by Josie Max
“I bet it’s just sealed up. Maybe stuff got stuck down there over time. Who’s ready to head out? Violet, you want to come over? I could order pizza.” Arabella shrugged her bag onto her shoulder.
“You’re leaving?” Knight asked.
“Yeah, what else is there to do? I only wanted to find it. It’s not like I had big plans to stuff bodies down there,” Arabella said with a laugh.
I chuckled, but it faded the moment I realized Knight wasn’t laughing.
“Don’t tell me you plan to bury bodies down here?” I asked and swallowed, uncertain as to how he would answer.
“None that you know of.” His lips curled.
“Okay. Creepy. Totally going to leave now. Violet, you coming with?”
“We’re just going to keep the enormous gaping hole here? What if a janitor comes down in the morning or your father?” I waved at Arabella.
“I’ll clean up. You two leave. I wanted to check on a few things before I left.”
Arabella placed her arm around me, pulling me toward the stairs.
She leaned over and whispered, “He probably brought a tape measure. Wants to see if he can fit a body down there. I admit, he’s hot, and I don’t blame you for letting Knight snatch that V-card with gusto. But—”
“But what?”
We made it to the top of the stairs when she stopped me and placed her hands on my shoulders. “He has never been the same since his parents died. Sure, he was the typical spoiled rich kid before, but now . . .. Let’s just say if a body showed up here, he’d be the first person on my suspect list.”
I nibbled at my lip because a part of me thought Arabella was right about Knight.
TWENTY
Violet
“OH MY GOD, CAN YOU believe they have an on-site spa facility with massages available any time of the day or night?” Arabella said as we made our way back to the bus.
“I know and the campus is beautiful.” I spun around, soaking in the gorgeous mountains that framed the campus.
Today was the senior field trip and we were enjoying the day at Winter River University. As I found out from our college guide, Green Hills Academy was the only school in the country allowed to tour the campus.
Arabella and I strolled up to the bus. The door was open, but our driver wasn’t around. I checked my cell phone. “We’re a little early.”
“Really? Because there’s an ice cream cone vendor just across the quad.” Arabella pouted.
“Honestly, I’m full from the sushi bar in the dining hall. You go get your ice cream, I’ll wait on the bus.”
She clapped her hands, “Yay. I promise I won’t be long.”
Arabella hitched up her backpack and dashed off. I waited out in front of the bus but there was a chill from the cool early autumn breeze that had me eying the warm seats inside. It was much cooler up here in the mountains then back at Green Hills.
I glanced around to see if anyone else was coming back.
No one. I was both relieved and disappointed. All the seniors, except for Knight, went on the field trip. I guess if your family founded the university, you didn’t need a tour.
But he wasn’t the reason I was relieved, it was Seraphina. She had been extra salty to me today. The entire bus ride was her and her friends, making comments about how I was too poor to even consider going to Winter River. That it was sad how I was tormenting myself by attending the field trip.
I did my best to ignore her and the rest of kids on the bus as they laughed at whatever Seraphina said about me. But by the end of the bus ride, she was getting under my skin.
The beautiful campus and the wonderful people I met at Winter River helped me forget about Seraphina once we toured the campus.
I sighed as I stepped up the steps into the lavish, chartered bus. Another Seraphina reminder—her family donated the bus to the school just for the seniors.
The seats were wide and plush. Each had its own little table. And there was a bathroom in the back that didn’t smell like a used diaper.
The driver parked the bus on an angle as the parking lot was on a slope since the campus took up the side of a mountain. I held onto the seats as I made my way to mine in the empty bus.
When we toured the marketing department, I got into a discussion with a professor. I impressed her with how I ran the social media accounts in my old school. When I went to South Green High, all they had was a Socialbook account where they posted pictures of the faculty smiling at their desks.
When I joined the media club at South Green, I suggested we take over the school’s social media sites. I got the school on HitLoc, and after working with the cheerleaders, we were trending doing routines to old songs.
The marketing professor gave me her email and told me to reach out in a few days. I was hoping she might put in a kind word for me so I’d get the chance to apply.
The sound of giggling caught my attention and as I looked up, my heart fell. It was Seraphina and her bitch squad.
“I knew it smelled like a dead rat in here,” she sneered at me.
Not even Seraphina was going to bring me down on the ride home. I was one step closer to getting into my dream school.
“You’re so original, Seraphina. You must have the biggest brain in the world to come up with that. Rats. So clever.” I smirked.
They didn’t go to their seats, just hung by the door. One of her friends kept looking back outside, like they were waiting for someone.
“You know Knight came to visit me last night. That’s probably why he isn’t here today. So tired. We were up all night,” she said with a yawn.
“Right.” I rolled my eyes.
I had noticed Knight wasn’t there when I went to bed last night. Since we fucked at the party on Saturday, almost a week ago, he came into my room every night this week, except for last night.
Seraphina frowned. “I’m sorry. He told me not to tell you.”
Glancing out the window, I searched for Arabella but I couldn’t find her.
“He wanted his USB drive back.”
“What are you even talking about, Seraphina?”
Like Knight having a USB drive meant anything to me. Most people had one.
One of her friends, the one I called brunette bitch, tugged on Seraphina’s sleeve. “Come on, Seraphina, we have to go.”
“Alright, Dani. I know. I just need to tell Violet how Knight was the one with the footage of her naked in the pool house.”
I blinked as a pounding erupted in my ears.
“That’s not true.”
My mind raced back to the day when the mayor and his creepy buddies tried to rape me. When I saw Knight coming out of the pool house that evening with something in his hand.
Had he planted a camera in my bedroom? It made sense because why else would he sneak into the pool house after I left. Knight must have gone back in to remove the camera.
“So, he put the footage in the school film?” I asked more to myself than to Seraphina, but she heard me.
“No, that bit of mastery was me. Well, the film student I hired. It’s amazing what a college student would do for fifty bucks.”
I stood and marched toward the bus door. There was no Arabella around to hold me back from punching Seraphina in the face.
“You fucking bitch!” I screamed as I stood at the top of the three steps that led to the ground.
She stepped back, along with her squad, and lifted her key ring. Seraphina pressed her key fob and the doors to the bus closed. I ran down the steps and pushed.
She had locked the doors. I banged on them and yelled at the top of my lungs, “Let me out!”
She shook her head and laughed. Seraphina waved at me and mouthed, “Bye, bitch,” before her and her friends strolled away.
Taking a few breaths, I gave up on the door and went back up the steps. Once I made it to my seat, I was too angry to enjoy the leaves on the trees changing colors or the red brick buildings.
Knight was lying to me. For a guy
who wanted me to stay, he was doing his best to mess with my head. I hated that when I saw him warmth bloomed between my thighs.
I hated him. Despised his very being. But when he touched me, all I wanted to do was rip his clothes off.
I coughed out a hard laugh. Of course, he was the one who filmed me naked in my bedroom. He was all too eager to film me almost being raped. Knight played it off like he rescued me. That was bullshit.
Maybe the reason he wanted me to stay wasn’t to protect me at all. It was to film me getting raped.
He used his sister as an excuse. To pull on my heartstrings. But it wasn’t for that at all.
He wanted me in the house because the mayor, and maybe even him too, could just walk right into my bedroom and have their way with me. There was nowhere I could hide. Not even that attic.
Hot tears trickled down my cheeks. I wanted to roll up into a ball and disappear. Once the trip was over, I was taking Arabella up on her offer. I would not spend another night in the King home.
Glancing out the window, I saw Arabella holding a large waffle cone in her hand, licking the blue ice cream piled on top. She saw me and waved. From that distance, she couldn’t tell I was crying. That Seraphina had won. That the queen bitch had broken me.
I lifted my shaking hand to wave back, but then I noticed the scene outside move. Arabella stopped and lowered her cone.
It wasn’t the outside moving, it was me. The bus was rolling down the hill. Arabella dropped her cone and ran toward the bus. But what could she do?
I pushed out of my seat and pulled myself toward the front. It wasn’t easy. With the bus rolling, the incline increased, making it hard to move toward the front of the bus.
It took some strength, but I got down the steps and pushed on the door. It wouldn’t budge. No matter how much I kicked or shoved, the doors remained closed.
My head whipped around as I frantically searched for an emergency release button.
I found nothing.
There was a pain in my chest as I realized I was trapped. Despite not finding any release button, I pushed and pulled anything I found, just in case.
Within seconds, I pulled myself into the driver’s seat. The bus bumped and I heard horns blaring as the bus rolled out of the parking lot and into traffic.
I did my best to steer as I was going backward in a large bus. It helped, and the wheels turned easily. I just had to maneuver the thing to a spot that was flat and away from other cars.
My feet pressed the pedals on the floor, hoping to discover the brake pedal. All the pedals went straight to the floor—they had no pressure.
I grit my teeth as I cursed to myself. No matter what I pressed or pulled, nothing worked.
As I keep watch in the rear-view mirror, I notice a flat area just around the curve of the road. Sucking in a breath, I steadied myself for the only option I had to stop the bus.
It would require me to cut through to the other side of the road, but what choice did I have left?
I was sweating so much I thought I would pass out. Blinking, I noticed a small opening in the cars and jerked the wheel. There was one catch with this option—at the end of the flat bit of road was a guardrail with nothing on the other side of it. Just a drop off the mountain.
The bus bounced as it ran over the curb and onto the flat surface. I hoped the curb slowed the thing down. There was nothing I could do but buckle myself in and wait for my fate.
I scrambled to grab the seat belt and after a few frantic attempts, I got the buckle secure. If the bus went over, at least I wouldn’t see it. I closed my eyes and held onto the seat belt as if that would help.
The bus slowed, but what slowed it was the guardrail. I heard metal scraping and I chanted the word please repeatedly. There was a bump and the bus tilted.
But it finally stopped.
I let out the longest breath of my life. Turning my head, I saw cars and people. They had stopped to come help. A police car showed up, too.
I was about to reach for my belt buckle when the bus tilted even more. The bus made a loud groan and a horrific scrapping sound.
I glanced back right at the moment that the bus slipped over the ledge. It raced down the side of the mountain. My body bounced and the only thing I could make out were trees, lots of them. The bus was racing toward them.
There was a thump right before everything went black.
TWENTY-ONE
Violet
“VIOLET, HONEY, THANK God you’re okay,” Aunt Dahlia said as she came to my side.
I blinked. It was white. An annoying beeping sound kept going off.
“Shut that off,” I mumbled trying to lift my arm, but a shooting pain stopped me.
“Violet, just rest. Do you remember what happened?”
“Huh?”
I tried to turn my head, but something prevented me from moving. A memory flashed in my head.
The bus.
“Do you remember the crash?”
I stared at my aunt, confused at what she was talking about. My brain felt foggy like when I was sixteen and had to get my wisdom teeth removed. The dentist gave me a drug that made it hard to form any thoughts. “I-I don’t remember.”
My mouth was dry. I kept licking my lips.
“Perfect timing. I see she’s awake,” a woman said as she walked into the room.
She had red, wavy hair and smiled.
“I’m Doctor Phillips. Do you know why you’re here, Violet?”
“No.” My eyes roamed the room. “I’m thirsty.”
“I’ll have the nurse give you some water.”
Both Aunt Dahlia and I listened as the doctor told me I had clavicle fracture and whiplash. That’s why it hurt when I tried to lift my arm.
“How long will she have to wear the brace on her neck?” my aunt asked.
“Only for a few more days. But the arm brace will be a few weeks. Then I’ll prescribe physical therapy.”
My aunt nodded and placed her hand on mine.
“Why don’t I remember?”
I wanted to remember what had happened, but all I knew was not being able to get off that bus. But why?
The doctor sighed. “I think part of the memory loss is because of the pain medication you’re on. You’ve been in and out of sleep for the last twelve hours.”
What? It’s been twelve hours. The last thing I could remember outside of the bus was being at Winter River University. But I had no memory of why I was there.
“And the other part?” my aunt asked.
“The accident. Violet, you hit your head pretty hard. That’s why you’re still here. We’re going to keep you for the next twelve hours. After your aunt approved the CT scan, we found you had a concussion.”
I wanted to leave and figure out what had happened but keeping my eyes open was exhausting. I must have fallen back asleep because when I opened my eyes again, my aunt was gone and Arabella was sitting in the chair next to my bed.
“Oh my god, you’re awake.”
“Yes.” I blinked. “Water.”
My mouth felt like a desert on a sunny July day.
“Right. Your aunt told me you had asked for water before.” She reached over to a table beside my bed that I hadn’t realized was there and held up the Styrofoam cup with a straw.
It was embarrassing having to rely on someone to get me water. But once the refreshing liquid hit my tongue, I realized it was worth all the shame.
A short time later, she pulled the cup away.
“Sorry, the nurse said not to have too much. You might get sick. And while I don’t mind giving you water, even feeding you, I will not clean up your puke. Sorry, there’s a line a girl won’t cross.” She winked.
I tried to smile, but it was hard. My face felt stiff and swollen. Ugh, I probably looked like a drunken clown from the accident.
“What happened?” I asked. My voice was louder this time, but groggy.
“You were in the bus when it rolled away. We were all confused why you
didn’t jump out. Not to mention how the bus started rolling downhill to begin with. Seraphina told us her dad fired the driver.”
A memory came back.
“Seraphina . . .” I mumbled.
Arabella nodded. “Yes, she tore into the driver. Man, you should have seen it. She told him she endangered the life of a fellow student and could have had us all killed. As if she cared about you. I think she was just saying all that to not look like the harpy that got the bus that brought you to the hospital.”
I tried shaking my head but remembered I had the brace on. “No, Seraphina locked me in the bus.”
I gulped breaths. It wasn’t easy talking.
“What? She said her and her friends were hanging by the fountain when they saw the bus roll away. That lying bitch.” Arabella pushed her hands on her hips.
“You have a visitor.” The nurse showed up and just behind her was Knight.
My stomach twisted and a sense of unease washed over me. Seraphina told me something about Knight, but I couldn’t remember what it was.
“Hi.” He waved before running his fingers through his hair. “Looks like I missed all the fun.”
“Yeah, it was crazy. And Violet just told me that Seraphina locked her on the bus.”
His nose flared. “Why?”
Arabella shrugged. “Because she’s a bitch.”
Knight turned his steely gray gaze on me. I blinked, frustrated that I couldn’t remember what Seraphina had said to me. Why had she locked me on the bus?
“I don’t know.”
Knight let out a breath. Maybe it was the pain meds, but he seemed relieved.
“Her aunt said she had trouble remembering things about the accident.”
“Is she still here?” My mouth was getting dry again and I eyed the cup of water.
“She went home to change and shower. She came straight here from Wichita and stayed all night with you. I told her to get some rest and that I’d call her when it was time to pick you up.” Arabella smiled.
“But you live with me,” Knight said, his voice laced with irritation.
“Uh, it’s her aunt.”
Knight took a step forward, slipping his hand over mine. “But she lives with me. She’s been living with me for weeks. I can take care of her.”
