Dare You To Keep Me: HawkRidge High II

by Akeroyd, Serena

  I just mumbled, “Don’t forget, I know how he beats Laura. The bastard.”

  He grunted at that, but his face was tense as he stared down at the car, which was still there. Dick really was weird.

  When he still hadn’t left a few minutes later, I decided to stop wasting time. Taking a picture of the mound of bags, I shoved my cell back into my pocket and got started.

  After a few minutes of digging through used makeup wipes and a discarded pile of clothes, Drew murmured, “This isn’t Sarah Dunham’s stuff.”

  “How do you know?”

  He cleared his throat. “At the risk of sounding like a pervert, Max, Sarah B. has bigger tits than Sarah D., right?”

  Max scrunched his nose as he cut me a look. “Yeah.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You’re right. That sounded like something a pervert would say.”

  But, because I also had functioning eyesight, I knew he wasn’t wrong. When he showed me the bra he had dangling from his hand, I nodded. “You’re right. But you can put the bra down now.”

  Grunting, he murmured, “I should have been a detective.”

  “You still have the chance, dummy,” Max replied with a small laugh. “It’s not like you’re even out of school yet.”

  “True. Maybe that’s what I’ll do when this all falls flat on my fucking face,” he said with a sigh.

  I reached for him, grabbed his arm, and squeezed. “We’ll fix this.”

  “If it’s possible to fix,” he whispered.

  About to speak, we froze at the sound of the doorknob turning. My eyes were wide with terror as I stared up at him, and then, as the door swung open softly, my heart nearly burst when I saw Derick standing there.

  “Fuck, Derick, you scared the shit out of us,” Max growled, his features white as snow.

  “I saw you sneak up here. Why didn’t you wait on me?” was his instant complaint.

  I waved a hand. “Would you rather us have messed around and maybe have missed our chance to find the phone?”

  He squinted at me. “Did you find it?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “We realized we were looking in the wrong pile though.”

  He huffed. “Let’s get started then. Only God knows when they’ll come back up here and freshen up their makeup.”

  Because he wasn’t wrong, we hurried, and as deeply as we looked, and no matter how many times we went through all the crap on the floor, there was no phone to be found.

  Fuck a duck.

  8

  Sam

  The feel of Sarah’s hands on me made my skin crawl. I’d never liked her, even when I was dating her. There was always just something about her that put me on edge.

  Knowing what I did now, I guessed everything made a little more sense than before, but still, it was the way she touched me. Clung to me. Like she wanted our skin to meld together or something.

  I was dancing with her to give us some space to make our move, but she was holding on to me like she’d never let me go.

  “You’re quiet,” she whispered into my ear, making me shudder with revulsion.

  Unfortunately for me, we’d had three slow dances back-to-back, and when her phone buzzed, only that brought an end to the torment. When she stiffened in my arms, I asked, “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  She cleared her throat. “Nothing.”

  Her outfit was so tight, I didn’t even know where she’d keep a damn phone, but she pulled back, reached into a pocket that was tucked into the side of the weird one-piece she wore, and retrieved a phone that had my heart sinking.

  It was old.

  Very old.

  Like a two thousand sixteen model, and not the new one I’d seen her flashing around school.

  When she cast a glance at the screen, biting her lip as she read the message on there, I tried to read it, but she had it tilted in a way that meant I couldn’t.

  “I-I need to go.”

  “Go where?” I queried, my brow puckering.

  I mean, I wasn’t complaining about her having to leave. Hell, no. But considering how she’d been clinging to me like she was a glue stick and I was a piece of paper, her behavior was weird.

  Weirder than I was used to from her, at any rate.

  “Just… outside.”

  I frowned. “Do you need me to come with?”

  She whipped her head from side to side, and what I saw on her features made me uneasy. I didn’t like her. Not at all. She reminded me of a time when I’d been out of control. Of a time when I’d been the worst person I could be. I didn’t like what she made me think about myself, of how low I’d sunk as a human being, one who’d thought only of partying and buying useless crap because it was designer and on trend.

  I’d been a useless sack of shit, and whenever she looked at me or touched me, she made me think of that Sam.

  But, whether or not she was a physical reminder of a man I now hated, I didn’t like to see her scared.

  And she was.

  Of what, I wasn’t sure, but she was definitely scared, and I hadn’t even known that anything could scare Sarah. She just wasn’t the type. Hell, she was the kind of woman who was A-Okay with blackmailing someone from a political family… that took balls. Big ones. Brass ones.

  Yet here she was, looking shaken.

  Thinking of what she was doing, of how she was forging together a campaign to destroy the love of my life, hardened me, and when she just rushed off, rushed away into the crowd without another word to me, I didn’t follow her.

  She was scum.

  And she didn’t deserve any kindness from me, not after what she was doing to Jessa and Derick.

  I retreated from the dance floor that was packed with most of the football team and their girls. I had no idea if Jessa, Drew, and Max were still upstairs, but I couldn’t see them. Grabbing my cell, I shot off a quick text:

  Me: The phone’s on her. Come down before you’re caught.

  When I saw the two little ticks, my heart pounded, and didn’t stop until I saw Jessa through the crowd. Elbowing Harry Greaves, who was drooling over his Sarah, I ignored his exasperated grunt and shouldered my way toward my own girl.

  “You saw it?” she asked, the second I was in front of her.

  “I did,” I agreed.

  “Where is she now?” Max demanded. “Can we grab it from her?” His shoulders hunched. “I picked pockets for a while when I was a kid. Maybe I could—”

  Jessa’s hand snapped out. “No. Sneaking around and looking through her things is one thing, but that’s another.”

  “Is it? Really?” Drew queried, his brow furrowed. “That’s some funky logic, Jessa.”

  She shoved him. “Shut up. I don’t want to rake up a time that Max doesn’t need to remember,” she hissed under her breath.

  Max cleared his throat. “It’s okay, Jessa, really.”

  “No.” She shook her head, and her tone was ferocious as she bit off, “We’ll find another way.”

  “Where’s Derick?” I asked, changing the subject. When she blinked at me, I shrugged. “When I was dancing, I saw him going upstairs. It wasn’t like I didn’t know where he was heading.”

  “We split up. No point in sticking together. It would only look weird considering everyone knows we think he’s a prick,” Drew remarked.

  I blew out a breath. “True. Look, this is obviously a bust. How about we try to enjoy the night? It’s the last party before it starts to get really cold, and shit at school is going to get heavy soon enough.”

  Jessa nodded. “You’re right.” I knew her cheer was false, but I had to give her credit—she had a good game face. “I’d like to dance. Who’s going to be my partner?”

  Drew grabbed her hand before I could say a word, hauled her into him, and dragged her into the crowd with the rest of the dancers. I shook my head at his haste, then, smirking at Max, murmured, “Want a beer?”

  “She has them?”

  “Of course. I don’t know how, but our place isn’t to q
uestion why,” I joked.

  “These parties are better stocked than bars,” he commented, as we headed over to the bar that had been set up outside. It was only a foldaway table that was stacked with bottles and kegs, but underneath it, there were several kegs that were just waiting for everyone to get wasted on.

  With a solo cup in my hand, I tilted my head back and stared up at the night sky. The stars were out in full force and the moon glinted on the lake’s surface.

  “It’s beautiful out here, isn’t it?” I said softly, meaning it.

  “Yeah. It is,” Max agreed, before taking a deep sip of his beer.

  I didn’t wait on him to take a few steps forward and away from the heaving lounge where everyone was partying. It was a little too chilly out here for dancing, and I knew it would probably be bitter when we started building the bonfires and grabbing all our shit for when we slept down at the lakeside. I’d have liked to sleep under the stars, but Jessa was right—it turned pretty arctic around five.

  Digging my feet into the sandy shore, I felt the grit enter my canvas shoes, but I ignored it. Instead, I squatted down and took a seat close to the water’s edge.

  There was a gentle ripple in the distance that was close to hypnotizing, and I stared at it as Max took a seat beside me.

  “You okay?”

  His question had me shaking my head as I told him what had gone down with Sarah.

  “She was scared?” he repeated, sounding as bewildered as I felt.

  As much as I hadn’t been lying about wanting to party tonight, the second I was outside and the cold breeze was in my face, it was like reality had hit at the same time.

  The somber mood wasn’t exactly coming out of the blue, but it was also a testament to the chaos I knew was coming our way.

  This weekend, this party, was like the last stop before change came.

  I hated change.

  Hated it with a passion.

  Was Drew going to get expelled?

  Could Coach really help him?

  I guessed it was all down to how badly Drew was needed on the team. Truth was, I knew the faculty needed him more than they’d want Sarah. She was nothing in the grand scheme of things. But Drew? With him as lead on offense and me on defense? We were pretty fucking unstoppable. The board of governors would have to be batshit to break us up if they didn’t want us to win the championships, and as crazy as it sounded, that competition brought in the big bucks. It also brought in scouts, and scouts were vital to a team like HawkRidge’s, because they’d be able to declare on their pathetic prospectuses that collegiate footballers and, deeper into the future, NFL players, had once started their academic careers at HawkRidge High.

  You didn’t have to be a statistical genius to see Drew’s potential. It was something we shared, even if he had something I didn’t. A spark that made his work on the field magical.

  He had it in him to reach the big time… if a thing like a drug scandal didn’t ruin him before he had a chance to start his life.

  I clenched my fist around the solo cup in my hand, and wasn’t surprised when it crumpled in my fist.

  “Yeah, she was scared,” I mumbled, realizing that Max was waiting on my answer. I dumped the cup on the sand, digging it into the shore so it wouldn’t fly off and cause any litter, and murmured, “Made me feel weird to see that.”

  “That isn’t a bad thing, Sam,” Max said dryly. “I mean, you’re not a sociopath. You don’t want her to suffer, even if she is a bitch.”

  “True.” My throat felt thick. “Fuck,” I breathed.

  “What? What is it?”

  “I’m scared too.”

  He stilled. “Why?”

  “I just have a bad feeling about all of this. It’s not going to be pretty, and we’re all going to get tangled up in the mess. I can feel it in my gut.”

  “I’d like to say relying on your gut isn’t smart, but fuck, I know what you mean. I feel it too.” He scraped a hand over his chin, and the rasping sound reminded me of one of my fave ASMR vids.

  I shot him a look and asked, “Why are you here, Max?”

  He frowned. “Because I want to be.”

  “You’re on a sinking ship. You and I both know that. Especially if we can’t get our hands on her phone tonight, and it isn’t looking like we will any time soon.”

  He shrugged. “Isn’t the first time, won’t be the last. I have the least to lose out of all of you, so I’m not about to jump ship just because things are fucked up.”

  Loyalty wasn’t something I was unaccustomed to, but when shit was storing up and our backs were to the wall? It came as a surprise.

  “I don’t want you involved if more drugs are found in Jessa’s things. The admin will find a way to pin it on you. It’s in their best interest for it to be the black sheep of HawkRidge than for it to be a Rothskind wunderkind. I hate that it’s true, but it is. You and I both know it.” I hesitated. “What I’m saying is, if you speak about this with Jessa, she will understand.”

  He swallowed down a gulp of beer. “Maybe she would, maybe she wouldn’t. It’s not about her. It’s about me. Yesterday, I was going to run away. That was how scared I was but, and this is true, there’s nothing to pin this on me. Nothing at all. I was stupid, reacting instead of thinking, and maybe I’m doing the exact same thing now, but I don’t think so. Nothing physical connects me to the drugs, and I forgot that. For that matter, only the location ties the bags to Jessa. I made sure she grabbed them with a tissue so her prints aren’t on the drugs either…

  “I have feelings for her, Sam. You know that. I also consider you and Drew friends. Sure, we haven’t been that for long, but sometimes, you don’t have to be. I used to read about this kind of friendship in books and I thought it was bullshit. But it isn’t. I’ve found it and I’m not about to toss it away.

  “I have your back, man, and will for as long you need me to.”

  His words, in all honesty, didn’t come as that much of a surprise.

  There was a reason Drew and I hadn’t had a problem with Max hanging around with us. He was a cool guy, but more than that, he was deep, intense, and one of those folk it was cool to chill out with. His statement just confirmed what I’d always known about him—he was good people.

  “Thanks, bro,” I told him, aware that my voice was raspy with emotion and uncaring about it. Funny how, in the space of a day, we’d gone from sniping at one another to affirming our friendship—through good times and potential bad ones.

  “No need.”

  “What are you two talking about?” Jessa asked, the words coming out of nowhere.

  I peered over my shoulder. “Since when do you two sneak about?”

  “Since the wind picked up,” she replied wryly. “It’s noisy out here now. We weren’t sneaking, you just couldn’t hear us.”

  Now that I thought about it, it was windy as hell.

  With goosebumps pocking my skin, I leaped to my feet and jumped her. Shoving my shoulder to her belly, I hauled her up and over as she squealed and carried her in a fireman’s hold.

  “Drew’s had his turn, now it’s mine,” I declared as she giggled, and began whacking me on the ass.

  The party didn’t hold much promise, but I hadn’t been lying—this was the last party of the summer. And it would be the last party before the shit hit the fan.

  I intended to enjoy every second of it with the people who mattered the most to me.

  ❖

  Jessa

  After a night of dancing until the small hours, a night of drinking too much beer—well, the guys did that, not me—and a night of avoiding what was heading our way, the sound of someone screaming woke me up. I was burrowing deeply into the little pit Sam and I had made for ourselves. Max and Drew were sandwiching us on either side, and as I had last night, I thought about what that actually meant and got a little hot under the collar at the prospect of a real sandwich between the four of us…

  Of course, any horny thoughts were scattered to t
he wind as another scream pierced the morning light.

  It was only just light. There were too many shadows outside the tent, not enough for it to be earlier than seven, but the shrieking was testament to the fact that something was happening outside that wasn’t good.

  I scrambled out of the cocoon we’d made and began shaking Sam and Drew who were nearest to me. “Wake up, you two!” I growled, wondering how they could sleep through that nasty scream.

  Max was awake, though, and he shoved down the sleeping bag and made a move just as I did. He unfastened the zipper first, and when he peered out of the opening he made, he tensed— I saw his shoulders stiffen.

  “What the fuck?” he rasped.

  “What is it?” I demanded, shoving at him to move him out the way.

  When he shifted position, I dragged down the zipper and forced my way out. I’d been right about morning only just breaking, but there was enough light from all the flashlights being aimed at the lake to see what was lapping at the shore.

  A woman.

  Face down.

  The golden silk outfit she wore was now a dark ochre thanks to being water-logged.

  My throat felt thick at the sight, and my brow puckered in confusion. For a second, I could only stare, gaping at something I had to be misunderstanding. But when the figure didn’t leap up and scoff at us, when there was only silence as we gawped at the eerie stillness of the lax body, I whispered, “Is that who I think it is?”

  He didn’t reply, just helped me to my feet. As we scrambled closer to shore, I saw the other Sarahs on their knees, and I had my answer as to who’d been screaming. They were wailing like we were at a Greek funeral, but I couldn’t blame them.

  Not if it was who I thought it was.

  My mouth worked as I stared at the body.

  Face down, I couldn’t see any of her features, but her arms and legs were akimbo, her hair was scattered in the water, trailing in spidery lines now that it was bloated with liquid.