by Bella King
“Don’t think this over,” I muttered to myself as I left Eden behind to go to class. Those were the exact words he had said to me.
I cursed myself again for getting mixed up with those guys. They had made me pledge my alliance to them, and it was unlikely that running through the halls naked would be the end of it. They would want more from me, and the only thing I could do was prepare myself for the rollercoaster that I had just climbed aboard.
I carefully took the steps down from the dormitory. The school looked so innocent now that it was daytime. It was amazing how this place could transform into a gang-ridden underworld with just a flick of the lights in the evening. So many things walk that simple thread between good and evil, needing only a small change to push them over onto one side or the other.
I rushed down the hallway and past the bathrooms that had gotten me into trouble last night. The signs had been switched back to their normal places, which I was a little disappointed by because I had wanted to check out the hiding place in the bathroom today. Maybe Andrew, Troy, and Martin would be using it again. There could be some interesting stuff there.
If I was actually part of their crew now, I ought to ask them about what they had in there. If they had me jump through hoops to prove my alliance to them, then they should also let me in on their operations. Curiosity was quickly getting the better of me the more I thought about it. I should be in the loop.
“Rose,” a voice called from behind me.
I looked over my shoulder and saw a man who I had never seen before jogging up beside me. He was a pretty boy who looked like he belonged in a singing group more than at a school for delinquents. I had no idea what he wanted or how he knew who I was, but I slowed down so that he could catch up to me.
“Hey, I’m Daniel,” he said, reaching out a hand for me to shake.
I refused it. “Daniel?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. He had been the man who the gang had mentioned in the bathroom. He was the one who had hidden the goods for them to pick up.
“Yes, that’s me. I’m tight with Andrew and his crew. He told me last night that you were going through initiation, so I wanted to say hi and introduce myself,” he explained.
Initiation. That was right, and by the sound of it, there would be more to it.
Daniel moved a chocolate-brown curl out of his forehead and grinned. “You’re pretty for a criminal.”
I snorted out through my nose in amusement. “I could say the same for you.”
He chuckled as we walked down the corridor. “I use it to my advantage. I acquire supplies for the group. If you need anything, just let me know. I need like two days’ notice, but I can get you whatever you need. Within reason, of course.”
I looked him up and down. “You can get me stuff? Is it free?”
Daniel smiled, nodding his head. “Certainly is, but don’t expect too much right now. You’re still pretty new to the group. I’m sure Andrew and the rest want to test you out before they let you in on everything.”
“I wasn’t really planning on joining, you know. They sort of made me do it,” I said.
“You’re lucky then. I practically had to beg to get in on their dealings. They nearly broke my arm when I interrupted one of their secret meetings. It’s not my fault they were so obvious about it, but they didn’t seem to like that I knew about it.”
“Why would you want to be teamed up with those guys?” I asked, still surprised that such a sweet-looking guy like him was involved with the school crooks.
“You’re safer with protection. Believe me. I got beat up three times a week before I joined Andrew. Now, nobody touches me,” he replied proudly.
“I guess that makes sense,” I replied, but I couldn’t help but feel like he was being manipulated into doing all this. I mean, that was how I got into it. They had threatened to kill me.
“Okay,” I said as I neared the classroom. “How about you get me some kind of weapon to start with. I almost got assaulted last night.”
Daniel pushed his lips out and nodded, looking impressed by my request “Smart girl. Do you want something sharp or blunt? We don’t do guns here, unfortunately.”
I didn’t see what was unfortunate about students not being able to shoot each other, but I disregarded it. “Something small and sharp that I can carry with me,” I said as I came to the door to the classroom.
“No problem,” he replied, slapping his hand against the door frame and starting to walk away.
“Oh, one more thing,” I said.
He turned around and raised an eyebrow.
“A box of nails,” I said.
He gave me a curt nod, and then he was off, leaving me in the doorway to my first class of the day. I was in too deep now. The only thing I could do was to go with the flow and take full advantage of the resources I had. I had a feeling Daniel was going to be useful.
Chapter 7
“Take these,” a said, bouncing a small box of nails onto Eden’s bed when we arrived back to the dormitory after the first class.
“Woah, where’d you get those?” She asked, picking up the box and examining it.
“Don’t ask,” I said waving a hand. “Just enjoy them responsibly.”
Eden lowered the box and squinted at me. “Have you been stealing?”
I laughed. “I’m not a criminal, Eden. I already told you why I was here.”
That was true. I had explained in great detail to her one day during lunch how I had ended up in the back of a police car after they picked me up from the side of the road. I hadn’t done a damn thing wrong, but the cops don’t care. They were looking for a bust and they got one.
My ex-boyfriend had been arrested as well, which wasn’t a surprise since he was the leader of a statewide drug ring for the last three years. On the night we were caught, he kicked me out of a moving vehicle while he was fleeing from the police with a pound of narcotics in the trunk. It had been a rough tumble for me, but nothing compared to what I had endured when he thought I had been cheating on him.
For the record, I never cheated, but he was paranoid, probably from the stimulants he was always snorting. He locked me up in a cupboard to keep me away from some lanky pothead who he thought I was interested in. Never mind the fact that this guy was hideous and looked like he hadn’t showered in a month. Those were wild times.
At Ridgeview, things were arguably calmer, but it was different here as well. I didn’t understand everything that went on behind the scenes, so it stressed me out more to be in this environment compared to the terrible one that I had been caught up in at home. The human brain doesn’t like change, even if it’s toward something better.
I grabbed a towel out of my storage chest while Eden opened the box of nails, pulling a few out to add to her weapon. I hadn’t gotten mine yet, but Daniel had been alarmingly fast with the nails. He had them to me when I stepped out of my first class of the day. Talk about good service. Clearly, I had joined the right gang.
“I don’t know where you got these, but they’re perfect,” Eden said, holding one up to the light. “Sharp as fuck too.”
I smiled. “I’m glad you like them. You owe me one.”
“For sure. You know I got your back.”
“I know,” I said, but I probably didn’t need her help at this point. She couldn’t save me from Andrew and his gang even if she wanted to. It was my responsibility to navigate their ranks without getting myself killed.
“Fuck, fuck, hide your shit,” Eden said, tossing the nails back in the box and shoving it under her pillow.
I looked down the hall as Natasha came striding down it, looking just as pompous as always, with her two sidekicks. She made eye contact with me, staring me down until she arrived at my bed.
Eden looked horribly nervous, smoothing the wrinkles out of her sheets as though Natasha would punish her for her bed-making skills. I highly doubted it, but she also looked like the type of woman to power trip and end up doing outrageous things.
“Hello Ro
se,” she said, her voice high and snippy.
“Hey,” I said, refusing to show her an ounce of respect.
Eden shot me a warning look which I ignored.
“I heard a rumor that you were sucking Andrew’s cock for special favors,” she said, her face almost looking distressed as she spoke.
I laughed. “Jesus, you need to fire your informant. It’s nothing like that.”
She rolled her eyes. “Believe me, it’s always like that. If not now, then it’s only a matter of time.”
“And why do you care?” I asked, crossing my arms and pursing my lips.
She grinned. “You could have fallen into ranks with me, and you would have been safe. I wouldn’t fuck with Andrew, if I were you.”
“But you’re not me,” I countered.
Eden looked like her head was going to explode, but she kept her mouth shut. I’m sure she didn’t want me starting a fight with Natasha, but this was my business, not hers.
Natasha sighed. “You’re pushing your luck here, Rose. One wrong move and you’re in for a world of pain. I hope you’re prepared to take what Andrew has to dish out. Don’t come running to me when he tosses you aside like the rest of the whores he gets with.”
“You sound bitter? Things didn’t work out between you two?” I asked in a mocking tone.
Natasha looked like she wanted to strangle me in broad daylight. Her eyes flashed with a moment of fury before dying down. She knew how to control herself better than I did. “Just tell him I said hi, but don’t forget that I warned you.”
And with that, she was off. Her long legs took her far away in a short amount of time, leaving Eden and us alone in the dormitory once more.
“Are you fucking insane?” Eden asked, taking me by the shoulders and shaking me violently.
“Jesus Christ, get over it,” I said, shoving her back. “Natasha is all bark and no bite.”
Eden’s brown eyes were nearly popping out of her skull. “Are you kidding me? She’ll fucking kill you. I didn’t know you were fucking around with Andrew. That’s her ex-boyfriend.”
“I’m not fucking around with Andrew,” I said, shaking my head and letting out a sigh. “He’s fucking around with me. There’s a difference.”
“Oh my god, we’re both screwed,” she replied, placing her hands on her head and clenching two balls of hair in her fists.
“You’re overreacting, Eden. Besides, you’re not involved in this,” I said, shaking my head at her.
“I sleep right beside you. What if she mistakes me for you when she comes to chop your damn head off in the middle of the night?”
Eden was getting frantic, which was my signal to leave for the showers. I didn’t have time to deal with drama before my next class. She should have been happy about the nails and not asked any more questions. My life was complicated enough already.
I took my towel and left Eden with her hands still on her head, her eyes still staring off into the distance in shock at what I had done. She would get over it.
I got to the showers, stripping off my clothes as I enjoyed the silence of the shower room. The room didn’t offer a whole lot of privacy, but that didn’t matter much to me. After running around the school naked the night before, I didn’t care that much about other women seeing me naked.
I hung my towel a few feet away on a heated rack and stepped beneath a showerhead that didn’t look clogged. Something about the minerals in the water at this school made the showerheads clog up over time, and many of them didn’t function very well. It was hit or miss whether you got a good one. Normally, it was too busy to pick and choose, but I had the whole place to myself. I could switch if I wanted to.
I turn the knob on the wall to start the water. There was only one direction that it moved, controlling both the amount of water and the heat. You could keep turning it forever, but it wouldn’t get much hotter than lukewarm, which was a disappointment during my first shower at Ridgeview. Surviving an entire year without hot water would be difficult for a person like me, who nearly scorched their skin off every time they stepped into a shower.
Once again, the water temperature was disappointing, and it even felt cold against my hot skin. It was better than it would have been if I jumped in directly after waking up, but not by much. I slipped under the showerhead and let the water pour over my shoulders, wrapping its icy grip around my ribcage and trickling down my belly to the old tiles.
I grabbed a plain bar of white soap from the little plastic tray that hung on the wall and began lathering myself up with it, hitting my armpits and groin first. I let the suds wash down to my feet. I didn’t do a full cleaning every day, but I always got to the essentials.
“We meet again, little Rose,” a deep voice said from beside me.
I jumped when I heard it, the bar of soap sliding out of my hand and landing on the floor next to the drain. I knew who it was, but I would never expect him here. How did he get here in the middle of the day with so many people around?
I turned my head to see Andrew standing beside me, completely naked, with a towel over one of his broad shoulders. His entire body was covered in a spectacular collection of intricate tattoos spanning from his neck, all the way down to his feet. His body looked like it had been carved from stone, chiseled into the perfect figure of masculine beauty.
I was stunned, but not stunned enough or my eyes to deny me the pleasure of glancing down at his cock. It wasn’t stiff, but he was clearly hung.
“You like what you see?” He asked, clearly amused by the fact that I was staring at his perfect body in silent awe.
“How did you get here?” I asked, unable to rip my eyes from his figure.
“That’s not important. The important thing is that I’m here and I have a new task for you,” he replied calmly.
“A new task?” I asked, a little confused as he walked away from me and slung his towel over the nearest hook on the wall.
My eyes were drawn down to his ass as he walked, fascinated by how tight and perky it was. I would kill to have an ass like that. It was always the men who were gifted with the perfect asses. It didn’t seem fair.
“Yes, something for your initiation into the gang. We can’t let you in without some tests to see if you’re cut out for the role,” he explained, turning back to me and walking under the showerhead beside me. He twisted the knob and let the water hit him, not so much as flinching from the sudden stream on his bare skin.
“I never asked to be part of your group,” I reminded him.
“But you did agree to it,” he said seriously.
“What if I want to leave?” I asked, propping myself against the wall with one hand. I felt a bit woozy from seeing him naked.
A smirk flickered across his soft lips. “Then you’ll have to be jumped out. I don’t recommend that.”
I knew what he meant by that. There were typically two different rituals that gangs had. The first was an initiation, whereby a new member would be given tasks to prove their usefulness and alliance to the gang. Sometimes gang members would ‘jump in’ a new member, beating them for a set amount of time so that they could prove their toughness.
The second ritual was being jumped out of a gang. This involved being beaten by the gang members, sometimes to the point of death and always to the point of serious injury, in order to leave a gang. It wasn’t something that I ever wanted to have to experience.
My body tensed up when Andrew mentioned being jumped out. He and his boys were too large and powerful for me to handle, and I would be little more than a blob of broken bones and bloody flesh once they got done with me. I wouldn’t live through a proper jumping out.
“You don’t give me many options,” I noted.
Andrew laughed, rubbing a bar of soap over his body. “I’ve given you many options, more so that I give most people. It’s because you’re cute, little Rose, but don’t test me.”
“I won’t,” I said, surprised at how submissive I felt in his presence. Maybe it was how i
ncredibly attractive he and all his group were, but I felt drawn to all of them, especially Andrew.
“Good, so let’s get you started on your next task. We’ve been feuding with Natasha’s gang for the past six months, and one of them really stepped over the line recently. I need you to find Laney’s bed and set it on fire,” he explained casually, as though he was giving me directions to the park.
“Set it on fire?” I asked, moving my head back.
“Yes, one fire. You can choose whether you want to do it while she’s in it or not. The point is, I want that bed to be up in flames. She’ll be sleeping on the floor until they get her a new one. Also,” he said, holding up a finger, “Daniel will supply the gas and matches for you. It shouldn’t be difficult.”
I should have felt uncomfortable having a conversation about setting fire to Laney’s bed while we were showering together in the women’s dormitory, but for some reason, I felt totally fine with it. There was something dangerously alluring about the way Andrew spoke. He was so calm and reasonable when he wasn’t angry. I liked him this way.
“I don’t know who Laney is. How will I find her bed?” I asked.
Andrew began rinsing the soap from his body. “She’s a redhead, small, slim, and she has rich parents, so she walks like one of those cunts with more money than brains. You know what I mean?”
I nodded. I had seen my fair share of snooty rich girls. I would know, because I was secretly one of them. I wasn’t proud of it, and I didn’t usually accept money from my parents, but it was the truth. I grew up in wealth and would return to it when I finally got out of this shithole that they called a school.
The only reason nobody could tell I was from a wealthy background was because of my unfortunate inclination toward falling in love with bad boys. It sucked me into a world of ghettos and dingy apartments. There was a sick charm to all of that which made me come back to it time and time again.
