by Lucy Auburn
Even the predators know to only bite the jugular of prey. And I'll never be a predator like them. But I can work with them as a wolf in sheep's clothing, if they'll give me the chance.
"If you testify, what makes you think it'll take Hass down?" I ask Georgia. "After all, you just said his family has the influence and money to keep him from getting in trouble for a plane full of heroine."
"This is different." She raises her chin, and with one thumb, reaches out and smears the makeup off the edge of her jaw, all the way up to the place where her cheek meets her nose. Along the way a purple bruise is revealed, its swelling puffy and dark, and she winces even as she touches it. "He did this. To me. I'm far more valuable than a plane full of heroine. I am my father's daughter. He'll make sure Hass pays for what he did."
I study her for a moment, observing the careful way she holds herself, so as to not stretch or press against the bruise. When Hass backhanded her, I didn't imagine it would cause so much damage.
It occurs to me, not for the first time, how lucky I am that my father never hit me.
And how unlucky Silas was that he hit him.
"It sounds like you don't need my help. You could just testify on your own—and maybe you should." I watch Georgia's face fall into a scowl at my words, and wonder if she expected that she could just waltz in here and I'd fall in line. "After all, you're Georgia Johnson. I'm nobody—sorry, I'm Brenna Wilder. You know that."
Gritting her teeth despite the flash of pain that shows in her eyes, Georgia says, "If you're expecting me to apologize, fat chance."
"Like I said, it doesn't sound like you need my help. Or do you?"
"You know that a woman's testimony doesn't matter if there's just one of her. Double if she's just a girl." She scowls at me, her red brows drawing sharply together. Jerking her chin towards the guys, she says, "Did you make them apologize to you? Or is it only girls like me who are expected to say they're sorry for being what we are."
Her words startle me, not least because they echo thoughts I've had myself. The Elites could run around this campus knocking people over like bulldozers without a single word of contrition falling from their perfect lips, and no one would care at all. They'd be allowed to grow up, to mature, to turn a new leaf and put it all behind them without being forced to reflect.
Girls like me—girls who grow desperate and angry, who steal and hurt others, on purpose or on accident—are expected to prostrate ourselves, noses to the ground, to get back into society's good graces. No one makes allowances for our damaged hearts and missing pieces. We are not allowed to sin and be forgiven.
Girls like me, and girls like Georgia.
She adds, "Everyone was going to find out who you were eventually. Secrets don't keep around here. They spoil and go rotten. I just saved you from your own lies."
"You didn't do it because you wanted to expose me for lying. And as for the guys, they're shitheads who should atone for everything they've done, but we both know this isn't about them. It's about the two of us and no one else." I meet her gaze head-on, ignoring the grumbling from the guys behind us and holding my hand up towards them to make it clear they're not meant to interrupt. "What you did, Georgia, you did because you were angry and spiteful. And the only way I'm going to do this with you, while trusting you and putting my neck out for you, is if I know that you can be trusted."
Grumbling, she asks rhetorically, "Whatever happened to girls sticking together? I know, I know—you'll just say I fucked that up by being a bitch. Well, I can't make you trust me. But you won't be the only one sticking your neck out. Think about that."
I consider her words. "I'll think about it. And get back to you tomorrow. If we're going to do this, I want to be sure."
"Don't take too long. This whim of mine has an expiration date." Reaching up to cup her cheeks, she wryly adds, "It's probably about as long as it takes for the bruises to fade. Once they're gone, though, so is our evidence, and my incentive to testify."
"I won't take too long."
"Hmmm." Jerking her eyes away from me, she glances back at the guys, and calls out to Tanner, "I hope breaking up with me was worth it, Connally. You'll never get a girl like me again."
"Ain't that the truth," he says, but his tone puts a very different spin on it than what she meant. "There are no girls like you out there, Georgia Johnson. As God as my witness I hope I never meet another girl like you again."
"Whatever." She rolls her eyes dramatically. "Look at you, acting Southern. Like you weren't born with the same silver spoon in your mouth as the rest of us."
"What would you know, Princess."
"Enough to know I'm better off without you." Flipping her hair over her shoulder, like she's not sporting a bruise from the boyfriend she got since she and Tanner broke up, Georgia hands me a slim card. "My number. I assume you don't have any professional business cards, so I'll give you mine. Call me when you've made up your mind—and don't balls out on me."
I scrunch up my nose. "Balls what now?"
"Pussies are strong. It's testicles that shrivel up at the first sign of cold or a little kick. Remember that when you're deciding if you should testify or not. I won't go without you—I'm not sticking my neck out alone."
With a smirk on her face, she shoots Tanner a parting look, turns on her heels, and walks out of the study area, every inch a confident young woman.
I always thought that it had to be one of two ways: either women let themselves be hit because they're weak, or they leave because they're strong. Seeing Georgia with Hass, and now later the very same day, I realize how wrong I was to believe that it was that easy.
Georgia Johnson isn't a coward.
She just doesn't know how to stand up to Hass alone.
Loathe as she is to admit it, she needs me.
I just don't know if I'm as strong as her—strong enough to get up when I'm knocked down and keep going. That's a kind of strength the world has never asked of me. I have a decision to make, and I can only make it alone, preferably after a good night's sleep.
Turning back to the boys, I consider my options. When Cole opens his mouth to say something, I shake my head at him. "This isn't your business, for once. Let me make this decision on my own. It's mine to make." He frowns, and before he can argue, I add, "Unless you were planning on telling me more about this mysterious criminal organization I'm up against?"
Silence all around, though Blake looks mulish about it. "That's what I thought. If you're going to let me walk into the darkness without a light, the least you can do is let me make my own decision about which way to go. I'm alone in this. Don't pretend otherwise."
Reaching out, I take Silas's laptop out of Lukas's bag, ignore the guilty look he sends my way, and walk away from the Elites without saying goodbye.
It's time I figure out what I'm going to do without them and their help behind me. I need to know if I can stand on my own in this, the fight that matters most of all, one only I can finish.
Georgia was right. Some things are best left to us girls.
Early the next morning, I get up before Holly—an achievement all on its own—and slip out the door, needing time and space to think. Part of me wishes I could talk to Holly herself about this, but whatever our rekindled relationship is, it's not quite friendship. At least not yet, and even then, I don't know if we'll ever have the kind of friendship where we can talk about the things I'm doing with the Elites.
Maybe if I'd never stolen from her. Or if she'd never found out—a selfish thought I cringe I even let myself consider. But at the end of the day there's no forcing friendship, especially one like this. I have to just let myself accept the fact that I'm lucky Holly even lets me live with her now.
Pulling my coat on, I head out towards the front steps of Rosalind Hall and take them down two at a time. The air is cold with winter and the recent night, the sun still rising on the horizon. Around me a strong wind whips through the stripped branches of the old oak trees, yellow and orange autumnal lea
ves fluttering through the air. I flip my jacket collar up as the wind bites into me, wishing I had one of the down jackets I've seen rich Coleridge kids put on, effortlessly warm and fashionable.
I haven't yet decided if I can trust Georgia.
It's not just that it's unwise—I've heard the tale of the scorpion and the frog. It's also the fact that whenever I think of taking her hand and agreeing to testify with her, the fire inside me growls and snarls, rising up in anger.
It was one thing to reluctantly work with the Elites against Hass.
Teaming up with Georgia would be another thing entirely. She didn't try to chase me away from campus out of a misguided worry for my safety or the desire to get me to stop digging. Her only motivation was cruelty, pure and simple. And she changes with whatever way the wind blows. Working with her means accepting that she's unpredictable and uninterested in my safety. It's a dangerous thing.
But the only path forward that I can see. Without her, I'll just be a lone witness to Hass's crimes, and I doubt anyone who matters will give a damn, even with the Elites backing me up. All their vague references seem to suggest that the enemy we're up against is much bigger than Hass and his rich parents. The disgraced governor has something to do with it, along with that girl in his son's trunk and the police chief told not to look into my identity fraud.
More than one person is at the top of this pyramid looking down, holding impossible amounts of power in their hands, wielding it against anyone they see fit to strike down. All I have between me and them are four cruel boys who've kissed me and cursed me in turns, and a girl with red hair who loathes me like it's a full-time job.
The part of it that stings the most is knowing that they're all I'll ever have in this, and that I deserve them, because we're more alike than I want to believe. Their cruelty, their pettiness, all of it lives in me. Fuels me. Makes me betray people who are better, more pure than me.
I find myself wandering off the beaten, paved paths of Coleridge's campus, towards uneven ground that hasn't been tamed. I've walked far enough from the residence halls that I'm getting close to the visitors center now, and with it the wolves. Even though my disastrous night with the four predators was more cold and exhausting than frightening, I haven't been able to bring myself back since. Walking past them reminds me of four other predators I'm now trapped with, for good or ill.
Curving past the tall fence that keeps the wolves in, I find a sloping path, unpaved, that leads towards the rear part of the grounds. My calves are starting to ache, along with my lungs and throat; the cold air and sloping ground is challenging. Unlike Holly and some of the other girls here, I only exercise when forced to, and don't own hundreds of dollars worth of athletic wear to cushion my feet and keep my ears warm. I hate that I'm so different from them. Maybe if Georgia and I were alike in other ways I would know how to trust her. As it is, I only see the worst parts of me, and the best of her, when I look at her freckled face and bright red hair.
The ground beneath my shoes is covered in a thick layer of fallen pine needles. They cushion my steps, and as I walk down a steeper slope, start to slide beneath my feet. Grabbing a nearby tree trunk, I'm struck by the ribbon of red plastic sticking out of it, like some kind of tape or rope was yanked away and left some part of itself behind. The sight nags at part of my mind, but I can't figure out what it is, so I move on.
Walking through the trees reminds me of that scorching kiss with Blake—the first and the ones that followed it, his body responding to mine. I don't think he faked his attraction to me, but I have no idea what to think of the rest.
A boy like him falling in love with a girl like me must be a colossal joke. A mistake. Some kind of game or lie.
But he watched for me, to make sure I was safe.
He worries for me.
So does Lukas. Even Cole seems to want to protect me—though from what, he'll never say. Tanner... is a feral beast unto himself, impossible to predict. They care for me, though. I've seen it since everything changed the night of the storm. It wasn't just cruelty that made them try to push me away.
I don't know why my heart races when I think of them. I don't understand why the thought of kissing one makes me worry what the other three will think. Some part of me must have gone mad the night of the kidnapping, my good senses leaving me along with my presence of mind when the chloroform hit my bloodstream.
I keep moving through the woods, past the tame part of campus, because the alternative is standing here with my thoughts and going slowly mad. In the distance, I can see the fence, barbed wire and concrete posts. I can't even tell anymore if it's meant to keep others out or us in.
Something gives beneath my foot.
Yelling in surprise, I look down to see that the ground has softened and slid out from beneath my. My ankle rolls to one side, useless beaten-up tennis shoes doing nothing to support my foot.
Cringing, I try to step away from the soft ground—
And the earth itself falls away beneath my feet, dropping me down into a deep, dark pit several feet down.
Chapter 19
Darkness. That's all that I can sense at first, along with the cold wet of earth all around me, soft beneath my searching fingers. Above me, I can see the distant, cloudy winter sky, and I force myself to stand on my twisted ankle and reach up towards it.
My arms aren't long enough to grab the top.
Heart pounding, I reach into my pocket for my phone—and remember, too late, that I left it in my room. I wanted to be alone to consider my next steps; I didn't want anything, including social media, to come between me and my thoughts.
The one time I forgot that I'm a member of Generation Z.
Running through the options, I realize that no one is going to come for me for quite some time. The groundskeeper checks on the wolves, sure, but I purposefully beelined away from their enclosure. Classes are going to start, and while my absences will be noted by the teacher, they'll probably assume I'm just another Coleridge kid playing hooky, at least until I don't come back to my room.
That's assuming, of course, that Holly notices me missing—and misses me. Other than quick hellos and goodbyes, we've barely spoken two words to each other most of this week, and we share a class together.
Closing my eyes, I go over the block schedule I got for this semester, trying to figure out if one of the teachers might notice me gone and actually report it as a problem instead of assuming it's just another skip day.
8:00-9:30 French I
9:35-11:05 Advanced Biology
11:10-11:45 Lunch
11:50-1:20 Intro to Economics
1:25-3:00 Music Study
Only the music teacher would be likely to notice me missing, because Mr. Hall, out of all my teachers, knows that I like the class. The others, I've been skimming by in at best all week, because I knew that I was going to take Hass down and possibly leave Coleridge forever afterwards. It didn't seem worthwhile to stand out in class or try to ace my first biology quiz when I knew the grades likely wouldn't matter.
Now that I'm stuck in a hole, reliant on my teachers caring that I'm gone to get out of it, I wish that I'd paid more attention.
It looks like I'll be getting myself out of this pit. Hopping on my good foot to the edges of it, I feel at the dirt. The walls of the hole are almost perfectly flat, as if created by a machine—and of course it probably was. No doubt the red ribbon I noticed on the tree outside was once part of a barrier tape warning students not to go further out.
Some jackasses who wanted to get drunk and high on campus without getting caught probably tore it down, leaving no visible signage for the rest of us to see and avoid any construction. The board that wobbled and broke beneath my feet came down here with me, the WARNING sign across it buried in pine needles.
Between this and the sewage in my room, I'll be signing a lot of agreements not to sue Coleridge. All that's left is a little food poisoning and I'll have the trifecta of on campus hazards at my disposal.
&
nbsp; Sighing, I shove my hands into the wet earth, grateful that it's mixed with natural clay this deep, and try to get leverage to pull myself up. It's hard going—I've never had much upper body strength—but I manage to get myself up off the ground enough to shove my left foot into a similar toe hold in the earthen wall. Buoyant, I dare to stretch my twisted ankle out and push my toes against the earth, hoping to be able to push myself up enough that I can make it to the top.
My ankle screams at me almost immediately, and the pain is bad enough that I jerk back from the wall, hop down, and curse my own clumsiness yet again. If I make it out of this I'm enrolling in Coleridge's free yoga classes, held in the Coleridge Center every Thursday. Apparently I could use the improved coordination, stat.
For several long, impossibly lonely minutes, I try to pull myself up to no avail. Abandoning that, I tilt my head up towards the distant sky and yell, wishing the delinquents who tore down the caution tape would show up in the morning instead of the evening. Classes will start soon, and I want to wash all the mud I can off me before I have to show up and attempt to conjugate French verbs for over an hour.
Eventually even my throat is hoarse, and I start to wonder if anyone will notice me gone.
There's very little sun down here, so it's getting cold already. The damp invades my jacket and shirt. More and more by the second, my ankle throbs with mind-numbing pain.
Then I hear footsteps in the distance. The sound of someone jogging nearby. Clearing my throat, I start to yell for help. "Hey! I'm—" My throat dries up, and I have to stop to cough for a while. Long seconds are lost to my hacking. By the time I'm done, a whole minute has passed.
Frantic, I listen for the footsteps, but I can't hear them anymore. Whoever they are, they've moved on.
Despair sets in, and I close my eyes. The darkness on the back of my eyelids doesn't look that different from the darkness of the hole. Everything about it is all-consuming. It's stupid, because I know that someone will find me eventually, but I can't help but feel abandoned. Everyone leaves me. Silas. Dad. Mom. Everyone.
