project

by Torrance, Asa

  "You flash anyone the goods today?" he asks, his smirk turning into a frown as his fingers find the line of my underwear on my hips. "What the hell is this?"

  A grin slides over my face. "What, you're mad I wasn't forced to walk around completely bare all day the way you planned?” I ask sweetly, catching the glimmer of interest that flashes across his steely gaze. “I went to the nurse's office and told her I got my period and she gave me a brand new pair."

  "And what's the plan for tomorrow?" he counters, fingertips still trailing in a near caress against my hip. My nerves light on fire again, threatening to make me lose control.

  "You'll never know," I growl, pressing my hands into his chest to push him away from me as hard as I can. "Because you don't get to touch me."

  I use the little bit of space I've managed to create between us to snake around him, my footsteps echoing against the wood walls of the shed as I head towards the exit.

  "We'll see," he calls after me, voice tinged with amusement once again. "Soon enough, you're going to be begging me to touch you."

  "Don't count on it," I spit, breaking into a run once my feet hit the grass. I propel myself across the yard, not slowing my pace once I make it inside the house, and flying up the stairs to my room. Slamming the door behind me, I collapse back against it, urging myself to calm down.

  But there's a tension like no other running through me now, and a frustrated huff escapes my lips when I realize I don't know what to do with it.

  Or maybe I do.

  I leave the door, going over to my chest of drawers and sliding the top drawer open. It's mostly empty now, thanks to Damien, but for once, he's managed to keep his word about something.

  Snagging my vibrator from the drawer, I flop down on my bed, hastily pulling down my oversized nurse's office panties and spreading my legs.

  I suddenly realize I need this, badly. Damien has been filling me with a toxic sort of tension, one that needs to be relieved lest I go insane, because suppressing my feelings as usual isn't going to cut it this time.

  There's something about him that makes me want to scream.

  In anger, I remind myself, biting my lip as my mind strays towards the way his hands feel gripping my body. They feel strong, and powerful, but I can’t let myself mistake his anger for passion.

  Damien is dangerous.

  Pressing the toy against my anxious-feeling clit, my thumb moves across the switch at the end to turn it on.

  Only nothing happens.

  I try again, flicking the switch back and forth before bringing it up from between my legs.

  "What the fuck?" I say in a desperate sounding whisper. A shallow breath escapes my chest as a cold realization passes over me.

  I unscrew the end of the vibrator and stare into the empty shaft.

  The batteries are gone.

  8

  Sleep stays for longer than it should. I can sense it as the morning creeps in, but it’s been so long since I’ve been able to stay in bed past dawn that I hold onto it just a little longer. Back at the academy, demented horns blasted over the loudspeakers at five a.m., rousing me out of bed for another day of hell.

  I turn over, surveying with hazy vision the way the sun creeps through the slats in the blinds, leaving a geometric pattern on the wall across from me. Some days, it still feels like I’m living through a nightmare, but times like these remind me that there’s still some pleasure in the world I can soak up if I try hard enough.

  My dick is still hard from sleep, and the intrinsic knowledge of sleeping a wall away from Windy all night. Having her lie in my bed in the exact spot I’m lying in now didn’t help, even if most of it happened under the oblivious eye of her own mother. It’s that exact scenario that reins me in, keeps me fucking with her in discreet ways that only her and I know about. So far it’s been satisfying enough to toy with her, but I didn’t come back just to play games.

  Leaning up, I’m suddenly overcome with a feeling of unease. The sun is a little too bright, higher in the sky than it was when Windy woke me up yesterday morning to interrogate me about the things I stole from her room the night before. I reach for my phone, hand pausing over the faced up screen and knowing immediately something is off. When I’m trying to sleep, I always set the phone face down. Right after I set my alarm.

  “Fuck,” I mutter, picking it up and sliding my thumb over the screen to unlock it.

  Someone was obviously creeping around in here last night, fucking with my shit, and just as I expected, setting my alarm to ‘off’.

  Not someone.

  Windy.

  Her little act of civil disobedience has been just enough to throw me off by ten minutes, but I know it’s enough time for her to make her escape. I thunk my phone back down on the table and scramble out of bed, instinct telling me to go to the window.

  Sure enough, Windy is already halfway down the street, her steps hurried as her straightened hair floats down her back like a chestnut curtain.

  “Fuck,” I say again.

  I could hurry up and try and intercept her before she gets on the bus she’s undoubtedly rushing to catch, but I know that would just be playing straight into her hand, the one that exists solely to make me look like a fool.

  I let her go, narrowing my eyes at her as she rounds the corner. The day is still young, and if she wants to play games, we’ll play.

  And as usual, she’s going to be the loser.

  ***

  I get to school late, but that was to be expected, maybe even before Windy pulled her little stunt back at the house. Since class has already started, she’s nowhere to be seen, undoubtedly sitting in the warm confines of her beloved homeroom.

  Instead of going straight into campus, I skirt around the outskirts, not wanting to run into any other members of the Snake Eyes, or anyone else for that matter, not yet. Since I’ve moved back, it hardly feels like there’s been a moment completely to myself, and before then, within the walls of the academy, tough fucking chance. I wasn’t even alone when I showered in the morning.

  It’s true, the last few years have been fucked.

  But I’m starting to think they were ones that needed to happen, especially once I got called back to Diablo Beach. If it hadn’t been obvious I had made a true enemy in my father, all while maintaining the privilege of his last name, would I even have been tapped to lead?

  Maybe I was their perfect candidate all along. With Rey getting taken down at homecoming, who else wanted to take the heat of rebuilding a gang that had nearly been leveled? Obviously not Ace. He may be loyal, but he’s not going to put a football scholarship on the line to take the helm of the shit show left in the wake of that night.

  I don’t blame him. This city chews people up and spits them out, and those who haven’t gone insane are usually desperate for a one-way ticket out.

  With Sheriff Black attempting to crack down on crime the way he has this past year, I get the sense all the gangs are nervous. Rey and the Valentinos were only the tip of the iceberg. If my father gets his way, organized crime in this city will be decimated.

  The Snake Eyes may have thought being the Sheriff’s son gives me an advantage, that he’ll go easy on me if he catches me getting into trouble.

  Too bad that’s anything but the case. If anything, he’ll go harder on me. I carry the Black name after all. How dare I even think about disgracing it?

  Tracing along the perimeter of the school, I eventually make it to the outside of Hudson Hall, where I know Windy has her first class of the day. Sure enough, she’s sitting inside, elbow against the desk to prop her head up with her hand, eyes fluttering like she might fall asleep at any moment.

  Who knows how long she stayed awake, waiting for me to fall asleep so she could pull the shit she pulled? My big fucking mistake for underestimating her, anyway. One thing’s for sure, it won’t happen again.

  I pull myself from the window, heading back towards the quad. It’s mostl
y deserted, a far cry from a few hours from now when it’ll be packed by the opposing teams that make up the gangs at this school, along with their assorted followers, for the daily lunchtime posturing. If you ask me, it’s a tired fucking tradition.

  If a war is going to start, it’s going to play out in the streets of this city, in the territories we’ve secured, not in the quad. Diablo Beach Prep is only the prison we all have in common, but no one’s stating the obvious, that it’s worthless to try and stake ownership of a place none of us even want to be at the end of the day.

  That’s why this EYE 4 AN EYE shit the crew keeps spraying on the wall behind our spot in the quad is pointless. We don’t need to advertise. Let the other gangs underestimate us, better yet, let them wonder. Like a snake in tall grasses, the biggest advantage we have is the element of surprise.

  Plus, watching the ancient janitor who works here balanced on a ladder as he tries to remove paint from the wall for the fourth time this month is just hitting me all wrong this morning. He thunks the rag he’s using down into a bucket of water, and pauses to wipe one of his gnarled hands against his uniform shirt.

  “I should probably take over from here,” I call up to him, doing my best to look innocent. For all I know, he could know who I am, know it’s my crew who’s responsible for the artwork that leaves his hands pruney and tinged with neon spray paint. But just in case he doesn’t, I continue the ruse. “The office sent me over here for my community service hours, said there was a job to do.”

  “Community service hours?” he grumbles back at me as he steps down from the ladder.

  “Yeah,” I say with a bullshit nod. “Still got twenty to do before I graduate.”

  “You’d better hurry up then,” he says. He thunks the bucket of water at my feet and takes off, quicker than I was expecting. A few seconds later, I catch him lighting a cigarette from across the quad.

  Enjoy it, you old fuck.

  I turn back to the wall, surveying the job in front of me, the one I’m only now realizing I don’t actually want to do. Grunt work makes me feel like I’m back in military school.

  “Damien?”

  I turn around. Krystal, the honeybun swallower, is staring back at me curiously from the fold of three other girls. They look nearly identical with their hips cocked to either side, rolled up skirts, and perfectly coifed hair. I’ve been around long enough to realize that Krystal has staked her claim as lead girl of the Snake Eyes’ harem, which leaves her radaring in on me like a submarine.

  At this point, Krystal and her dead-eyed girls have been around the rest of the crew longer than I have, and I know the gang won’t be able to resist gossip from a slew of lips that have sucked their dicks. The newest member of the Snake Eyes, leader or not, cleaning up our own graffiti isn’t going to go over well.

  “You girls wanna see something funny?” I ask, narrowing my eyes in their direction.

  Krystal can’t help but be intrigued, and she steps forward, eyelashes fluttering at me expectantly. “Okay?”

  She’s expecting the big payoff already, but like a magician, I need to get my props in order. I shift the ladder over, propping it open just to the side of the door to Hudson Hall. Then I grab the bucket, water jostling back and forth as I hoist it onto the top rung.

  “What are you doing?” Krystal calls out to me, the other girls mimicking her bemused expression. I know they don’t really care, they’re just happy to have the attention.

  But I can use a captive audience. I pull my phone from my pocket and place a call. “Yes, this is Windy Jacob’s father. I need to speak to her but her phone must be on silent. Can you have her paged to the office? I’ll hold.”

  Krystal gives a laugh, recognizing the name and suddenly in on whatever prank I’m pulling. She’s probably realized by now Windy isn’t my sister.

  A second later, the PA system blares to life. “Windy Jacobs. I repeat, Windy Jacobs. Please report to the office immediately.”

  I grin, ending the call I’ve been holding now that she’s been summoned and readying the bucket of water. The girls laugh, devilish smirks on their faces as they wait for the final act.

  A squeal erupts from the PA system as the announcement continues. “Again, Windy Jacobs, to the office. Your father needs to speak with you.”

  The smile slides from my face like wet pancake batter.

  Fuck.

  I had only said I was her dad because it was the easiest nuclear family member I could pass for on the phone. I neglected to think the office would be so fucking thorough, and now karma’s come back to bite me on the ass.

  “I see her,” Krystal announces with a giggle. She gives me a wink. “Here she comes.”

  I had set out to do something cruel. I just hadn’t expected it to get this layered.

  The door swings open, and I let the water pour. The first thing it hits is the top of Windy’s head, drenching her hair before streaming down her shoulders and splashing at her feet.

  The laughter from the girls in the quad is loud, but I can still hear the absence of sound, the way Windy stays completely silent, even as her hands raise momentarily in shock. The silence just might be the worst part about it all.

  Until she looks up at me, meeting my eyes, staring up at me with a look so frosted with pain and anger and hurt that it nearly makes me fucking dizzy. My body sways at the top of the ladder as I try and think about the apt thing to say to her at a time like this.

  “I think she knew,” Krystal announces, voice cutting into space like a knife. “Her face was already, like—” She pantomimes Windy’s shocked expression before bursting out into another series of hyena-like laughs. “She just had her own Carrie moment.”

  I harden my gaze at Windy. “Hope you don’t mind wearing clothes from the nurse’s office collection again.”

  She looks at me like she can see straight through me. Maybe she can. So far I’ve been able to convince myself that I don’t care what she thinks, so why stop now? I won’t let one sad look from her leave me vulnerable.

  “Excuse you,” one of the harem girls calls over to Windy. “You’re dripping.”

  “All over our part of the quad,” Krystal adds.

  “You heard her,” I say, piling it on, mostly because I want her to leave. There’s no reason for her to stand here anymore, not so the rest of us can jerk off to her humiliation. If a list of pointless shit existed, that would be at the top. “Get fucked, Windy.”

  She turns away from me and runs out of the quad.

  9

  I stand in the confines of the locker room, the same one I used to frequent back when I still played lacrosse. I quit at the beginning of last year, Jessa’s death piling on top of my father’s to make me basically non-functional for a good few months. Sports had left my radar entirely, along with pretty much everything else.

  I put in the work after that, taking care of myself, becoming my own best friend. Soon my strength returned, my fortitude for life.

  That is, until Damien came back to constantly remind me that I wasn’t shit. At least, not in his eyes.

  The last time I was in this locker room, it was at his command, terrorizing Samaire, who had been a friend of mine, because she was a member of the Black Roses.

  He told me he would leave me alone after that. Turns out, that was a bold-faced lie, but looking back on it now, how can I even be surprised?

  I know I’m screwed. He’s never going to stop fucking with me. But for some reason, this one stings particularly bad.

  Hot tears spring into the corners of my eyes. I just need to get changed into a pair of dry clothes and forget this whole thing ever happened.

  The only problem is, while I may know where they keep the lacrosse team’s backup cache of uniform clothes, that doesn’t mean I can get to it. Coach keeps it under lock and key, and the team won’t be on site until this afternoon, way later than I plan to be on campus today. I want to leave, classes be damned, and right no
w it feels like it could be a miracle if I ever decide to return.

  Sometimes I wish I could just disappear. Or at least, go invisible for a while. But as footsteps echo from behind me, heading into the locker room and straight towards me, I know that’s just a fantasy. Why would I convince myself I ever had a chance of escaping?

  Damien comes into view, eyeing me with a cold-eyed stare.

  “Leave me alone,” I murmur, but my words sound empty, devoid of any feeling.

  They’re a lie anyway, because it feels like I want anything but what I’ve actually said. I don’t want him to leave me alone. I want him to take what he wants if it’s me, the sooner the better, because I’m done playing games. If he’s out to destroy me, whatever that means, the time is fucking nigh.

  “You trying to get in there?” Damien asks me, nodding at the office behind me. He keeps walking, heading towards me at the same time he takes off his jacket, black fabric rolling down broad shoulders and the swelling crests in his biceps and forearms. I want to save the way he looks in my mind to watch it back in slow motion later, and the way he makes me melt is fucking infuriating.

  Especially when I’m the one standing in a puddle like the Wicked Witch of the West.

  Damien wraps his jacket around his fist and forearm. “Wait—” I call out, but it’s too late. The glass window on the office door shatters at the strike of his shrouded hand, falling away enough for him to get his arm through and unlock the door from the inside.

  “Hurry up,” he orders.

  “First of all, what you just did,” I begin. “Totally illegal—"

  “Like I give a shit,” he cuts me off. “I said hurry up.”

  “Second of all,” I continue defiantly, even as a mental countdown timer begins to blare away seconds in my mind. I know there could only be this one window of opportunity to actually get dry clothing. “You don’t get to do what you just did to me, and then come busting in here like some sort of white knight—”

  Damien twists his jaw at me, bursting forward in a way that makes my words still in my throat. He goes behind me, heading into the office and emerging with a stack of folded clothes. “Change. Now.”