Stranded

by Chance Carter

  When Jake poured me a glass of soda and shoved a licorice toward my mouth, I realized that Jake wasn’t just trying to make the best of it for himself.

  “I’m fine,” I said, swatting his hand away. “You don’t need to fret over me or try to make me forget that the girl I like massively rejected me by way of an overabundance of pizza. I’m over it.”

  I wasn’t over it. I still didn’t understand why Dallas was so upset that day, but I hadn’t had a chance to talk to her since then. She was constantly surrounded by Wes or his goons, and she hadn’t come by her dad’s shop once since the day I asked her to prom. At least, not while I was around.

  “Okay, okay.” Jake put up his hands in surrender. “You’ve just been a little glum lately. Can you blame a guy for trying?”

  I smacked him on the back and pushed him toward the couch. “I’ll be in a better mood after I kick your ass at Super Smash Bros. How about that?”

  He gnawed on a Red Vine and tossed a controller at me. I slumped down next to him as the credits flashed on the screen.

  “This might make you feel a little better,” he said. “I hear that Dallas pushed Wes through a glass window at the Gromley party tonight.”

  I froze. “Dallas is at the Gromley party?”

  Jake nodded. He didn’t notice my distress, too busy selecting options for our melee on the screen. “Yeah. My friend Duncan from Science is over there. Said it’s cuckoo bananas. Not our kind of scene but I would’ve killed to see that asshole get knocked down a peg or two.”

  What would possess sweet, shy Dallas to push a guy through a window? I could only imagine the kind of horrors she was experiencing over there right now. Wes was probably furious that she’d humiliated him at his own party. What was she doing there anyway?

  “I don’t understand why Dallas would go to that party,” I said. “She’s not that kind of girl.”

  “I don’t know why either,” Jake said with a shrug. He grabbed another Red Vine and lowered it into his mouth from above. “Makes sense why she said she wasn’t going to prom though.”

  “She can’t be having a nice time.”

  “You sure about that? I think I’d be having a great time if I got to push Wes through a window. That would be the most fun I’d had all year.”

  I looked over at him, and the gravity in my expression wiped the smile right off his face.

  “You don’t know her, Jake. She’s not the kind of girl who’d get drunk and go cuckoo bananas. She shouldn’t even be there in the first place. Her dad would have a shit fit if he knew. Wes and Sasha probably dragged her there.”

  Jake read the intent in my eyes a second before I even started to put down the controller.

  “Nuh-uh,” he said, throwing an arm over my chest to keep me down. “You are not going to that party. Gromley and his friends will rip you apart if they see you there.”

  “Then I’ll make sure they don’t see me.” I tossed his arm away and rose to my feet before he could stop me.

  “Shane, please. You’re gonna get yourself killed. Fucking around with Wes is one thing, but his dad is a whole other ball game.”

  “What choice do I have? Dallas is over there, and she could be in danger.”

  “She made that choice.”

  I shook my head, grabbing my wallet from my backpack and shoving it in my back pocket. “We don’t know that. Even if she did choose to go there, she’s in over her head, and she probably knows that by now. And even if, by some miracle, she’s having a good time and I leave there without her, at least I’ll know she’s okay.” I started for the door. “I’m sorry man, but I won’t be able to relax until I know she’s safe.”

  “Don’t be a hero!”

  I didn’t answer him. The conversation was over, as far as I was concerned. He could be pissed at me all he wanted, and maybe I’d just ruined one of our last nights together, but I would never forgive myself if I turned a blind eye and something happened to Dallas. There wasn’t another option for me, simple as that.

  I hopped on my bike and jetted into the darkness, winding through Sitka Valley’s damp streets all the way to the outskirts of town, where the Gromleys lived in a gauche mansion that I’d never seen clean. There was always some grungy party or another taking place inside, and the couple times I’d been over here for football events had disgusted me. Sure, I lived in a trailer, but there weren’t cigarette butts and empty beer cans littered around my place like decorations, and nobody ever opened my bathroom door to find a drunk girl passed out inside from the night before.

  I killed my bike at the bottom of the drive and hid it in a bush in case someone recognized it. I would have to play this smart. Pulling my hoodie up over my head, I shoved my hands in my pockets and looked down at the ground in front of me as I sauntered up the drive. I had to look like I belonged here. The only people who would recognize me were people from school, and they were probably already too drunk right now to notice as long as I kept my head down.

  The music vibrated through the pavement, heavy bass beats tickling my sneakers. People were screaming and laughing, one even howled to the moon. They spilled out from the front of the house like sand and coated the front steps, the smoke of dozens of cigarettes twisting off into the air. I pushed my way through the stale-smelling crowd. Nobody moved aside for me, but it was because they didn’t seem to notice me at all. I was a ghost drifting through the darkness.

  The smell of beer and weed hit me the second I walked through the front door. People loitered in the hallway. Some of them were talking, but others were passed out against the wall. The music was coming from the far end of the hall in the living room, and I glimpsed a crowd of people there pulsing and grinding to the electronic rhythm.

  A sickly looking girl with bleached hair and dark roots disengaged herself from the wall and staggered toward me. She couldn’t have been much older than me.

  “Hey sexy,” she drawled, lurching forward.

  I reached out to hold her up. “You okay?”

  She cackled. I didn’t understand what was so funny about what I said, but she found it fucking hilarious.

  “You’re too sweet to be in a place like this, sugar.” She stroked a long fingernail down my cheek and stared up at me with bloodshot eyes. “You sure you didn’t take a wrong turn on the way to Chuck E. Cheese?”

  “Unfortunately.”

  “How about I go show you a different kind of good time?” she said. “You seem like you could use it.”

  While I was still forming an answer, a man came up behind my new friend and grabbed her tits from behind.

  “Come on, tramp. I’ve got a job for you,” he growled.

  I recognized that voice. Vinnie, one of the doormen at Preston’s club. He probably wouldn’t remember me, since we’d only met once, but I started to skirt away from the scene anyway.

  “I was going to hang out with that young guy,” the girl complained.

  Vinnie pushed her toward the stairs, and she stumbled, landing on her hands and knees. “Did I fucking stutter?”

  I desperately wanted to help the girl, but I knew that would only end with me being recognized. Vinnie disgusted me. Everyone associated with the Gromleys disgusted me. I gritted my teeth and kept walking, trying not to look at the doped out faces of the hallway specters.

  There were a couple of guys from the football team on the dance floor in the living room, but I kept to the outer edges of the room and tried to keep their backs to me. Dallas wasn’t here. I moved on.

  The kitchen was a mess, broken glass and blood smeared on the floor, a massive hole in the wall where a window used to be. At first, I worried it was Dallas’s blood, but I soon picked up that it was the blood of people who’d taken to walking around with bare feet after being in the pool. My stomach roiled but I pushed the feeling down. A group of people surrounded the island at the center of the room, snorting cocaine and laughing madly at some private joke. Or maybe there wasn’t a joke at all. I recognized Nelson in the group and
ducked out just as he was standing up after snorting a line.

  Where was she? I was going to be discovered any second, and I’d come no closer to finding Dallas. I checked outside next, where people splashed in the pool and others poured beer and bottles of champagne over their faces while they swam. Dallas wasn’t out there either.

  I began to worry that she was up in one of the bedrooms. I hadn’t seen Wes yet either, and I suspected that wherever they were, they were there together. My heart sank into my stomach, and I tried to keep calm as I navigated back inside and waded my way back to the stairs. I mounted the stairs with a weighty sense of trepidation, worried about what I would find. Dallas would never sleep with Wes. Not if she was in her right mind. If I found him on top of her in one of the bedrooms, I was going to kill him. I didn’t care if it meant my own destruction.

  Chapter 15

  Dallas

  As I waited outside the heavy oak door, I couldn’t help but think that the two men on either side of me were overkill. Then again, I did push Wes through a glass window. Maybe his dad thought I was some sort of ninja or something. The thought was the only thing that kept me from panicking and crying on the floor while I waited. After Wes pulled himself out of the pool and harassed me a little more, he disappeared. A short while later, these two goons came to get me, refusing to answer any questions I had and simply stating that Preston wanted to see me in his office.

  Was he going to kill me? Torture me? Something even worse?

  The door creaked inward to reveal a skinny girl with huge boobs wearing only a bra and a miniskirt. Her eyes were unfocused as she gestured for us to enter. The two men at my side pushed me forward, and I stumbled in, catching myself before I could fall. As I straightened, I noticed that Preston and his son weren’t the only ones in the room. Several other girls, similarly drugged out and half-dressed, sprawled out on the floor and chairs, one even lay across Preston’s desk, and he was doing a line off her stomach. My stomach heaved when I realized it was Sasha.

  “Sasha, are you okay?” I rushed forward and looked down into her eyes.

  She stared up at me and after a moment smiled. “Look what the virgin dragged in.”

  I shot an accusing glare at Preston. “What have you done to her?”

  I probably shouldn’t have been so abrasive to the man who held my fate in his hands, but I couldn’t help it. It was one thing to drag my father and me into this because of our debt, but all Sasha ever wanted was a bit of attention. I doubted she thought she’d go to this party and end up with some fucked up forty year old doing a line off her half-naked body. She didn’t’ know what she was getting into.

  Preston leaned back in his chair and looked at me, his expression hard. He was a handsome man, and his son was the spitting image of him. His corn silk hair was cut short, the front of it spiked artfully. His hazel eyes had wrinkles at the corners, but they still cut like blades when he looked at me, and the pale slash of his mouth barely moved when he spoke.

  “Sit down, Miss Keane, before I make you sit down.”

  One of the guys who “escorted” me in pushed a girl out of a chair and set it behind me. I gulped and sat down.

  “This is a friend of yours?” He pointed to Sasha like she was just another decoration in his office, like the antique globe in the corner or the abstract silver sculpture on the windowsill. It was a surprisingly chic office considering the state of the rest of the house. His desk was polished black wood, and the stately leather chair he now reclined him made him look like he was CEO of the world.

  “Yes,” I said. “She’s my friend.”

  Preston looked down at Sasha, running a finger along the side of her face. “Pretty girl. Not as pretty as you, though.”

  Sasha turned her face and glared at me like it was somehow my fault Preston thought I was prettier.

  “Please let her go.”

  Preston snorted, then tapped Sasha on the stomach. “Go on then. If you want to leave, my darling, it’s your time to fly.”

  Sasha didn’t move an inch. I wasn’t sure whether she couldn’t or if she didn’t want to, but the look of pure animosity on her face warned me it was a case of the latter.

  Preston smirked. “Wes.”

  Wes stepped forward from the back corner into the warm light cast by a tall lamp next to Preston’s chair.

  Rather than addressing his son, Preston kept his eyes on me. “I called you in here because I wanted to see what all the fucking fuss is about. My son’s in knots about you, dearest. Not only did he urge me to be generous and allow your father’s late payment to be forgiven with your attendance tonight, but you broke my fucking window, and he insists I don’t punish you for it.”

  My eyes shot to Wes. If he’d looked a little bit less smug about the whole situation, I could have felt something akin to gratitude for him.

  I jutted out my chin. Now was the time for me to be strong. I’d been trying it on for weeks like a rented costume, but it was the skin I needed to wear as my own now.

  “And? Do you see what all the fuss is about?”

  Preston sneered. “I’m not sure I do. You’re hot, but so is she.” He pointed down to Sasha. “Maybe it’s just the virgin blood that calls out to him. It would probably be easier for everyone if we did something about that.”

  I blanched but forced my features to remain composed, even though I was sure my hands were starting to shake.

  “If you touch me, I’ll make you regret it.”

  Preston chuckled. “Darling, that just makes me want to touch you more. I think you’re full of shit.”

  “And I think you’re a piece of shit. Only one of us can be right.”

  His jaw tightened. “I suggest you maintain a little more decorum when you speak to me. I’m not some teacher at your high school, and you won’t be sent to the principal’s office. I deal with insults personally.”

  I was feeling bold now, adrenaline spiking through me and pushing away all traces of fear. It was probably my fight or flight reflex kicking in. Flight wasn’t an option, and if it were, I would be halfway to Mexico by now. Fighting was all I had left.

  “You think just because you’ve got some money and you call me ‘dearest’ and use words like ‘decorum’ that you’re some high class gangster or something?” I rose to my feet, pointing at him viciously. “This is Sitka Valley, not Boston, and you’re just as trashy as everyone else at this disgusting party, except you’re worse because you’re nothing more than an overinflated bully.”

  The room fell silent. Gromley’s features were impossible to read, and I gulped hard, wondering if I’d taken it too far.

  “Hold her,” he instructed.

  The men at my sides each grabbed one of my arms. I struggled back instinctively, but their grip was painfully tight.

  Preston walked calmly around the side of his desk, trailing his fingers along Sasha’s prone body as he did. He kept his eyes on me. They glinted like hard chunks of glass in the low light, and I refused to look away.

  “Little Miss Virgin, trying to play tough,” he mused. “Let’s see how tough you are after I put some color on those pretty little cheeks of yours.”

  Wes stepped forward. “Dad—“

  Preston turned and glared at his son. “Let me deal with her.”

  Wes dropped his gaze and stepped back.

  I should’ve kept my mouth shut. It didn’t matter how good it felt. What Preston was going to do to me was going to feel a whole lot worse.

  Preston rolled up the sleeve on his right arm, revealing a heavily tattooed forearm. He clenched his fist.

  “I’m only going to hit you once this time,” Preston said. “Consider it a warning. With any luck, I won’t break that cute little nose of yours.”

  Okay, one punch. I could handle one punch, right? It could be much worse. I tried to feel relieved, even as my heart lurched at the sight of him drawing back his fist and aiming for my face. It was going to be one punch, sure, but it was going to hurt a lot.
r />   “Stop!”

  Preston’s brows knitted together in confusion and he looked around me. I craned my neck and was amazed to see Shane in the half-open doorway. He must’ve been sneaking in. What was he doing here?

  “Who the fuck is this?” Preston asked, looking at his son.

  Wes glowered at Shane. “It’s the fighting Irish. The dickhead who broke Rob’s jaw.”

  Preston waved a dismissive hand at me, and my holders dragged me off to the side of the room, leaving space between Preston and Shane.

  “Shane, get out of here,” I pleaded.

  He didn’t even look at me. “You’re going to hit a seventeen-year-old girl? That’s low.”

  “She’s a seventeen-year-old girl with a sharp tongue,” Preston said, shrugging. “Besides, I don’t discriminate. Why don’t you come inside and find out.”

  “The police are already on their way here,” Shane said.

  Preston tipped his head back and laughed. The other men laughed too, and as Shane looked around in surprise, Wes grabbed Shane and pushed him further into the room, slamming the door.

  “You’re a horrible liar, kid,” said Preston. And then he arced the fist that was meant for me toward Shane’s face.

  I screamed and tried to dive for him, but Preston’s goons held me back. Shane ducked the hit and came up under Preston, slamming his fist into the older man’s stomach.

  Then all hell broke loose. The men at my sides released me, charging forward to defend their boss. Wes dove into the fray too, and soon all three of Preston’s goons and Wes piled on Shane, beating the crap out of him. I shrieked at them to stop and tried pulling them away, but Preston roughly shoved me back. I landed on my tailbone painfully and tried to get up again. Preston grabbed me by the hair and dragged me away, hissing into my ear.

  “How sweet. It looks like you’ve got an admirer.”