Fatal Beauty

by Andrews, Nazarea

  Even knowing that there won’t be one, she checks her phone for messages.

  This is Jacobs’ fault. Again. And EJ will arrive, but when she does, she’ll be furious, shaking with the pent up rage that only Jacobs can pull from her.

  “Bastard,” she snarls, shoving out of the car.

  It was never something they had consciously decided. But keeping their friendship a secret had happened, so easily and naturally, it was almost scary. They saw each other more, now that they were both living in Charleston. But seeing EJ at the club and ignoring her when they ran into each other out shopping—that was easy. People expected it, because it’s all they had ever done.

  And they were happier without being analyzed by the stuck up bitches who swarmed them. The cottage had been her idea. Two hours outside Charleston, and secluded, they had never seen another soul near it, and they’d been staying here once a month for the past year.

  But today—EJ was late.

  She wants to be furious, but she knows her best friend, and that’s not what EJ will need, when she gets here. So Charlie walks inside, tossing her bag on the bed and starts a fire. Cleans the dusty kitchen and busies herself bringing the cottage to life, pouring wine.

  When EJ finally arrives, the sky has turned dark, and she’s shaking with unshed tears.

  Charlie watches from the window as she climbs out of her car, and walks, too slowly, to the door.

  She moves in a way that is brittle, almost broken, and Charlie has a flash of fear. What the hell did Jacobs do to her?

  EJ makes a low noise when she sees Charlie, a sound that will forever remind Charlie of a wounded animal, and Charlie moves, her glass of wine forgotten as she catches EJ as the other girl stumbles. They hit the ground, hard, and EJ is sobbing, big ugly sobs that are terrifying because they are so damn broken.

  It takes an hour to pull the story from her.

  Jacobs had met Peterson. And he approved. “I can’t do this,” EJ gasps.

  The man her mother had been trying to marry her to for the better part of a year. Jacobs had been the reason she kept saying no. If Jacobs was giving him her blessing, there was no reason to delay the marriage.

  No reason except that EJ was shaking and furious and so fucking miserable that she could barely breath.

  And it infuriated Charlie. “Fuck Peterson,” she snaps. “And fuck Jacobs, too. What do you want?”

  EJ stares at the ground for a long time, so long that Charlie begins to think she won’t answer.

  “I want a castle in Ireland. And I want to bring that fucker to his knees.”

  Charlie smiles as EJ meets her gaze, and there is nothing sweet or innocent in that smile. “Then let’s make that happen.”

  *

  Charlie is naked, and lying on her stomach. “He has to think we’re vulnerable. That we have no option but to come to him for help.”

  EJ, propped across Charlie’s back, makes a low affirmative noise. “But what convinces him of that?”

  She sits up, and it makes EJ move.

  “Tre. We kill Tre.”

  EJ’s eyes go wide, and she makes a startled noise. “Why the hell would we kill Tre?”

  “Because he’s beating me,” Charlie says simply. “And you’ll give me the bruises to prove it.”

  EJ is staring at her, and there is something in her gaze that makes her want to fidget or fuck her.

  Or both.

  “You want me to beat you. And then kill your boyfriend.”

  “If we called Jacobs, with a body to move, what would he do?” Charlie asks, patiently. EJ stares at her, and she huffs. “He would get you away from the danger. Real or imagined—he’d move us both to New Orleans while he handled it.”

  EJ considers that. She’s right. Jacobs has been quietly protecting her for years, since they were children in Dallas.

  “And NOLA is where we need to be. It’s where the Nova is.”

  “Are you sure that the information will be in the car?” Charlie asks.

  EJ smirks and crawls forward, until Charlie falls back and she’s hovering over the other girl. “Yes. Now shut up.”

  “Why?” Charlie smirks, head tipped back.

  “Because you’re hot as fuck when you’re plotting, babe,” EJ purrs. She crawls up Charlie’s body and Charlie catches a dark nipple with her lips, as her fingers find EJ’s hips, and slip lower, sliding deep into her wet heat. EJ groans, and Charlie smirks. Kisses a path down her body, her fingers fucking EJ as she swirls her tongue around her clit and draws a shudder from her. When she replaces her fingers with her tongue and teeth, and digs her nails into the soft skin of her thighs, EJ falls, bracing herself on the bed, her hips writhing.

  She screams. And even now, two years after the first time they fucked, in a frat house with a drunken AZK brother passed out between them, Charlie loves making EJ scream, loves watching her fall apart. She loves that when they’re together, and she’s pushing her to the brink with teeth and tongue and fingers, when she ties EJ up and fucks her slow and easy, when she marks her thighs and breasts with hard fingers and hot wax and the sharp sting of a flogger—Jacobs doesn’t own her. In these stolen moments, EJ is hers, and she isn’t forced to share her with anyone.

  *

  Las Vegas, Nevada. Now…

  The hotel suite is still and silent. Charlie sits on the counter in the bathroom. The phone is silent and still next to her, and she’s smoking. The joint will likely piss off her father, but it won’t matter soon anyway.

  It buzzes softly, and she slides off the counter.

  Jasper: I’m downstairs.

  She doesn’t look at the suite. She just pockets her phone and leaves everything else behind.

  No one stops her as she walks out of the Luxor. Whatever Detective Blackmon is doing, it’s not trailing her. She smiles a little—Travis Brooks had done exactly what she knew he could. Bought her just enough time to get out.

  Jasper is sitting behind the wheel of a huge truck, and she rolls her eyes a little as she climbs in. “You couldn’t find something a little less obvious?”

  He shrugs, and puts the truck in gear. “Your shit’s in back.”

  She reaches for it and surveys the contents briefly. Cash, passport, phone, a change of clothes. A black thumb drive.

  Everything she needs. It takes so little, to destroy one life and build another.

  Jasper looks at her as they pull up to the airport. “What happens now?”

  She smiles. “Go home and pretend you never met a pretty girl in Las Vegas, sweetheart. Enjoy the cash and forget I ever existed.”

  He swallows hard as she kisses him, but his expression is flat and his eyes are dead when she pulls away. He’s the best kind of tool. The kind that doesn’t mind being used and thrown away. She smiles and slides out of the truck.

  There is a plane to catch.

  *

  Kiawah Islands, Seven Months Ago…

  “You know we can’t control everything,” EJ says, quietly. It’s dark now, and they’ve finally moved from the bed to a spot on the porch. Charlie is rolling a joint, and pauses in the middle of it.

  “What do you mean?”

  EJ is still and serious, staring into the gathering darkness. “Jacobs is dangerous. Even for me to cross, it’s going to carry some heavy consequences. Are you ready for that?”

  Something about her tone makes Charlie nervous but she nods. “Yes.

  *

  “I heard a rumor today,” EJ says, dropping onto the porch step next to Charlie. She doesn’t look away from her toe nails, her brow furrowed in concentration as she applies a coat of shiny red.

  “What is that?”

  “There’s trouble in paradise for Charleston’s favorite couple.”

  Charlie straightens and smiles, a slow thing. “Tell me more.”

  “Tre is having an affair?”

  “Fuck no. The boy would never think about cheating on me. But—when I suggest a threesome and take a few carefully planned photo
s---well. The evidence is there and it’s pretty damning.”

  EJ laughs, “That wasn’t part of the plan.”

  Charlie shrugs. “It needs to be convincing.”

  “Speaking of convincing—I think it’s time for us to become friends.”

  They’ve been planning this for almost a year and a half. Hiding money. Plotting. Talking through every fucking thing that could go wrong—and there were so many things that could go wrong. But this—lying about Tre, and publically befriending EJ—this is where it all really starts.

  “You know it has to sell, right? So we pretend like we’ve never met. You don’t know anything. We aren’t close,” EJ says, the same thing she’s said so often.

  “We don’t fuck once a month,” Charlie quips, grinning.

  “No,” EJ says quietly. She cocks her head at Charlie, gaze searching. “This is stupid and dangerous. You know that, right?”

  Charlie nods, and cranes her head back. EJ leans down, and brushes a kiss over her lips, soft sweet. It’s a goodbye. Everything changes when they leave this cottage.

  “Why are you doing this?” she asks, suddenly. In all the things they’ve asked, all the plans they’ve made, all the lies Charlie has started to spin—she has never asked this. Never asked why.

  “Honestly?” Charlie asks and EJ nods.

  She knows why she is. Because of Jacobs and his infuriating refusal to see her as an equal, because her mother has all but signed her marriage license to that fucking pig Peterson, because when she thinks about living here for the rest of her life, it makes her want to panic.

  “I want to see if we can,” Charlie says.

  EJ blinks at her. Of all the things she expected, that isn’t the answer she thought she’d give. Charlie smiles at her and stands. “All in, baby.”

  Chapter 34

  It takes a week. Four flights and three countries. Two trains, and finally, a little truck so rickety she wonders if it won’t fall apart while they drive. She’s exhausted, and has no idea what the hell is happening beyond the bubble of isolation she’s been living in for the past week. But she stuck to the plan, almost obsessively. Even when she read news from Vegas about the woman found burned in a classic green Nova.

  It was part of the plan. That was the thing she tried to remember as she travelled, as she buried herself in reading books to keep her mind busy and seducing fellow travelers to keep her energy from bubbling over.

  It was EJ’s idea. Pin everything on EJ, make her look like an innocent victim. Use the blind loyalty of her father and his skill as a defense attorney to get away from the police. She had an alibi for the night EJ went missing, and witnesses for the deaths in Santa Fe will attest that it was self-defense. With a little luck and a lot of arguments from her father, Charlie could walk. Completely clean and free.

  But EJ—the only way to get free of this for her would be to die.

  And that wasn’t so terribly difficult to arrange.

  Still—knowing that it wasn’t real, knowing that EJ is fine in theory. It’s different from knowing it in truth. And she won’t be able to truly relax until she’s holding her, and they’re celebrating in a castle.

  She doesn’t even appreciate the view as the little truck trudges up to it. A large ring of keys are jingling in her pocket, and she ignores the man driving as she launches herself out of the castle.

  It’s dark. Quiet and still, and she knows, even before she shoves the doors open and screams for EJ.

  She isn’t here.

  She isn’t here, and if she isn’t here, where the hell is she and what went wrong? They played the game, so flawlessly that this makes no sense.

  EJ should be here, in a oversized sweater and a smile, with a glass of wine.

  Where the hell is she?

  Charlie finds it in the bedroom. A photo, of a beach, and Jacobs in the distance. A cell phone waiting for her to turn on.

  And a note.

  Can you see me as a hermit in a castle? I would be so fucking bored.

  She stares at it, for so long her eyes burn, and a laugh is choking her, and she wants to scream. “You bitch,” she murmurs. “You backstabbing bitch.”

  It’s a taunt. A challenge.

  EJ wants to be found. And as she stares at the fucking note, she has to admit, to herself, that this was something she should have expected.

  EJ has always loved the game.

  With a muttered curse, she turns on the phone. “I need your help.”

  Acknowledgments:

  This one is easy.

  Jessica and Mel, who have always been the best team I could ask for, who keep me sane and provide the best covers I could possibly ask for.

  Mom and JC who listened and talked me through every plot point I got stuck on, who never complained when I said SPOILER ALERT and always made sure to tell me if I jumped the shark too much.

  Aj, who was the best damn cheerleader I could ask for, who laughed when I proposed something crazy, and who gave a gigantic finally when I told her I was writing this.

  And all of the bloggers who took a chance on my crazy bitches. I hope you love them.

  About the Author:

  Nazarea Andrews (N to almost everyone) is an avid reader and tends to write the stories she wants to read. Which means she writes everything from zombies and dystopia to contemporary love stories.

  When not writing, she can most often be found driving her kids to practice and burning dinner while she reads, or binging on old TV shows. N loves chocolate, wine, and coffee almost as much as she loves books, but not quite as much as she loves her kids.

  She lives in south Georgia with her husband, daughters, spoiled cat and overgrown dog. She is the author of World Without End series, Neverland Found, Edge of the Falls, and The University of Branton Series. Stop by her twitter (@NazareaAndrews) and tell her what fantastic book she should read next.

  Sign up for news on sales and releases!

  Read More from Nazarea:

  The World Without a Future | The Horde Without End

  The Future Without Hope | The Ruin of the World

  Edge of the Falls | Chasing the Wind

  This Love | Beautiful Broken | Sweet Ruin

  Girl Lost | Forever Found

  Gentle Chains | Violent Freedom

  Before & After

  Illicit Desire (writing as Taylor Michaels)