Cruel Abandon

by S. Massery

  He grins. “Don’t tempt me.”

  I blanch.

  He disappears inside, and I step up to the threshold. It seems decidedly normal. A huge open room, kitchen and living room and dining room all separated by different furniture. I lean in, trying to see around the kitchen.

  “Skylar,” Liam barks. He strides back over, pausing about five feet away.

  I jump.

  “Why are you still out there?”

  “Um…” Why, indeed? Because I’m a wreck? Because while that kiss is burned into my memory, I’m afraid it might happen again?

  He raises his hands in surrender. “I’ll be a gentleman. One-time offer, but I’m good for my word.”

  I suck in a breath, then let it out. “Okay.”

  One vulnerable moment won’t kill me.

  12

  Liam

  Sky is a quiet force. She’s always had a magnetism about her. That’s why I got into trouble at Howl when she was there. I thought I had seen her in the crowd and Baker almost won because of it.

  I can’t remember the last time I’ve had a girl in my apartment. There’ve been quick fucks here and there, in cars or their apartment, but if you invite someone over, they suddenly don’t want to leave.

  Somehow, I don’t think Sky will have the same inclination.

  Not that I’d mind.

  Having her here is weirdly normal. Comfortable. As normal as it was to see her sitting at my dining room table in the mornings before high school. She occasionally caught a ride with me, but more often than not she was only there to escape her parents.

  They fought.

  Hard and loud.

  She never said as much, but I caught my parents talking about it a few times. How Sky had a feral look in her eyes after too much of it. Enough yelling would drive a person mad.

  So she took refuge with us, and more specifically, Jake.

  I hated that they were friends, or even remotely friendly.

  Sky was mine. I found her, I helped her climb out of the muck, I did that.

  Not Jake.

  Not her parents.

  And certainly no asshole named Mitchel Norton.

  Handcuffs—ha. If only she knew what was in his bedside drawer.

  “You’re staring,” she murmurs from my couch.

  It’s midnight, and I don’t know why the hell I’m awake. And I don’t know why I decided not to suffer in silence in my room. I could’ve counted the rotations of my ceiling fan, or sheep, or various fights.

  Instead, I carted my ass out of bed and curled up on the chair next to the couch.

  Sky had been sleeping, but sometime between my contemplating our weird childhood to now, she woke up.

  Maybe I’m a force, too.

  Or she just doesn’t like someone staring at her while she sleeps.

  “You okay?” She pushes herself upright, keeping the thick blanket wrapped snug around her. I’d given her one of my sweatshirts to sleep in, and the thing dwarves her.

  I sigh. “I didn’t want to wake you.”

  “But you did.” She raises her eyebrow. “So, spill.”

  “Your parents split, right?”

  She scoffs. “That’s what’s keeping you up at night? My parents’ divorce?”

  “No.” I roll my shoulders back. “I was actually just trying to count how many times I’d come downstairs for school and you’d be at our table.”

  She sucks her lower lip into her mouth. “They’re better separate. Happier.”

  “I’d hope so.” I had never seen more miserable people, and they were just dragging Sky down.

  “Do you think Natalie is alive?” she asks.

  I frown. Missing girls tends to get everyone nervous. Dead girls… that’s more definitive.

  Amber Huck is dead.

  Natalie is a huge fucking question mark, and that seems to scare people the most.

  “I don’t know,” I eventually say. “I don’t really want to think about it.”

  She draws her knees up to her chest. “It’s just… Amber had that boyfriend, right? The abusive one? Natalie wasn’t like that. She was a social girl, friends with everyone. Her parents are stupid rich, so there will probably be media attention on it.”

  “Her name and face will be in the paper,” I reply. “I don’t know how long you can go without being questioned for knowing her. Maybe you should give Dr. Penn a call.”

  She stiffens. “You think I might be questioned, and I should call my therapist? What the fuck, Liam?”

  I shrug.

  Last night, I thought about how many girls I had fucked—but how many did I hold an actual conversation with? Riley and Margo, sure, but they were my best friends’ girls. They were practically obligated to talk to me.

  “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do,” she grumbles. “I’m going to sleep. And if you plan on staying out here, I’m taking your bed.”

  I shrug. “Go for it.”

  Her eyes narrow. “Really.”

  “I’m not using it…” Yet. I can’t promise I won’t be tempted to climb in next to her. She’s safer out here, where the promise of being a gentleman is a firm reminder in front of me. The bedroom is a bit hazier. Gray area, so to speak.

  Maybe she knows that, because she just sinks lower on the couch and rolls onto her side. “Go to sleep, Liam.”

  Eventually, I will. But for now, I content myself with watching her settle into her dreams.

  I’ll grapple with these strange emotions later.

  13

  Sky

  The morning isn’t as awkward as I feared. He walks me back to my apartment, which is startlingly close to his, and leaves me at the door without so much as a backward glance. I tiptoe inside and punch the alarm. Worst-case scenario, Whitney is awake and ready to interrogate me about my whereabouts. Or she’ll still be crying.

  Instead, I find Taryn in my kitchen.

  “Oh,” I say, freezing in my tracks.

  She pauses, then nods. “Morning.”

  “What are you doing here?” I have a bad habit of foregoing pleasantries when I’m surprised.

  Taryn chuckles and sets down the coffee pot she was fiddling with. “I’m on Whitney duty,” she says. “We were all here last night. Me, Jeff, Tasha, Isa. I’m afraid Isa and I slept on your floor, unfortunately. Jeff was a mess, so we put him on the couch, and Tasha slept in Whitney’s room.”

  I squint.

  Jeff is Natalie’s boyfriend. It makes sense that he’d be here with the rest of her close friends, I suppose.

  “Are they still…?”

  “Sleeping?” Taryn supplies. “Jeff can sleep through anything. Seriously, I saw him once sleep through the final battle in the last Lord of the Rings. Who does that?”

  I smile. “No one with sensible hearing, I suppose.”

  She offers me a cup of coffee, and I reach out and take it from her. “Isa had to work. I think Tasha has an early class. I was going to hang out with Whit, just make sure she’s okay. The detective she talked to yesterday said Natalie’s parents are arriving today from North Carolina. Earliest they could come up.”

  Huh.

  Sounds like a mess I want to steer clear of in entirety.

  “And Whitney’s parents?” I ask.

  She shakes her head. “Haven’t heard anything.”

  From brief meetings with them on move-in days and when they’d come to visit, I only know the bare minimum. They’re still together, for one, even if it doesn’t count for much. They’re overprotective helicopter parents, too. My skin crawls at the idea of being raised by them.

  “Right.” I set my purse on the counter and grab the creamer, offering it to her before doctoring my own coffee.

  She leans against the opposite counter. I will say, Whitney’s friends came prepared. She has Halloween pajama pants on and a black hoodie. Fuzzy orange slippers. A little early for the creepy holiday, but whatever.

  I usually camp out in my room on Halloween. Too many masked people r
unning around stresses me out. It was one of the things Dr. Penn and I talked about every now and then: my irrational fear of masks.

  The full-faced ones, anyway.

  I went to my high school’s masquerade balls without a problem. People at that school wanted to look beautiful, and that resulted in petite masks that illustrated their lips or some other feature.

  Halloween is more of a gamble.

  “How many days ’til Halloween?” I ask.

  “Five!” Her quick grin slips away. “I hope things are back to normal by then.”

  Someone chokes in the living room, and Taryn rushes out. I follow slower.

  “Normal?” Whitney latches on to Taryn’s arm, eyes wild. There are dark circles under her eyes. “We won’t get a normal. We’ll either get a traumatized best friend back, or she’ll be—she’ll—”

  “Dead,” I finish. I ignore their flinches. “Did they ask you about Amber?”

  “What?”

  “The detective,” I snap. “McAdams’s partner. Did he—”

  “God, you’re like a bull in a china shop,” Whitney accuses. “They were asking me about Natalie. No one cares about a junkie who goes missing.”

  I narrow my eyes. “Huh?”

  Taryn tries to maneuver Whitney back toward her room. “Let’s not—”

  “Amber Huck was a partier. A fan of molly. Big hit with the frat guys.” Whitney glares at me. “Were you not paying attention to the fact that her ex-boyfriend killed her? He wouldn’t then take Natalie.”

  I resist the urge to shake her. “They’ve got to be related. Two Ashburn girls go missing, one right after the other?”

  “I don’t see the connection,” Taryn confesses. “Whitney’s right. They were polar opposites. It’s just bad timing.”

  I set down my mug. I can’t put my finger on why this is annoying me, but Whitney easily got under my skin, probably without even meaning to.

  “Fine,” I say. “Bury your head in the sand. Might want to get your little black dresses laundered, though.”

  Whitney gasps and lunges for me.

  I barely evade her, pushing her hands away from me. We grapple for a second, her nails clawing at me. I’m trying to be nice—it isn’t like I want to hurt her—but she manages to scratch my forearm. I shove her, and Taryn grabs her arm. At least someone other than me thinks Whitney’s being a bit ridiculous.

  It gives me time to slip down the hall. I run into my bedroom and slam the door, then quickly twist the lock. I step back, breathing hard. A second later, fists thump against the wood.

  “You bitch!” Whitney screams. “Why the fuck do you think you’re any different from Amber, huh? You’re a loner. No one would miss you if you turned up dead!”

  It doesn’t sting nearly as much as I thought it would.

  “Go to hell,” I reply, turning away. “Maybe you’ll see Natalie there.”

  They leave me alone after that, and I grudgingly pull out my books. I finish the homework I skimped out on last night and pack my bags, then slowly unlock the door.

  I sort of expect Whitney to be staked out in the hallway, but she’s not. Her door is closed, and the apartment is silent. She might’ve left. Man, I hope she left, but I don’t plan on sticking around to find out.

  I hurry to campus. The snow is already gone, and the cool wind snatches at my hair. I just need to survive a class, maybe skip the last one of the day and I can crawl into bed.

  But instead of a semblance of normalcy at school, I discover chaos.

  The dean of students stands with two detectives just outside the main administration building. There are uniformed police officers stationed nearby, seeming to be waiting for orders. I had literally just told Whitney there wouldn’t be a normal for her… I should’ve been thinking more broadly.

  “Ah, Ms. Buckley!” The dean hurries toward me. “Can you show Detective McAdams—”

  I glance over his shoulder at the woman. She’s already watching me, gaze hard. I don’t know what to make of her, but I get the distinct impression she doesn’t like me.

  Or maybe she’s suspicious.

  “Sorry, sir, I’m late.” I rush away, keeping my head ducked.

  He calls after me, but I take a calculated risk and ignore him. I pretend his words are carried off on the wind, never touching me.

  Concentration proves impossible in both my classes. My nerves are walking a tightwire, but I can’t let myself slack. Tomorrow, I have classes with Mitch and Liam, then Taryn. It should be an easier day than this isolation… unless Liam and Mitch decide to start something.

  Speaking of, I was supposed to meet him yesterday.

  I wince and open my phone as soon as the professor ends her lecture.

  I shoot him a quick text, apologizing for flaking. He was going to drop off notes to another classmate, then meet me for dinner.

  Mitch: You okay?

  He’s got to be the first guy who’s said that in response to a girl ditching him.

  Me: Yeah, I went home to be supportive. Natalie is her BFF.

  Is, not was.

  Verb tense has never been so stressful.

  She’s like Schrödinger’s cat—alive and dead at the same time. Both variations exist simply because we don’t know.

  Simple. When has life and death ever been simple?

  Mitch: Come to the library. I have a strawberry donut with your name on it.

  I grimace. I don’t think I’ve ever given him the indication that I enjoy strawberry. I’m more of a chocolate girl myself. Plain glaze donuts, sure. I might be on board with that. Fake-strawberry is the bane of my existence, including but not limited to ice cream, hard candies, and donuts.

  “You’re smiling.”

  I shove my phone in my pocket.

  Detective McAdams blocks my path, and she seems a bit frostier than before. I tuck away the fear that she was waiting for me.

  “I was talking to someone funny,” I inform her. “Humor goes a long way in morbid situations.”

  “Is that what this is?” She cocks her head. “Morbid?”

  “I’m not sure why you’re bothering with me,” I say instead, skirting around her. “Didn’t your captain warn you off of me?”

  She tuts. “I’m not asking you about Natalie. Wasn’t planning on it. Simply escorting you to… wherever you’re going.”

  I pause. “The library. But if I said home, would you walk me all the way there?”

  “Depends how far it is. These are new shoes.”

  “I hope you find Natalie, Detective,” I say.

  We reach the entrance to the library, one of the outermost buildings of campus. I put my hand on the door and turn to face her.

  She scans my face. I can’t tell what the hell she’s thinking, because her mask is almost as solid as the ones worn on Halloween. Maybe that’s why you don’t like her, a little voice whispers.

  “The press will be all over this,” she finally tells me. “Her parents are making a statement tonight, and after that…”

  I shake my head, unsure of where she’s going with this.

  “You just never know what they might dredge up.” She spins on her heel and follows the path back to the heart of campus.

  “Hey.” Mitch jogs down the steps. “Who was that?”

  “A detective,” I say slowly, staring after her.

  “Why was she talking to you?”

  I can’t let one conversation rattle me. Turning to him, I grin. “You look like you’re hard at work.”

  He rolls his eyes. “I think I need a coffee break. You want one?”

  After my night and morning fiascos? “Yes.”

  “Go get settled. You’ll see my bag. I’ll be right back.”

  I take a step after him, then stop. I can’t keep letting him buy me coffee—not if I’m going to be making out with Liam in shady bar bathrooms… Speaking of Liam. He’s already in the library, in one of the back alcoves. The big guy who was with him yesterday sits across from him, head on his fo
lded arms on the desk. He could very well be sleeping.

  Liam’s head lifts. His movements are always so precise, and I know it’s no mistake that when he glances around the room, his gaze lands on me immediately.

  I do what every rational girl would do in my situation.

  I ignore him.

  Mitch’s signature peacoat is easy to find, although my heart sinks a bit at the idea of being in the middle of the room. I’ve always preferred to be tucked out of the way.

  Still, I drag out a chair and sit with as much grace as I can muster.

  My phone buzzes almost immediately.

  Liam: Your ass looks good in those jeans.

  I scowl and set it back down.

  It goes off again, then a third time. The buzzing draws some disgruntled stares.

  Liam: Speaking of clothes, you gonna keep my sweatshirt?

  Liam: Setting a new record. First girl to sleep over, first girl to successfully steal my favorite hoodie…

  He’s verging on intolerable.

  Me: So, you’re saying I’m special?

  Liam: I didn’t say you weren’t. Why are you sitting over there?

  I twist around and raise my eyebrows at him.

  He smirks, setting down his phone and motioning for me to join him.

  I very slowly shake my head no, then face forward again.

  My new friendship with Mitch is fragile, but he seems like a nice guy. I can’t disrupt that by intentionally setting it on fire. And that would definitely happen if I sat with Liam and his friend.

  “I always liked that rebellious side of you, Buckley,” Liam says over my shoulder. “Too bad, though. Resistance is futile.”

  He gathers my notebook and book, my pen and backpack, even my damn water bottle, and walks away.

  I stare at the table in front of me for a second, aghast. He took everything. Even my phone. In a matter of seconds, while I just… let it happen.

  Why would I do that? He kisses me once and suddenly he can just… do whatever he wants? That isn’t going to fly.

  And that’s when Mitch walks back in with two coffees.