by Bella King
I wanted to get plastered and do it all again, but I refrained from taking things too far that night. I ended up playing a few hands of poker with Trent and his gang before falling asleep in my chair. I guess I was more of a lightweight than I had thought.
I remembered Trent carrying me to a makeshift bed in the cabin and tucking me in. I had wanted him to stay, but he went back to finish his game before finally coming to bed with me. We slept together, and I prayed that this wouldn’t be the only time we did. I enjoyed his company.
The morning saw a lot of groggy and hungover people crawling out of the cabin to head back to school so that we wouldn’t get caught in the hallway in between classes. It was best to reenter the school during the morning rush so that nobody would notice that we weren’t coming in from the same direction as everyone else.
Trent rushed me out of the cabin, and I was sure that I left a thing or two behind in the process of leaving. We didn’t have time because I had slept in without the annoying hustle and bustle of the dormitory every morning. Plus, Trent was so warm that I didn’t want to get out of bed. He made me.
“Are you going to hold my hand?” I asked as we enter back into the school.
Trent looked at me, giving a half-smile half-frown. “I don’t think so.”
I was slightly offended. “Why not?”
“Because, I need to go to class,” he said hurriedly.
I rolled my eyes. “Are you avoiding me?”
Trent stopped walking and relaxed his face. “No, Samantha. I think last night was lovely, but I’m not ready to make it all public and stuff yet. Have you even gotten revenge on Angela yet?”
I wasn’t expecting that line. What did Angela have to do with all of this? “I was going to do something. Why?”
Trent shrugged. “Just curious.”
“You don’t want to be seen with me if I get in trouble?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I’ve been to detention so many times already that they’d probably just send me to prison if I fucked up again,” he admitted.
“Oh,” I said. “I know what you mean. I’ve already had two detentions. Any more, and it’s solitary for me.”
Trent chuckled and shook his head. “That’s not what I mean. I’ve been to solitary more times than I could count. They warned me that if I kept it up that I wasn’t going to graduate Bayside, and I would end up in jail.”
“I’ll be careful,” I assured him, “But I need to get revenge. This is for Emily.”
“Sure,” he replied, giving me an unconvincing smile.
I wouldn’t pull him into it, but I needed to do this for Emily and for me. If Angela really was that much of a monster, then she should be locked away. I think Trent understood that even if he was afraid.
“After that, do you want to go to the lake again?” I asked hopefully, looking up at Trent’s sparkling blue eyes.
He smiled and nodded. “I think that would be wonderful, Samantha.”
Chapter 15
“A couple of grams of crushed pills. You can snort them, eat them, or shoot them, but don’t do too much,” Lisa said, handing me a small baggy of white powder. “And this knife too. I sharpened it this morning, so it’ll split a hair into tenths if you want it to.”
I accepted a blade in a leather sheath. This all seemed like a pretty good deal for what I had paid. I wondered where I could find service like this outside of Bayside.
“If you get caught with it, no snitching,” Lisa warned, giving me a serious look.
“I won’t,” I promised. I wasn’t the one who was going to get caught with it.
“Of course you won’t because I’ll cut your tongue out if you do,” she said cheerfully.
“I think that won’t be necessary,” I said with a nervous laugh.
“I didn’t think so,” she replied. “Anything else for you, ma’am?”
“Yeah, come to think of it. Is there any chance you could get a hold of some plan-B?”
Lisa chuckled. “Yes, you need it now, I’m assuming.”
I nodded.
“No problem. I’ll get it to you later today. Just meet me here after the final bell,” she said.
“Thank you. You’re a saint,” I replied, grateful that she was able to provide so much for me.
“Hey, money talks. I’ll catch you later,” Lisa said, giving me a wave before she left.
I stood in the bathroom for a moment, looking at the products in my hands. I had been given a bunch of crushed pills and a wickedly sharp knife. These were perfect and would likely get Angela sent away to jail for a while.
I felt guilty for a moment before reminding myself that Angela was the reason that Emily was dead. She deserved a lot worse than this, but I wasn’t willing to risk anything more. I wanted to deal maximum damage so that I could hurry karma along. It didn’t always work the way that it should.
I took the knife and the drugs, tucking them both into my pocket. The knife stuck out a little, but I could move my jacket over the hilt, and nobody would see. Coming after Angela was going to be a risk, but I felt like it had to be done.
I left the bathroom, looking me around cautiously as I made my way down the corridor to my next class. I had an exam at the end of the day, and I wanted to plant the knife and drugs on Angela immediately after so that she would take them through the security scanner without discovering them herself first.
I scoped her out in the hallway. Attractive, blonde, a bit prissy, and a tight bun made her easy to find. It annoyed me that she wasn’t all that different from me. I felt like I was going after my evil twin.
She dipped into the classroom adjacent to the one I was about to take my exam in. I frowned in her direction as she passed through the doorway, a foreshadowing of what I was about to do to her. This was going to have to be quick and smooth, but I knew I could pull it off. Even with the camera’s hanging from every corner of the school, nobody would see me slip the stuff into her bag. Not if I was smooth enough, anyway.
I went into my final class with a strange feeling in my bones. I was a bit off the rails, so to speak, and that was thrilling as much as it was worrying. Even after this, things wouldn’t be going back to normal. I had already gotten a taste for the wild side because of Trent, and I was drawn to it like a bee is drawn to a daisy. Keeping me away from trouble would be impossible. I didn’t even care to try anymore.
It took me ten minutes to finish the exam. There were twenty questions that covered the most basic concepts that I had learned years before I ever had the misfortune of going to Bayside Academy. It wasn’t just easy. It was stupidly simple and almost annoying that I even had to take it in the first place.
I turned in my sheet before anyone else did at the front of the class, feeling a little crazy for worrying about it in the first place. The night I had shared with Trent would have made up for a bad grade, but I was going to get a perfect 100 without even trying. Bayside was turning out to be an ego boost more than anything else.
I slipped out of the classroom and snuck down the hall far enough to where Angela wouldn’t notice me when she left her classroom. I jingled the lock on a locker beside me, pretending to be getting into it so that I wouldn’t look strange standing alone in the hall. There was a regular patrol that moved through the corridor that I didn’t want to raise suspicion with.
People began to trickle out of the exam classroom, but my opportunity would come when the bell rang. Angela would be leaving with a group of other students, and I hoped that she would stop by her locker before going to the dormitory. I wouldn’t be able to sneak the knife through the security and plant it on her there, even though it would have been easier to. I would set off the alarm with that attempt.
I felt giddy as I waited. My lunch was dancing in my belly as I leaned over the foreign locker, hoping that its owner didn’t spot me fiddling with their lock. I didn’t want a confrontation now, especially when I was carrying drugs and a knife on me. It wasn’t the ideal time to get detention.
I came closer as people shoved past each other. My shoulder was clipped by a large guy, almost throwing me to the ground. I stumbled, recovered, and began to press through the sea of people until I spotted Angela.
She walked with a pompous skip in her step toward the lockers. I wondered if I had been like that during my first week at Bayside. She seemed fresh and different from the others, but nobody bullied her like they did to me, perhaps because she was the bully.
I slunk through the crowd, weaving around with my hand shoved deep in my pocket, clutching the knife like I intended to stab this bitch to death instead of slip drugs into her bag. I caught up to her as she was placing her bag on the ground in front of her locker.
Fuck, it wasn’t within my reach. I would have to distract her from it if I was going to pull this off. I walked up to her, taking a deep breath before she noticed me. “Hello,” I said, slipping the knife and drugs from m pocket and holding them behind my back.
She turned and frowned. “Oh,” she said as though she recognized me but didn’t like me.
I thought fast. I didn’t have a plan. “Can you read the time for me?” I asked, pointing at the clock on the wall. “My eyesight sucks.” That was true.
She gave me a funny look but glanced up at the clock anyway. I took the opportunity to toss the drugs and knife into her bag, shoving them beside the books so that she wouldn’t notice them. I almost wasn’t quick enough, but I covered my movement with a stumble back into the locker as though I had tripped.
The locker behind me rattled as I crashed into it, and Angela stepped back. “What the hell?” she exclaimed, looking at me like I was a stain on her boot. At least she hadn’t noticed that I had put stuff into her bag.
“Sorry, I tripped,” I said. “What’s the time?”
“Seven,” she answered. “You should know that. The bell just rang.”
“Silly me,” I said, grinning like a goofball as I stood normally again. “Thanks!” I walked away like a woman possessed, trying to carry my body quicker than it could naturally go with such short legs. I had made a fool of myself, but my mission had been accomplished. The was a win in my book.
Now all I had to do was meet Lisa in the bathroom to get my morning-after pill so that I wouldn’t risk getting pregnant with Trent’s baby. The idea was a lot sexier than the reality, and I was sorely underprepared for a commitment as big as that. I could barely get my own life together, much less support a new one.
As I rushed to the bathroom, I realized that I hadn’t gotten to see Trent today. I wondered if he was avoiding me after the intimate time we had spent together. I was feeling a bit shy after all that too, but I wasn’t going to avoid him because of that.
Paranoid thinking. Chill out, Samantha.
Oh yes, the paranoid thoughts were returning because I had too low self-esteem to think that Trent could genuinely want to be with me. He had to be using me in some way for me to feel comfortable with how things were going. I was rationalizing something that didn’t need to be rationalized. Couldn’t I just enjoy that he had stopped bullying me and that he had given in to his feelings?
Of course not. I had to make this into something more complicated than it was. The kisses, the spontaneous love-making by the lake, and the words he had whispered into my ear where all just a figment of my imagination. They were a façade. They were a trick to get me to trust him when I shouldn’t. That’s how I felt, anyway, but I needed to push those thoughts aside.
Or did I?
I walked into the bathroom, relieved to see that Lisa was already there waiting for me. She was in front of a sink, staring into the mirror while biting her nails. Her head snapped to look at me when I walked in. “About time.”
“It’s not that late,” I said carelessly.
“I have another client to meet. Let’s make this quick,” Lisa said, pulling a small box of the medication from her pocket. “20 bucks a pop.”
“Okay,” I said, sticking my hand into my pocket.
Oh no. It was empty.
I fished around inside of my pocket, moving to the other one, then both the back ones before remembering that I had left the cash in the interior pocket of my leather jacket. I was stupid enough to have left that at the cabin.
“Could you take a rain check? I asked, reaching for the box of pills.
“Nope,” Lisa said, swiping them away from my hand. “Pay up or enjoy getting pregnant.”
I rolled my eyes. “Really? You’re going to lose a good client if you fuck me other like this,” I said angrily.
“Tough luck, honey. I have plenty more,” she said coolly, tucking the plan B into her pocket and moving toward the exit.
“Please,” I yelped, following after her.
“Get the money to me tomorrow, and I’ll give you one. You still have time,” Lisa said, walking out of the bathroom and leaving me there alone.
“Fuck!” I shouted, spinning around and kicking one of the toilet stalls. It rattled on its hinges, swinging inward and hitting against the interior wall.
Calm down. Deep breaths. You’ll get it tomorrow, and you’ll be fine.
Damn right, I would get it tomorrow, but I needed to hunt down Trent before then so that I could get the key. I charged out of the bathroom, my eyes scanning the hallway before I guessed on a direction and went flying down it. I hoped that he hadn’t already left for the dorms yet.
I hunted down Trent’s locker, but he wasn’t there. Frustrated, I headed down an adjacent hallway, hoping to run into him. I didn’t.
I flew through a few more hallways, but it was growing obvious that he had gone back to the dorms already. I squinted up at a clock in the hallway.
7:28.
I was about to be in trouble. I was supposed to leave the school by 7:30, or I would get slammed with another day in detention. With my record, it would also mean two days in solitary confinement. That wasn’t time that I could afford to waste right now. Boredom was just the beginning of the consequences of being thrown in there.
I raced down toward the school exit, panting as I burst through a set of doors to take a shortcut. Unfortunately, that proved to be my biggest mistake as of yet. Standing behind the doors was a security guard, and they looked just as happy as they could that I was still in the school later than I was supposed to be.
Chapter 16
Cold steel clicked over my wrists, tight and foreboding to the time I was going to be spending locked up for this mistake. The cuffs were too tight on my wrists, but the guard didn’t seem to care. He seemed to enjoy locking up an innocent woman like me.
“It’s not even 7:30,” I said, realizing how desperate I sounded.
He looked at his watch, pushing me roughly against the dirty white wall. “According to my watch, it’s 7:31.”
“It’s probably early,” I said, but I knew that wouldn’t work. I had screwed up once again, and I was going to have to pay the price.
The guard chuckled. “You got anything I should know about on you?” he asked.
I shook my head. “No, sir.” Thank god I had gotten rid of the drugs and knife.
“We’ll see about that,” the guard said, pressing his large belly against my back. He was uncomfortably close to me, breathing into my ear like he was excited to have caught someone as pretty as me roaming the halls.
He stuffed his fat hand into my back pocket, feeling around as he pressed my face against the wall. He didn’t have to be this rough with me, but he clearly wanted to. He lingered in my pocket even though it was empty, then moved to the front.
“I don’t have anything,” I repeated, hoping he would be quick. I didn’t like the way he was touching me. It was creepy and starting to freak me out. Thank go t
here were cameras in the hallway to stop him from doing worse.
“I need to check for drugs,” he said, moving his hand around in my pocket like it was a worm squiggling on the sidewalk after heavy rain. “What’s this?” he asked, pulling his hand out of my pocket and holding it up to my face. Pinched in between his chubby fingers was the gunpowder I had stolen from Trent’s package.
My heart jumped to my throat, and I found it hard to speak.
Karma was a bitch. Steal from Trent and pay the consequences. I couldn’t believe that I was getting caught over something so stupid. Why hadn’t I changed my pants or emptied the little pinch of gray powder out of them?
“Dirt, I guess,” I replied to the guard, trying to play it off as nothing.
To my surprise, the guard flicked the gunpowder onto the floor and jerked me away from the wall, leading me down the hall. I guess luck was on my side in some ways. In others, I was totally screwed. Even if I didn’t get in trouble over the gunpowder, I was going to get two days in a little room all by myself to think about what I had done.
“I’m going to check you into the detention center, then we’ll send you back to the dormitory if your record is clean,” the guard explained, leading me down the hall.
My record was far from clear at this point. I was in for a rough couple of nights, and I wondered if Trent would be worried about my sudden disappearance. Maybe he had gotten thrown in solitary confinement as well. Could that be the reason I hadn’t seen him today? There was no telling.
I dragged my feet as the guard pulled me along toward the detention center. I groaned as we passed through the door, and the woman at the front desk saw me again. I hated that I recognized her so well. I was beginning to feel like detention was my second home.
“I didn’t want to see you here again so soon, Samantha,” the woman said as the guard walked me in.
“A troublemaker, huh?” The guard asked as he pushed me toward the desk.
