Revenge at Raleigh High

by Hart, Callie

  “I DON’T GIVE A FUCK! I’m done with you throwing up roadblocks, you stupid bitch. Get on your fucking feet.” He takes hold of my by the arm, pinning me to his chest as I try to thrash and kick, struggling to get free. My heart climbs up into my throat as he tries to dump me on the chair.

  Holy fuck. Fuck, this is really happening. He’s not going to back down. The rope scrapes against my cheek as Jake attempts to loop it over my head.

  I lose my fucking mind.

  Kick.

  Gouge.

  Claw.

  Bite.

  Scream.

  I will not go fucking quietly. I will not just fucking die because Jacob Weaving has decreed it so.

  I will not.

  I will not.

  I will not.

  I land a knee in his side.

  Feel his skin break beneath my nails.

  Hear his spit and curse as he wrestles with me, hoisting me up his body, his arm locking around my throat.

  I can’t…

  I can’t fucking breathe…

  The thick rope scrapes against my skin again as it slips over my head.

  “Quit flailing, Silver. It’s done. It’s fucking done.”

  Jake’s voice is harsh. It also carries within it a note of relief. Like he truly is experiencing a moment of catharsis, now that the hard part is done. His arms loosen, releasing me from his vise-like grip, and as I slide down the length of his body, the rope tightens around my neck.

  “JACOB!”

  The roar fills the gymnasium, loud and furious. I can barely see out of my swollen eyes, but I’d know that voice anywhere. It’s Alex. He’s finally here…and he’s going to be too late.

  32

  ALEX

  A piercing, high-pitched scream cuts through blistering quiet.

  The halls of Raleigh High whip past in a blur as I fly toward the sound of the panicking screams that come one after the other.

  She’s alive.

  She’s fucking alive.

  “Sbrigate, Passerotto! Hurry! Faster!”

  The double doors to the gymnasium slam open with a deafening crash as I hurl myself through them. In the middle of the large, open space, right on top of the midcourt line of the basketball court, the captain of the Raleigh Roughnecks football team is trying to fight with a bloody creature in a Siren’s cheerleader uniform, threading a fucking noose around her neck.

  I don’t recognize the girl in his arms.

  Her face is a mess of split skin and bruises. Her hands are bleeding, her knees and feet cut open. I only know that it’s Silver because of the way she’s fighting him like a possessed hellcat, battling for her life.

  My vision turns crimson red.

  Death red.

  “JACOB!”

  Silver’s eyes open, startled, bloodshot but still blue. They meet mine, and I see her abject terror, her fear, and worse—her resignation.

  Jacob turns, pivoting at the waist, his face marred by two long, deep scratches down his cheek. He snarls, showing me his teeth…as he lets Silver go.

  Her body immediately goes stiff, her back bowing, hands reaching up to claw at the fat rope that’s pulling tighter and tighter around her throat. She didn’t fall far from his arms, but it’s enough. Not enough to snap the vertebrae in her neck, but the tips of her big toes are hovering an inch from the lacquered floorboards. She can’t relieve her weight from the rope.

  “Well, fuck me,” Jacob hisses. He takes a step forward, putting himself between me and Silver’s convulsing body. “Looks like you’re a little late, Moretti. No way you’re gonna fight your way past me before she’s out of time.”

  “Are you fucking out of your mind?”

  Silver makes a choking sound, her face turning redder and redder as the seconds slip by. She doesn’t have long. If I don’t cut her down from there in the next few seconds, she’s going to fucking die, and I’m going to have to watch it happen.

  I don’t have time to fight Jacob. Fuck, there’s no time for anything.

  The captain of the Raleigh Roughnecks isn’t going to let me just slip on by him and rescue her, though.

  “Get out of the way, Jake. Right fucking now!”

  Jacob pouts, casting a quick glance over his shoulder. “You’re kinda spoiling my night, y’know. I wanted to watch this. More than anything, I’ve been waiting really fucking patiently to watch this stupid cunt breathe her last. You’re fucking annoying, Moretti. Has anyone ever told you that before?”

  I take three steps, then another two. I’m close enough, now. Jacob’s head cants to one side, his eyes slitting like a snake’s. “What are you gonna do, Moretti? You’re big, but I’m bigger. Who knows, maybe you can take me, but I’m not gonna go down easily. She’ll be fucking worm meat long before then. You’re fucked. And so is she.” He jerks his thumb over his shoulder at Silver.

  Her face is purple.

  One of her fingernails has snapped back, and blood is running down her hand, down her forearm, dripping from her elbow as she frantically claws at the rope.

  Jake wants me to bicker with him. He’s expecting me to beg and plead for him to release her. Releasing Silver isn’t an option, though. Not for him. He’s leaving me no choice.

  “Well? What’s it gonna be, motherfucker? You gonna tackle me or wh—”

  The sound of the gunshot is deafening. The recoil punches up my arm, slamming into my shoulder, throwing my hand up in the air. Monty said a gun like this would have a mean kick on it, but the shock of the unexpected force almost throws me off balance.

  Jacob frowns, confusion marring his smug expression. He looks down at his chest, just as the first ribbon of scarlet blood unfurls down the front of his shirt.

  “You—you shot—” He looks up, his skin white as a sheet, and then staggers, holding out a hand to steady himself.

  I don’t waste another second. I hear the thud and tumble as Jacob collapses to the floor, but I don’t stick around to watch. I race to Silver, grabbing her around the waist, not bothering to try and find something sharp enough to cut her down. Lifting her, the rope loosens, but the loop of the noose is still firmly fastened around the column of her throat.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck!

  I hold her in one arm, using the other hand to yank and pull at the noose, and fraction by fraction it begins to work free.

  Then she’s breathing, pulling in a wheezing, painful breath that makes me want to drop down onto my knees and fucking cry tears of relief. “Alex?” Silver’s eyes meet mine, and for a moment I think everything’s going to be all right. Then those beautiful blue eyes of hers roll back into her head, her spine bows, and she begins to seize.

  “No. No, no, no, no, no.” Using every scrap of strength I possess, I rip the noose free from her neck and pull it over her head, hurling it away. Silver shudders violently in my arms as I carry her past Jacob’s prone body where he’s lying on the floor. I’m as careful as I can be when I place her down on the boards, making sure not to let her hit her head.

  “You shot…me,” Jacob gasps. “You fucking shot me.”

  “In the stomach,” I remind him, through my teeth. “You’d better hope she doesn’t die, otherwise I’m gonna be shooting you right between the eyes next, you fuck.”

  “My father…”

  Come on, Silver. Come on. Please be okay. Let her fucking be okay. Come on!

  She’s still shaking, her body trembling, the whites of her eyes showing. I lower my face over hers, positioning my cheek in front of her mouth, waiting to feel somet—wait, yes, there it is. Shallow, uneven…but she’s breathing. At least she’s fucking breathing. Relief courses through me, but it’s tempered by fear. The convulsions aren’t stopping; they seem to be getting worse.

  Silver’s head snaps back, her teeth grinding together as she shakes in my arms.

  Behind me, Jake’s breathing is a wet, unhealthy rasp. “Are you…listening? My father…”

  I ignore him. His father isn’t going to be able to shield
him anymore. Not from behind bars. He’s probably going to spend the rest of his life rotting in some prison cell, ruing the day he ever crossed Q and the Dreadnaughts Motorcycle Club. I’m pretty sure Jacob will be the last thing on Caleb’s mind by tomorrow.

  With an unsteady hand, I reach out and stroke a matted, blood-soaked tangle of Silver’s hair out of her face. Her lips are split, her jaw bruised, her temple oozing blood, her nose obviously broken. She looks like she just went ten rounds with a UFC fighter, which says a lot. It says that she’s a fighter, herself. She didn’t give up. She didn’t give in.

  “So don’t give up now,” I whisper, holding her to me. “Don’t give up now, Silver. Come on. Fucking fight.”

  I call an ambulance. I barely hear what the guy on the other end of the line says. I tell him where we are, what’s happened, and that the girl I love needs help, then I hang up the phone. A long, brutal minute passes. I don’t know anything about seizures, but I do know they probably shouldn’t go on for this long. Eventually, as quickly and abruptly as it started, the seizure just…stops.

  I bite the inside of my lip, watching her face, waiting for some sort of sign that she’s going to be okay. “Silver? Silver?”

  “Is…she dead?” Jacob pants.

  The vile…fucked up…sadistic… I close my eyes, breathing around the knot of anger in my chest. I was aiming for his heart when I pulled that trigger. I lifted the desert eagle, steadied it in my hands, and I made the call. It’s better that the bullet found its mark in his gut. He’ll still be alive when the cops arrive, so he can answer for what he’s done without the mercy of death letting him off the hook. But I swear to god, if he asks me if Silver’s dead with the same hope in his voice again…

  “Doesn’t matter,” Jake wheezes. “I broke her in the end. She screamed…at the top…of her lungs…for me.”

  Am.

  Going.

  To.

  Fucking.

  DESTROY.

  Him.

  “Al…ex?”

  The gears of hate come to a grinding halt. Silver’s eyes are open, and she’s staring right up at me. For one blissful moment, everything else is forgotten. “Shhh, it’s okay. I got you, Argento. I have you. You’re safe. Everything’s going to be okay.”

  “It…” Her eyelids flutter, her face contorting, brow furrowing, and the rage insides me spikes again when I realize that it hurts her to fucking blink. “It’s okay,” she whispers. “I know. You’re…here…now.”

  33

  ALEX

  The ambulance ride is tense, primarily because I won’t let Silver go. I punch one of the EMTs when he tries to tell me I can’t ride with them to the hospital, but eventually, to keep the peace, they let me into the back of their rig with her. If Silver hadn’t been so royally fucked up, then I doubt I would have gotten my way.

  I can’t be too mad at them. They listened to Silver’s faltering account of what had happened and they decided to leave Jacob writhing in pain on the gymnasium floor, even though they probably should have prioritized him as the more emergent patient and taken him with them, while Silver was forced to wait for a second ambulance.

  I would have shot them both, stolen their fucking rig, and driven her to the hospital inside it myself if they’d made that call.

  Silver mumbles incoherently the entire way across town toward the hospital, and I hold her hand tightly, chanting the same prayer in Italian over and over again…

  “The cops are gonna be waiting there for you,” the kid I punched in the face, Dave, informs me as we draw close. “The doctors are gonna rush out first, and they’re gonna take her. She’s in shock, and she’s barely conscience. Looks like she’s taken a number of blows to the head. They’re gonna wanna do a thorough examination so they can treat her properly. You’re not gonna get in their way. Do you hear me?”

  “Fuck you, man.”

  “Do you love this girl?”

  I glare at him out of the corner of my eye. “What do you think, asshole?”

  “Then you’ll do what’s best for her, and you’ll let them take her. That’s when the cops are gonna swoop in and pick you up. They ain’t gonna be gentle about it, either. That other kid flat-out accused you of shooting him.”

  “I did.”

  Dave rocks back in his seat, blowing out a stiff, unhappy breath. He can’t be much older than me. Twenty? Twenty-one? Aside from having slow reflexes, he seems to have his shit together. “I’m gonna pretend I didn’t hear that. And don’t repeat that until you have a lawyer, either. Things’ll get messy if—”

  “I’d say things were already kinda messy, wouldn’t you, Dave?”

  He holds his hands up, mock surrendering, and doesn’t say another word until the ambulance brakes jerkily in front of the hospital. From there, everything pans out just as he said it would: numerous doctors arrive in a confusion of shouted orders, needles, back boards and scrubs. They shove me out of the way, tell me I can’t go with Silver, and I force myself to listen to them. Dave slaps me on the shoulder as the doctors wheel my girlfriend away, giving me a tight smile.

  “Incoming. Twelve o’clock. Remember what I told you, man. Don’t say shit until you’ve spoken to a lawyer. Otherwise…” He shakes his head, pulling the black nitrile gloves from his hands and dumping into the HAZMAT bin as he heads for the hospital exit. “…A kid like you is probably gonna end up serving some serious jail time.”

  34

  CAMERON

  Max wrinkles his nose, staring down at his iPad, “What does… justifiable homicide mean?” He stumbles over the legal term, frowning heavily.

  I grab hold of the iPad, ripping it out of his hands. On the screen: a news piece from the Raleigh Reporter, stating that the prosecution in the case Weaving vs Moretti are filing to have Alex tried for attempted murder. The journalist hazards a guess that Alex’s legal team will be pursuing a self-defense verdict. Damn right, they are. I know they are. I’m paying them a hell of a lot of money to make sure of it.

  “Dad, I’m eleven. I can just google it if you don’t tell me,” Maxie grouses.

  “Justifiable homicide is when someone kills someone to protect themselves or someone else,” I sigh, rubbing awkwardly at the back of my neck. I shouldn’t have to be talking about stuff like this with him. He just said it himself—he’s eleven, for Christ’s sake. Whatever happened to the age of innocence? Things were hardly peachy when I was a kid, but they’re infinitely so much worse now.

  “They can’t say Alex did that, though, because he didn’t actually kill anyone, did he? That Jacob guy’s still alive.”

  A hot stab of regret hits me square in the chest. “Yeah. Yeah, he is, Bud.” He shouldn’t be. He should be rotting in the ground with maggots feasting on his eyeballs. It’s better for Alex that Jacob didn’t die, though. Better for all of us, really. Better that Jacob and that sack of shit father of his are finally being shown for the monsters that they really are. The DEA swept in and arrested Caleb before he even found out if his son was going to make it through surgery.

  I kill the news report on the iPad screen, not wanting Max to read the rest of the information within the article. I sure as fuck don’t feel like explaining why certain members of Raleigh are claiming that Silver is making up her story of abuse, rape, assault and attempted murder.

  “Mom says you guys shouldn’t try and shield me from anything anymore,” Max says, as we pull into the hospital parking lot. “She thinks it’s hiding things that got us into this mess in the first place.”

  There are a few things I could say in response to that, but I hold my tongue. It won’t help Max if I go off the rails, calling his mother every name under the pitiless fucking sun.

  “Let’s not focus on any of that now, shall we? Silver’s coming home today. We should just be grateful that she’s going to be okay, and that we all get to spend Christmas together.”

  Max grunts, pressing his forehead against the van’s window. “I wasn’t very nice. To Silver,” he
says quietly under his breath. “I was pretty horrible to her when she picked me up from Jamie’s place before Thanksgiving.”

  “That’s okay, man. She understands. Things have been rough for everybody since…well, since…”

  It doesn’t need saying. None of it does. The past few months have been like a waking nightmare, and it’ll be a while yet before that nightmare is well and truly over.

  Inside the hospital, Dr. Killington’s waiting for us with Silver’s medical charts and a bag of medication big enough to require holding with two hands. “As you know, the bleed on Silver’s brain was severe. It’s a miracle we were able to get to it before it caused any meaningful damage. There’s still a possibility that she could suffer the occasional seizure from time to time. It’s vitally important that she’s observed over the coming months. If she does have any more seizures, then we may have to start looking at medication for that, too.”

  We’ve been over this a thousand times. I’m all too aware of the complications created by the beating Jacob Weaving dealt her when he kidnapped and tried to kill her inside that accursed school.

  Max listens quietly, chewing on his thumb nail as Dr. Killington—what kind of person doesn’t change a name like that when they become a doctor, for fuck’s sake?—goes over the dosages and potentially harmful interactions of all the meds Silver’s going to have to take for next few months. He sticks close to my side, owl-eyed and nervous as the doc goes through rehabilitation exercises and physiotherapy appointments.

  “She’s walking fine on her own now, and that’s the main thing.” Dr. Killington attempts to end his brief on a positive note. “Her ribs are healing nicely. You can barely tell her jaw was shattered, and the best plastic surgeon in Washington took care of her nose. There’s barely even a kink. The rest of it, the scar to her chin and beneath her right eyes—you’re gonna be surprised at how well those heal. In six months, she’s going to look like her normal self. Outwardly, no one’s going to be able to tell that she went through something so terrible. Mentally…”