The Pawn: A Reverse Harem Bully Revenge Romance (Coleridge Academy Elites Book 1)

by Lucy Auburn

  "Get back here you bitch!" There's coughing behind me as Piper and Georgia stand up in the water basin, screaming like banshees. "We're not done with you!"

  "Whatever," I mutter, mentally adding those two girls to my list. "There's nothing else you can do to me that I give a shit about."

  Turning down the path, I reach into my purse and grab my phone. When I picked it up off the ground earlier, I noticed a new alert I've been waiting for since that packet about Cole's DUI showed up at my door. Now I've got the rest of what I need to make everything about him public, and take him down—a story that, hopefully, will eclipse my minor credit card theft.

  Holly could turn me into the police.

  I'll worry about that later. If I get rid of the card and everything I bought with it, they can't prove it was me—hopefully. I tried to pick local businesses without the funds to keep security footage lying around for weeks. But if she does turn me in, I have to at least make sure this new information makes it public first, especially considering the photos I just got in my inbox.

  I'm scrolling through them with my eyes down, walking down one of the emptier paths in the garden, so I don't see them until I'm nearly on them. By the time I look up from the screen and into their faces it's too late to turn around and go anywhere else.

  In one of the secluded little corners, where darkness keeps them from being easily found, Chrissy is on her knees with her mouth open wide, eyes closed, oblivious to the fact that I'm watching her suck Tanner's cock.

  I've barely seen the senator's son since his little apology tour. We don't share any classes, and he's been going straight to his classes like the studious boy isn't. But he's looking at me now, those hazel of us his meeting mine, a smirk on his lips.

  As I watch, frozen, he puts his hand in Chrissy's blonde hair and strokes himself into her mouth, deep enough that she makes a little choking sound. Then she pulls off him, batting his hand away, her lips shiny as she complains, "You're gonna make me puke."

  "You would deserve it," he says to her, still staring at me, "considering what you did to Cole's little sister all those years ago."

  "That deaf bitch should've minded her own business," Chrissy says. "It's not my fault everyone called her a retard. That was just her voice. 'Stahp Kissy, no Kissy.' You'd think with their money, her parents could've taught her to speak better."

  She senses me suddenly. Looks up and over, wiping the back of her mouth, eyes lazily moving up to see who's stumbled in on her little scene.

  Her expression changes all at once. Her eyes go wide, and she sputters, clearly caught.

  But I don't give her a chance to explain. Jerking my eyes away from her—and from Tanner, whose pants have sagged down to his thighs, his erection still out—I run down the garden path, away from their illicit scene, through the grass until the darkness swallows me whole.

  Chapter 39

  The thing about darkness is, you can't see in it. Human eyes are useless at night. It's the best time for predators to descend on us, claws out and teeth ready to swallow us whole.

  So it feels almost inevitable that I've gotten too close to danger in the darkness, my feet leading me astray. I smell him before I spot his silhouette in the thin streaks of moonlight that filter through the oak trees.

  He smells like a mother's kitchen, full of life, sugar and spices being turned into wondrous things. It seems unfair that someone so sharp and predatory should have such a scent. If the world had any sense of justice, he would smell like bloodstained knives and bitterness.

  "Brenna." I don't know how he recognizes me, but he does, his eyes finding me in the dim light. "Are you enjoying this Hallow's Eve Festival?"

  My throat feels scratched and strained from nearly drowning, I'm still holding back tears about Holly, and I just saw one of the few people here who I thought might be on my side on her knees for a boy I wanted to destroy. It's been the second worst day of my life.

  The worst day of my life is on my mind as I ask Cole, "It was you who looked through our purses, wasn't it? And it was no coincidence when mine was pulled off my shoulder and thrown on the ground in front of Holly. You planned all that."

  "Did I?" My eyes have adjusted to the darkness enough that I can see him cock his head to the side—and I certainly feel it as he gets close enough that the heat of his body brushes against my cold skin. "The only thing I ever wanted, Brenna, is for you to tell the truth. If someone figured out a way to make that happen, well, I'm all for it."

  "The truth." The word comes out a snarl. "You don't give a flying fuck about the truth."

  "You wound me," he mocks, placing a hand over his heart. "What could matter more in this world than the truth, justice, and the American way?"

  My hand tightens around my phone, and as I think of the photos I've just received, a smile curls up on my lips. "You're right. The truth matters. So if you'll excuse me, I have something to do."

  I step around him to the side, trying to walk past him and back to the dorms, but of course he reaches out and grabs onto my wrist. Gritting my teeth, I try to break his grip—but he's too strong and clever. He just twists his hand around to avoid me getting out of his grasp.

  "Tsk tsk, Brenna. I'm not done with you yet Ms. Wilder."

  "What do you want from me?"

  "Everything. Nothing." He pulls me towards him, and I shiver, from the cold or his grasp on me I can't tell. "You never should've come here."

  "You've said that already, but I don't remember you being put on the admissions staff here, so I don't think your opinion on my enrollment matters at all."

  "This place isn't for you."

  I finally manage to jerk my wrist out of his grip, and as soon as I do, I shove him back. This time, unlike that moment in the rock climbing facility, he actually stumbles. I wish there were more light from the moon overhead so I could see the shock on his face.

  "This is where I belong." It's the last dream my brother had before he died, and I'm dreaming it for him in my own way. "You'll never get rid of me."

  "Is that so?"

  "Yes."

  "Too bad." Shoving his hands in his pockets, he stares at me, whatever emotions crossing his face hidden in the dark. "You know it's funny, you said Holly would get tired of my shit and leave. But it looks like that happened to you first."

  I thought I'd pushed it all down, but another round of tears goes down my face, cruel and humiliating. I can only hope the darkness hides them from view. "Shut up."

  I wait for him to say something snide back, something cruel or heartless. Or maybe he'll grab me again, pull me against him and—I don't want to think any further. I've already descended into madness once tonight and actually kissed Blake Lee. I can't betray Holly again, even in my dark and twisted thoughts.

  Cole doesn't say anything more, though. I guess he knows that I've already destroyed myself, and there's nothing more he needs to do or say to ensure that everyone here on campus hates me. He just spins on his heels and leaves me alone with my thoughts, shivering in the dark.

  There's still a fire inside me, though, and there's no time like the present to let it out to burn the world.

  Before everything crumbles, I want to make sure I take him down with me. Forever.

  Our room is empty when I get back from the showers, my hair clean of Mariana's dark brown hair wax. There's a note on Holly's desk, and half her things are missing. Heart in my throat, I peer down at the note and feel my stomach sink.

  Went to Cole's for a while. I'll talk to Mrs. Reynolds about a solution to our living situation.

  She doesn't want to live with me anymore—of course. That should've occurred to me when I was worrying about her turning against me or telling law enforcement what I've done. Holly could get me kicked out of this place.

  If she does, so be it. I've taken down two of the worst offenders among the Elites, and I'm about to make a post that will absolutely ruin the third and biggest member of their cabal. Lukas feels like an unworthy target now, after
everything—somehow I no longer believe I'll get any dirt on him worth publishing.

  It's not what I planned before I came here. But nothing has been as I imagined it when I was an angry-eyed girl brooding in Wayborne from my aunt's house. This place, and the people in it, have spun me around until I can barely tell up from down. If anything, it'll be a relief to wash my hands of them and return to the comparatively simple life at Wayborne Public High school.

  Settling in at my desk, I open up the Legacies email inbox on Silas's laptop. It whirrs a little louder since I dropped it, the fans working overtime, but Lukas at least cleared enough space on the hard drive for me to finish the job I've started.

  As I login to my account and open up the email I've received from the coroner's assistant in Albany, something occurs to me that I should've thought of sooner. Lukas had my computer on him, and though I think I've covered my tracks, there's a good chance he found something on it that I didn't know was there. Maybe there's proof I'm Legacies on here, and he figured it out.

  If he did, that would make him the anonymous person who dropped off the envelope full of material on Cole's DUI. Given that he offered to help me out during the rock climbing trip, it actually makes sense. And it would make him even less of a worthy target than before—if he's gone to such lengths taking down a friend of his, he's not someone I should focus my revenge on.

  In a way, it means this whole thing is coming full circle right here, tonight, with this single post.

  I open up the post with the details of my subject, from his privileged childhood to his family's legacy as the founders of Masters & Sons. Then, in the middle of it all, I load up a pdf of the traffic accident before and after its tampering and post captions on every page with my observations.

  Finally, in the last bombshell bit of the post, I add what I just received from the coroner's office: a picture of the young woman's body in the trunk of the car, and her autopsy results, which found that she was strangled to death by a strong, powerful person, likely a man, about six feet tall.

  I end the post with yet another observation: Cole Masterson's profile on Instagram with a listing of his height. He's exactly six feet, zero inches tall.

  It's a good post. Nothing says straight out that he murdered that girl—or that the Governor of New York State is the person who covered up the crime in order to keep his son's misdeeds out of the news. Everything in the post is factual, and it lets the public draw their own conclusions.

  Hitting the "schedule" button, I set the post to go live during a peak traffic time tomorrow, while everyone is in class—including Cole. It'll be a while before he and his privileged family are able to respond to it, much less the governor. By the time they even see the post, I have no doubt that it'll be viral. I make sure to schedule social media posts with links to the pending blog post on every social media profile Legacies has, including the most jaw-dropping photo in the post, the one of the girl's body in the trunk.

  The victim was only sixteen years old when she died.

  Just like Silas.

  Satisfied with what I've done, I sit back in the chair of my desk and let my eyes close. On the back of my eyelids, in the semi-darkness they provide, I see his face.

  Silas. The way I imagine him, he seems satisfied. This new post, this takedown, has to do what none of the others have done: permanently end the Elites via their leader, preventing them from ever doing what they did to my brother again. It'll feed the fire inside me—I hope—and prevent it from burning me in its hunger for revenge.

  My eyes are closed, so I hear the ping of a new email alert before I see it. Since it's probably just yet another tip about some prep school kid in Canada or Switzerland who I don't even care about, I take my time before I open my eyes and skim the subject line.

  When I do, my heart jumps, and I click in an instant, reading through the email over and over again.

  The sender is Mariana Marks.

  And there's an attachment.

  A video. The video. The one that started it all. The one that will reveal the only truth that matters: who really assaulted Mariana that night, and why the finger was ever pointed at my innocent brother.

  I open it with trepidation, knowing there's no going back from this.

  Chapter 40

  The first thing I see is my brother. I'd know him anywhere. Just seeing him on my screen, still alive, is enough to make me nearly crumble. So I have to pause the video and take a deep breath.

  One thing Wally warned me before I started down this road was that I might not enjoy the answers I get on my way.

  I thought that I was ready for this.

  Staring at the still, I take it all in. The camera is clearly some kind of ceiling camera set up in Rosalind Hall; I'd recognize the architecture anywhere, and I'm no Lukas. That begs the question, though: if this video is from the school administration, why didn't they step in?

  There's an open door to Silas's left. Peering at the number, which is hard to read since the plate is at an angle, I confirm that it's room number 212. That's the exact room Mariana and her friend shared during orientation week, when she says the assault happened.

  So this is it. He's there, standing outside her door. And I might not like what I see.

  Suddenly I find myself wishing that I'd taken a few of those Solo cups filled with contraband alcohol and snuck them with me to my room. I'm not sure what it's like to be fall down drunk, but it seems preferable to the pulse-pounding, dread-filled cycle of indecision I'm going through right now.

  But I can't look away from this. So, with a deep breath and the knowledge that Mariana said her attacker was still on campus, I press play.

  A boy comes out of the room towards Silas. His face isn't on camera because of the angle, but his hair is light and he's tall, with a lean frame. He reaches out a hand with a set of bills and hands it to Silas.

  Confused, I watch as my brother looks around, checking for any observers, and pulls something from his jacket, then palms it and hands it to the other boy. The boys takes whatever it is and puts it into his back pocket, then tugs on his jeans and scratches an itch on the side of his leg.

  Silas leaves the hallway. I pause the video again, closing my eyes and breathing through my nose. Whatever just happened, I don't exactly understand, but it seemed like a trade.

  I tell myself it wasn't drugs. Because if it was drugs... and if this is the boy who assaulted Mariana... there's only one thing it could be. Well, two things really, neither of them good.

  GHB or Rohybnol. Roofies. The kind of drugs you only buy from a dealer when you have ill intent in mind. Drugs that only shitty people sell.

  I tell myself that's not what it is. But then Mariana appears on the screen, walking in from the opposite side of the hallway that my brother left through. She has a bottle in her hand, which she holds up with a grin on her face. The tall boy turns around, but now Mariana is between him and the camera; I can't see his face.

  They put the drinks into cups. Sip them, leaning against the wall of the hallway. I manage to see a sliver of what he looks like: tall cheekbones, light hair. He disappears again in an instant, crossing his legs, one ankle showing.

  Then my attention is taken by Mariana. She slumps over. He helps her into her room.

  I don't need to see the rest. Especially since his face isn't on it. I watch for a little while, though, feeling sick, clicking on the fast forward button.

  He doesn't even close the bedroom door.

  I guess he wanted to hear anyone coming.

  The tall boy leaves, and the video ends without showing his face. But I have to watch it again; I need to see what my brother did. Were those really drugs in his hand? Could it actually be true?

  Was he responsible for the rape of Mariana Marks, not because he was the attacker, but because he supplied him drugs?

  I want to believe otherwise, but the video doesn't give me answers.

  The second time around, though, I notice more things. Including the tattoo
that's flashed on the attacker's ankle more than once. It seems familiar, so I pause the video, take a screenshot, and zoom in, sharpening the details.

  My mind skips away from the truth that the tattoo tells, so it takes a while for me to place it.

  But I've seen it before, and in the exact same place, too.

  This is the dragon tattoo I saw on Lukas's Dupont's ankle.

  The one he said he's getting lasered off. The very same tattoo that he hid from me quickly, pulling the cuff of his pants down to cover it up, a frown on his face.

  It couldn't be. Lukas doesn't seem like the type.

  Then again, they never do.

  It makes a certain kind of poetic, terrible sense. I've wondered since I first came here why Cole pointed the finger at my brother. If Silas really was the drug dealer who gave the attacker his drugs, then maybe he thought it was justice to name him responsible without saying why. The mob took what he said and ran with it, twisting the truth into an assumption he never corrected, until the drug dealer he blamed for what happened to Mariana left Coleridge forever. That's what he deserved, I'm sure Cole thinks, for selling drugs.

  But if his best friend was the one who bought them...

  My mind flashes back to something Lukas said to me. "Reggie was a low-life drug dealer. He offered to sell roofies to a friend of ours who was only looking for a little Molly. He's bad news."

  For all I know, that friend was Lukas.

  And I made out with him.

  Gave him the benefit of the doubt.

  Believed his kind blue eyes and charming smile.

  This time, I really am going to throw up. I barely make it to the bathroom in time, grateful that I still live here with Holly, where we get our own toilet. The sound of me throwing up echoes harshly off the walls of our half bathroom, and I have to look away as I flush the contents of the toilet, my stomach still heaving.

  The truth is the truth, and it's undeniable.

  It couldn't be.