by Bella King
I shrugged and went into the women’s bathroom, unable to hold my bladder for much longer. I need to go, and quickly! As I entered the bathroom, the automatic lights flickered on in an obnoxious white light, illuminating the old bathroom. I ran down the line of stalls and jumped into the first one that looked halfway clean, slamming the door shut a little too loudly and jerking down my pants to hover over the seat and relieve myself.
It was only when I had finished and was reaching for the toilet paper that I realized something was wrong. I could have sworn that I ran past urinals on the way to the stall. I frowned, swearing to myself up and down that I had gone into the correct bathroom.
Maybe someone had switched the signs. I wouldn’t have put it past a couple of pranksters at the school to do that. Some of the guys probably thought it was funny to have women walking into the men’s room by accident.
I shook my head and stood up, unlatching the bolt and pushing the door open. I looked out of the stall to see a row of urinals close to the sinks. Yep, I was in the wrong bathroom. I was lucky it was so late at night and nobody was here, because otherwise, I would have been quite the spectacle for the guys.
Laughed echoed through the entrance to the bathroom, causing a jolt of attention to shoot through me. My heart sped up, my eyes widened, and I quickly came to the realization that I was indeed in trouble. I was in big trouble.
I closed the door and hid in the stall, leaving it unlocked as I jumped up on top of the toilet bowl and squatted there, my ears picking up every sound that echoed through the room. I could hear multiple guys coming in, laughing and talking amongst themselves like it was the middle of the day. This wasn’t good.
The hairs on my arms and legs stood up painfully tall on my skin, every cell in my body on high alert as the guys walked through the bathroom. I prayed that they were only in here to use the urinals and leave, but their movement told me otherwise. They didn’t seem to be using the bathroom at all.
The dark green stall door slowly crept open, silently moving on its hinges to reveal the interior of my stall. My heart sunk as it moved, and I had to stop my instinct to grab it and pull it back shut. They would see and hear me if I did that. The only thing I could do was hope they didn’t see the slow movement of the stall door coming open.
I heard footsteps coming closer to me. It sounded like there were three of them, all with voices so deep and baritone that I couldn’t make out the words they were saying. They sounded amused, cocky, and casual, as though they were taking a stroll through a school that they owned. I didn’t like anything about them already, but there was little I could do but hide.
I watched the door. It was nearly halfway open but had stopped moving. If they walked past the stall, they would surely see me, but I was safe if they didn’t. I wished I had picked a stall further down, but it was too late for that now.
Or was it? I looked toward the bottom of the stall at the gap between the floor and the wall. It was large enough for someone my size to crawl under, but I would have to risk making noise to do it. The guys were still talking so they might not hear me, and they were moving closer to my stall. I didn’t have much choice.
I stepped down from the toilet bowl with my bare feet, wincing as my foot hit the cold tile below. I should have worn shoes out because this floor was filthy. I needed to clean my feet before I got back in bed, but at least I didn’t have to pee anymore.
I crouched down, placing my hands against the nasty floor and looking under the stall at three pairs of glossy black leather shoes walking toward me. I had to be quick if I didn’t want to be caught. I pressed myself against the floor and slid between stalls, moving down the line as quickly as I could while staying quiet.
My pajama pants dragged against the tiles, gripping the floor too much for me to keep them in place. They threatened to slide off once or twice, slowing me down because I had to keep pulling them up. The last thing I wanted was to be caught without pants in the men’s bathroom in the middle of the night by a bunch of rowdy guys. There was no telling what they would do to me.
I reached the last stall and sprung up, pulling my pants up again and jumping onto the toilet bowl. The last stall was a handicap stall, which made it significantly bigger than the rest of them. If I had to, I would be able to flatten myself against the wall and avoid being seen through the open door.
The men in the bathroom had stopped walking, but they were still together by the sound of it. I heard a single stall opening and them all walking into it. I perked up at this. What were they doing in there together? It was an odd sort of place for a group meeting.
“Can you move?” An irritated voice asked.
“Hey, I’m the one with the fucking screwdriver, so shut the fuck up,” another voice responded.
I leaned in from my position on the toilet to focus on their conversation, push strands of silvery-blonde hair from my face. I liked to keep it long, but damn if it didn’t get in the way sometimes.
“Guys, we’re not going to get this open any faster by fighting. Let’s just get what we came for and get the hell out of here.”
“And switch the sign back. It was funny the first time, but Daniel said he had trouble dropping the stuff here with all the women coming in and out.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll get it on the way out,” said a disappointed voice.
I listened to what they were doing. It seemed that they were unscrewing something in the stall, perhaps picking up something that another guy, Daniel, had dropped off. I was curious about what it was, but more than anything, I wanted to get out of here safely. There was no way these guys were upstanding citizens. This school attracted brought in the worst, and by the sounds of their voices, these guys were especially bad characters.
I heard a clatter of a metal object falling, and the hurried whispers of the men in the stall. It sounded like that had gotten what they came for. Good, because I was starting to get chilly out here in just my pajamas. I hadn’t been expecting this long of an adventure.
“Okay, take your cut and let’s go. I’m not interested in getting thrown in detention again,” I voice said. He sounded like the leader of the group. His voice was steadier and more authoritative. It almost sounded sexy, but it was men like that who had gotten me sent to this god awful school in the first place. I wasn’t about to get mixed up in all that again.
Keep your head down, Rose, and your chin up. Take no shit and make no apologies. You’re only here to serve your time and nothing else. We don’t make friends at Ridgeview.
I had to remind myself of this often, repeating it like a mantra in my head until it clung to every twist and turn of my troubled mind. One can often get lost in one’s own head, so I made it a point to pack the forgotten nooks and crannies with reminders not to fuck up again.
“I said 50, asshole, and you can keep the cigs,” a voice growled from inside the neighboring stall.
They were still splitting up whatever they had pulled out of that kidding place. I wanted to check it out after they left, but I didn’t want to risk getting caught. I was a curious woman, but not entirely stupid. After they left, I would be going straight to bed.
“Alright, take the shit and let’s go.” I heard the stall door open and the three men walking out. They hurried toward the exit of the bathroom, quieter now as they left.
My legs were starting to cramp up from crouching on the toilet for so long, but I didn’t want to move until I was certain that they were out. I waited until I heard the footsteps disappear down the hallway and the voices fade into the darkness.
I waited for so long that the automatic light in the bathroom flickered off, leaving me in total darkness. I felt safer in the dark after an encounter with those men. I could hide better when I wasn’t exposed by the glaring fluorescent bulbs overhead.
I climbed down from the toilet once the light was off and stretched out my legs. The motion detector for the light didn’t acknowledge me until I opened the stall door and stepped out, then the lights
flickered back on. I walked quickly toward the bathroom exit, knowing that the light might attract visitors.
I peeked my head out of the bathroom, looking left and right down the hallway. There was nobody there. I let out a sigh of relief and walked back toward the women’s dormitory. I was eager to get back to the safety of my bed and forget about all this.
I counted my steps as I walked down the hall. It felt quicker to get back to the staircase on the way back, but that was how it always was. I moved through the darkness skillfully, having learned my way in it on the path to the bathroom. Even though there were no directions to remember, my body moved faster because it felt more comfortable after having completed the journey once before.
I was almost to the staircase when I realized that I wasn’t alone.
Chapter 4
A figure was seated at the foot of the stairs, blocking my way up to my bed. Luck, as it turned out, was not on my side that particular night. The figure rose as I came up to it, and I froze.
“So, you’re doing a bit of late-night walking as well?” A deep voice rumbled from the dark figure. “Perhaps we should walk together?”
My heart thundered in my chest as the man in the dark stepped closer, revealing his face to me. I knew by his voice that he wasn’t one of the men that had been in the bathroom earlier, but he looked like he could have been one. He was tall, muscular, and had tattoos creeping up his neck toward his face. This wasn’t the type of guy you wanted to run into late at night.
“I’m going back to bed,” I said, my voice barely audible, even to myself. My throat was already bone dry, and I couldn’t even swallow to lubricate it.
“You’ll have to get past me to do that. There’s a toll to pay,” he said, a wicked grin stretching across his chiseled jaw.
“A toll?” I asked. I didn’t have any money with me. That wasn’t something you needed here at school.
“Yes, so pay up,” he said, extending a large hand.
I shook my head. “I don’t have any,” I said, my voice finding a little more strength.
“No?” He said, raising an eyebrow and looking amused. “Well, I guess you’ll have to pay with something else.”
I didn’t like the tone of his voice. I knew what men like him wanted from women this late. That had to be the only reason he was hanging out around the bottom of the staircase in the middle of the night. I was terrified that I wouldn’t be able to get away from him, and that he would take the toll he was referring to from me.
The man licked his lips and looking me up and down. “I bet you have a nice tight body underneath those silly pajamas. How about you give me a peek?”
I was ready to run, unsure of if I could actually escape from him. My feet were glued to the floor in fright, but my body was gearing up to bolt in the opposite direction of him. If he made a move toward me, then I was getting the hell out of there.
“I’m not interested in that,” I replied to the man.
He frowned. “That’s too bad. It’s been a while since I had a nice fat set of lips wrapped around my cock.”
That was all I needed to hear to start running. My body jerked me away from him so fast that I felt like my head might snap off in the process. I ran with everything I had in me deeper into the darkness of the school, taking turns in every direction, praying that he would get lost behind me if he chose to follow.
My pulsed thumped too loudly in my ears for me to hear anything else. I had no idea if the man was behind me or not, but I didn’t want to stop to find out. I continued to run away from the women’s dormitory, weaving through unfamiliar hallways and ducking through doors to places I had never been before. Only once I was truly lost di I stop to catch my breath.
I listened for footsteps but heard none. I was safe, if only for the time being. I wouldn’t be able to go back to the dormitory until morning, which meant I had to survive the rest of the night in the school halls. This wasn’t going to be fun at all.
It was far too dark for me to know where I was, which gave me the bright idea to just go to sleep under whatever could shield me from the outside world until the morning. If I managed to get even an hour or two of sleep tonight, it would be better than nothing. I had gotten myself too far into this mess to get myself out until the sun came up. I would have to ride this one out for the night.
I felt around in the room that I was in. I seemed to have come into a classroom unknowingly, which had a lot of desks and chairs in it. That meant there would be a large desk at the front of the room that I could sleep under. It was the perfect spot because even with the light on, nobody would see me until they came right up to the desk.
I weaved through the desks, bumping into one and banging my hip bone on it. I winced, stumbling forward before catching myself on another desk. The desk that I ran into screeched against the floor, the heavy metal on the bottom of it dragging against the rough stone. Everything in this school was built so long again that it weighed a ton and never broke. The desk would do more damage to me than I could ever dream of doing to it.
I cursed at the loud noise under my breathe but continued walking forward with a slight limp until I got to the front of the classroom. I ducked down under the teacher’s desk and curled myself into a ball, using one arm as a pillow as I tried to get comfortable.
It was dusty under the desk, but nothing I couldn’t handle. I had experienced worse when my ex-boyfriend had kidnapped me and stuffed me in a small cupboard in his basement for a week, only letting me out every few days to shower. I had nearly died there, so sleeping under a dusty desk was easy. At least I would be emerging from my cramped confines in the morning instead of a week later.
I thought I was safe under the desk. I really believed that it would save me that night, but I was wrong. I was dead wrong. When I ran into the student’s desk on the way to the front of the classroom, my location had been compromised. The monsters that lurked in Ridgeview knew where I was, and they were coming for me.
A light clicked on in the classroom, blinding me with its brightness until my eyes could adjust. I had almost been able to fall asleep in the minute that I had been curled up under the table, but now I was wide awake again. I couldn’t seem to get away from the horrible people that wandered around the halls at night.
“They’re in here,” a voice said confidently. “See the desk. Someone ran into it.”
“Definitely, but they could have left,” another voice said.
“Better check the place. Spread out.”
I knew these voices from the bathroom. The men who had originally terrified me in the wrong bathroom at the beginning of the night were back for more, and this time, they knew that I was here. There would be no way to avoid them now, unless they decided not to look under the teacher’s desk.
I had no such luck.
“Hey there, little one. You lost your way?” A voice rumbled mockingly from above me.
I looked up and saw a tall, handsome man with eyes as green as glittering emeralds staring down at me with an arrogant smirk. He was quickly joined by two others, equally as attractive, but with more tattoos.
“I’m hiding from someone,” I said.
“From us?” One of the men asked.
“No, there was a guy hanging around the women’s dormitory and I couldn’t get back to bed,” I explained, remaining in the same curled position under the desk as when they had found me. I was hoping that if I stayed like that, they would just leave me alone, but I knew that was pretty farfetched. I was in trouble again.
The leader of the group chuckled and looked at his henchmen and nodding to them before looking back down at me. He stretched out a foot and jabbed me in the ribs with the tip of his shoe. “Get up,” he said, his voice strong and commanding.
His jab had hurt, but I figured I would get much worse if I didn’t listen to him. He didn’t seem to be in the mood to play 21 questions with me. He wanted to get straight to business, and I was in no place to protest.
“Why are you out s
o late, little one?” The leader asked, stepping close so that I was pinned to the edge of the desk. The other two stood with their arms crossed on either side of him. There was no way to get around them and run. This time, I was trapped.
“I’m not little,” I said, a tinge of irritation slipping into my voice. I was tired and all I wanted to do was go back to bed, not be harassed by a group of guys in an empty classroom at night.
“You didn’t answer my question,” he said, leaning in further.
“I just had to go to the bathroom,” I grumbled.
He looked over his shoulder at one of the other men and frowned. “I told you there was someone in there. You see what happens when you pull pranks like that?”
My heart sunk. I should have made something up. They knew that I had heard what they had been doing. I could attempt to feign innocence, but I wasn’t very good at it. Hell, I didn’t even seem innocent even when I was telling the truth. My botched trial spoke volumes about that.
The leader looked back at me. “My name is Andrew, and this is Troy and Martin,” he said, flicking his head left and right to the guys beside him. “And you, little Rose, are in a whole hell of a lot of trouble right now.”
How did he know my name? I had only been here for a short amount of time, and I had barely talked to anyone. The only way that he would know who I was would have been through Eden or Natasha, more likely the latter of the two.
“I didn’t hear anything,” I said, my eyes wide with fright as Andrew glared down at me with vicious green eyes.
He chuckled, but there was no smile on his face. “Don’t lie to me. I hate liars,” he said.
I shook my head. “I’m not lying.”
Andrew reached out and took my shirt in his fist, balling his hand so tight into the fabric that the only way I would escape it is if I slipped out of the shirt entirely. “I said, don’t fucking lie to me, bitch,” he yelled. “I’m not fucking around!”
