door. An office aid stood and handed him a slip.
Before the teacher turned to the class and said what he said next, I knew. I knew it was for me. “Jaz, the principal wants to see you.”
I left my things, getting up. After taking the slip from his hands, I headed to the office. The aid had more things to deliver, so I walked alone. Alone in these shiny, sterile halls. Alone in this rich town.
I entered the office, and the secretary looked pale. She didn’t even get up, just motioned for me to go back. That was weird, but I thought nothing of it. I headed through the short hall in the back of the office, finding myself in the principal’s private office almost instantly. The door was open, and I saw the principal wasn’t alone. He was talking to two men in dark blue.
And then when I came in, their conversation instantly stopped. The principal, along with the two strangers, turned to face me, and I saw they were policemen.
“Uh…” was all my brilliant mouth could say.
One of them reached for the cuffs hanging on his hip, and he immediately went off, “Jazmine Smith, you’re under arrest for the murder of Brittany Pots.” He moved behind me, and I was too stunned to move. “You have the right to remain silent.”
The cuffs were slammed on my wrists hard, and I met the principal’s stare.
The murder of Brittany Pots? But I didn’t—
“Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you,” the second officer rattled off, eyeing me up like I was the devil himself, the vilest person he’d ever seen. Never had I been witness to such a high amount of disgust on someone else’s face.
“I don’t understand,” I said, feeling myself being pulled out of the principal’s office, nearly tripping on my own feet as the policemen led me out of the office, out of the school, and to their cruiser in the front. Through the windows, I could see students gathered, watching as I was roughly shoved into the back of the car.
Ironic. Even though I won, I still lost, somehow.
It was only when we arrived at the police station, only when they had me chained to a table in an interrogation room after being booked that I finally found out why I was being charged. Brittany was killed yesterday, evidently, and they had evidence that I was the one who did it.
Brittany was dead.
How? When? This wasn’t a joke? No, it couldn’t be. Not with the real police involved.
Figured. In death, the bitch would still come to haunt me like no other.
I hardly blinked when a detective sat across from me, and it was only when I met his hazel eyes—eyes that were so much like his daughter’s—I knew who he was even before he introduced himself.
“I’m Detective Charles Wilde,” he said, meaning he was, indeed, Bobbi’s dad. He was a middle-aged man with a stern, no-nonsense expression, his brown hair shaved short and a goatee around his mouth. He still wore his wedding ring, I noticed, even though his wife had left. He had a folder, which he promptly opened and shoved a full-colored picture my way.
A photograph of a bedroom—Brittany’s, if I had to guess. Its serene pink furniture was covered in blood, the carpet doused. It looked like a madman went to town in there, and I wanted to be sick. That was…so much blood. Too much.
This was what they were accusing me of?
“I have two questions for you,” Detective Wilde spoke, folding his hands atop the folder. “Why did you kill her, and where is her body?”
Well. How ‘bout that teeny, tiny cliffy? Bet none of you will guess what happens next…
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Be on the lookout for the final book in the trilogy, Reckless, coming soon!
Defiant: A High School Bully Romance (Midpark High Book 2) Page 33
