Freak (Hillcrest University #2)

by Candace Wondrak

  Declan came down the hall, grabbing me by the hand and leading us to the seating area. It was mostly empty. The intake nurse was slow to return to her desk, eyeing us up.

  “Any news?” I had trouble speaking. It was like every time I swallowed, something blocked it. Like something was lodged in my throat, refusing to move.

  “He was stabbed,” Declan whispered. Though the words were whispered, they fell on my ears like a ton of bricks, a voice blasted from the loudest speakers on earth. He moved a hand to his left side, hovering it near where a bunch of important organs were inside. Namely, a kidney. “Right here. Just once, like whoever did it didn’t want to kill him.”

  My skin turned to ice, my mind hardly registering what he was saying.

  “The doctor said whoever did it was an expert. He knew right where to stab to inflict the most pain but avoid Will bleeding out,” Declan went on. “Before he passed out, he kept yelling for me…and you.” His brown eyes squeezed shut, and he fought the emotions threatening to take him over. “I don’t know what I’ll do if…if he…” He couldn’t even say it.

  Declan turned those watery eyes to me, and I croaked out, “I have to pee.”

  Yes. I have to pee, like I was six years old, unable to tell what was appropriate to say in dire, serious situations.

  Declan was so startled at my sudden declaration of the state of my bladder that he only blinked as I stood up, watching silently as I walked down the hall. My back was rod straight, my fingers trembling at my sides. A unisex bathroom sat nearby, just thirty feet down another hall. All the while, the nurse at the front desk watched me, as if not trusting I was only going to pee.

  I wasn’t.

  I didn’t have to pee. The only thing I felt like doing was throwing up, but beyond that, I was fine.

  No.

  Liar.

  I wasn’t fine. If I was fine, I wouldn’t feel like throwing up. If I was fine, I wouldn’t feel like all of the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I wouldn’t feel the urge to hide myself away in a hospital’s bathroom only to pull out my phone and do something I should’ve done a long time ago.

  I locked the door behind me, moving before the sink, staring at my own reflection in the mirror for a moment before my shaking hands retrieved my phone from my pocket. I’d long since stopped watching the news. Obsession wasn’t my thing. It might be Travis’s, but I’d done my best to not think about it.

  What I saw, what I knew…what I told the police from a phone in the middle of nowhere.

  I opened up the Google search bar and typed in the two words I never allowed myself to think. Two words that made me want to die. I’d blocked it out for so long, it felt strange to see my fingers typing them out.

  The first word: Midtown.

  The second word, Strangler…was a bit of a misnomer, because he didn’t just strangle them.

  Oh, yes. I’d kept so much to myself. Ray Ruiz was not only my ex, but also a monster of epic, murderous proportions. He was the reason I had nightmares. He was the cause of my panic attacks that came on so randomly and quickly. He was the reason I tried so hard to hide how fucked up I really was.

  The truth: I wasn’t okay. I hadn’t been okay for a while. I’d lied to everyone I’d ever known, and where had it got me? Here, clutching the porcelain sink in one hand, my other hand holding a phone as I waited for Google’s search to load.

  And when it did, my stomach lurched.

  The first headline said it all: Midtown Stranger gets off on a Technicality. I jerked back, dropping my phone to the floor. Its screen cracked, but I didn’t bend to pick it up. My skin was colder than ice; the flesh on my bones wanted to slither off and crawl away to avoid dealing with this, and me? I didn’t know what to do.

  He’d found me. He’d gotten off, and he’d found me.

  I couldn’t breathe. My eyes met mine in the mirror and on the wall behind me, in the reflection of the mirror, I saw a girl I’d seen before. Beaten, bloodied, tired. Her arms were strung up above her head, tied to a cinderblock wall. She wore nothing but a dirty white bra and some underwear, her blonde hair an unkempt, knotted mess. On her left side, a big black X sat.

  For a moment, I was there. For one fast, impossible moment, I found myself back in that basement, in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. For one split-second, I was back to where I started out, and I wanted to die.

  My nerves took control of me, and I was like a passenger in my own life, watching as my body mechanically left the bathroom, abandoning my shattered phone. My feet drew me down the hall, not stopping as I passed the ER’s seating area, not even glancing up when Declan called out to me. I left the hospital, walked myself right outside with a pace that was slowly quickening.

  I was on the sidewalk heading to the road—going God knew where—when Declan caught up with me. “Ash,” he called out, but I didn’t stop. He grabbed my arm, pulling me toward him, stopping me from further storming off. “Where are you going?” His brown eyes were almost accusatory—or was I imagining that? Did I want him to blame me? Would that make this easier?

  “I can’t,” I said, not sounding at all like myself. I sounded cold, bored…borderline nuts. But that’s what a man like Ray did to you, made you feel ten different kinds of crazy. Made you enjoy it before you knew what was happening, before you knew the depths of the shit he made you walk in.

  “You can. Whatever’s going on inside that head of yours, tell me.” Declan’s grip on my arm tightened, holding onto me with a strength I wouldn’t have pegged him for. I could see the scar lining his arm, white tissue slightly risen from the surrounding skin. An injury that I was slowly coming to terms with; an injury that was my fault. “I’m not letting you walk away, not when someone’s out to get us—”

  “Me,” I practically shouted at him, watching as his expression changed. I yanked my arm from his grip, taking a few steps back, putting more distance between us. Those lips I’d kissed…those arms I’d wanted wrapped around me protectively—it could never happen again. Nothing could ever happen between me and any of these guys.

  His brown brows furrowed, and he reached for me again, but I sidestepped him. “What are you talking about?” His tone was strained; it was clear he didn’t understand what I was doing or saying…and he probably never would. A rich boy like him, shattered and broken as he was, had never crawled through dirt that held corpses.

  “What am I…” I laughed, and the laugh was like acid on my tongue. Didn’t feel right, hurt coming out. “This—this isn’t about you, Declan! Don’t you see? It’s never been about you. It’s always been about me. This isn’t your story, it’s mine.” I sounded like a lunatic, a crazy person who escaped their mental institution, someone off their meds.

  I didn’t have meds, but maybe I should. Or go to therapy, but that would involve telling my mom everything. Telling Kelsey everything. Then everyone would know the truth about my past.

  I thought of Travis, what he did to me, tears prickling my eyes. I thought about Sawyer and the girl with pink hair. I thought about Declan being attacked, Will getting stabbed. Everything was for me. All of it.

  This was my life, and it was a fucking mess. Coming to Hillcrest was never a new chapter in my life—it was the epilogue. This place would be the end of me, but it wouldn’t be because of these rich boys and their games.

  I would die here, and it would be of my own doing, his design.

  Chapter Twenty-Six – Ash

  Declan stared at me, his mouth hanging slightly agape. “What are you talking about, Ash? You’re not making any sense.” Behind his expression sat someone who was desperate to figure out what was wrong with me, why I was acting so strange. “Come inside with me. The stress, it has to be—”

  I met his eyes, refusing to back down even though I felt like I couldn’t breathe. What little air I could inhale felt like a thousand knives prickling my lungs, and no amount of air was enough. “I’m not going inside,” I told him in a bare whisper, my arms shaking as they hung at
my side.

  “Why are you doing this? Will is—”

  Again, me interrupting him, “What happened to Will is my fault!” The words were shouted perhaps a bit too loudly, since it was nearing five in the morning, which was still too early for people to get up on a Sunday. The parking lots surrounding the hospital were mostly empty, save for the cars of the nightshift workers.

  Declan shook his head. “Don’t blame yourself. You didn’t do this. Someone else did.”

  No. He wasn’t understanding. He’d never understand, unless he saw it for himself, unless he could peel back my memories and live them himself, bit by bit. Declan would never get it, because he didn’t see the whole picture.

  But it wasn’t his picture to see. It was mine.

  I shook my head, feeling the strange need to cry. Pathetic, huh? When the shit hit the fan, I wanted to revert back to a ten-year-old girl and cry. “I’m sorry,” I muttered, “but I have to go.” I didn’t wait for him to say anything else. I turned on my heel and took off, running at full speed away from him, away from the hospital, away from Will who I knew, without a doubt, was in the most pain of his entire life.

  I ran so hard and so fast my legs stumbled. I ran until my lungs threatened to burst. I ran until I got sloppy and tripped on a chunk of sidewalk that was just slightly uneven. My whole body heaved forward, and the concrete below scraped my knees, jarring my bones with the impact.

  It was fine. What was a little pain when Will was fucking stabbed, all because of me?

  I didn’t get up for a while. How could I, when things felt so hopeless? God, was I making this up? Was it all in my head? No, I saw the headline, and the date it was released. He’d gotten out a while ago, and since my mom had no idea I was involved with a killer who stalked the streets a few cities over from ours, she had no reason to let me know during any of our calls.

  I didn’t tell her about him, ever. That fateful weekend, just after I’d turned eighteen, I’d told my mom I was with Kelsey. After all, I was finally eighteen, finally an adult, and I should’ve been able to do whatever I wanted, right?

  Wrong.

  Wrong in so many ways.

  With shaking arms, I brought my hands to my face, trying to stop the tears from falling. Once they started, they wouldn’t stop. I’d be a blubbering mess forevermore, all because of a psycho ex who I thought, at the time, I loved with all my heart.

  I had a thing for the most messed-up and vile, didn’t I? Really, that should’ve been the warning sign I needed when it came to Travis and Sawyer. And Declan and Will? They were too good to involve in my life. They deserved someone so much better than me. I was nothing. I was the lowest of the low.

  I’d dug my own grave here.

  Running from your past never worked out. Hadn’t I seen enough movies by now? Hadn’t I watched enough TV to know that trying to forget the past never worked? You had to face that shit head-on, and yet I’d tried running, full-speed, away from it. Look at where it got me: collapsed on a sidewalk, two of the guys I cared about hurt already. I couldn’t take much more of this.

  I…I had to tell the truth. I had to march back into that hospital, because surely the cops were waiting to question Will once he was stabilized, and I had to tell them everything. At first I’d sound like a pretentious know-it-all, but once they looked into it, they’d find I was right.

  Ray had hurt Will. Ray had hurt Declan.

  He’d hurt anyone who got close to me. Really, it was a miracle he hadn’t hurt Sawyer yet. And Travis…I wasn’t sure how he’d do it, but I knew you couldn’t underestimate him. Ray was not to be taken lightly, ever.

  I got up, focusing on my breathing, trying to calm myself. In and out. When I breathed in, I held the breath in my lungs for five seconds before releasing it. Over and over until I was relatively calm. As calm as I could be, considering the state of my life.

  This was it. This was the night everything changed. Once it was out in the open, would the guys even want to be around me? Surely they’d think differently of me. Surely they’d realize that being around me, caring for me in any way, only put them at risk until my ex was caught—and actually sentenced this time.

  I turned, stepping off the sidewalk, crossing the road to start the journey back to the hospital. It wasn’t too far; I could see the hospital’s tall walls a little ways off. Psyching myself up for this was hard, but I knew it wasn’t going to be as hard as coming clean. I had to do it though, for Declan, for Will, for all those girls who’d died under his hands.

  Goddamn it. I refused to be one of them. I would not become just another number. I would—

  My world spun, tumbling around me as pain shot through every nerve in my body. Warm metal lifted me up, hoisting me off the street and sailing me through the air until I landed on the hard, rough ground below.

  A car.

  My thoughts came jumbled, fighting to surface through the searing agony I felt in every nerve, each fingertip and every limb. A car just hit me. My legs were splayed before me, my arms outstretched. I tasted metal; my own blood, my own stupidity for not watching where I was going, too lost inside my own head.

  I tried getting up, I tried standing, but I couldn’t. I was on my stomach on the road, and all I could do was flip myself so that I lay on my back instead, staring up at the early morning sky with a pair of eyes whose vision was fading fast. The stars were less noticeable now, as dawn crept its way along the world.

  The car didn’t stop; it kept going. I was alone in the middle of a street that got busy during rush hour, but in the wee hours of the morning, there was not a soul to be seen. I was alone…and I couldn’t feel my legs. I couldn’t feel much, actually, except the tingly, fiery hot pain of the impact along my spine.

  With each blink, my vision grew blurrier. I opened my mouth, wanting to shout for help even though I knew no one was nearby, but no voice came out. Nothing but a croak. I was officially down and out, taken out by a car, of all things.

  Was I going to die here? Was a car going to come and run me over because the driver couldn’t see my crumpled body? Was this it for me? To go out with a whimper instead of a bang…it just didn’t feel right. Then again, I could never imagine when getting hit by a car would feel right. Pretty sure that always was on the wrong side of things.

  I almost cried then, almost, but I didn’t. I would not let this world make my last moments ones of sniveling, whimpering drivel. I would meet the blackness with a bring it, bitch attitude and my fists held up…if I could form fists, that was.

  At least, that’s what I thought until my blurry vision was blocked by something. A head. A head with tanned skin and short, buzzed brown hair. A head that held eyes so green and pure in their color they were like two round emeralds, sparkling in the darkness. A head that belonged to the one man I never wanted to see again.

  Ray Ruiz, my psychotic ex-boyfriend who should be in federal prison for the sixteen girls he’d killed…my psychotic ex-boyfriend who should’ve been arrested long before that because we’d started dating when I was fifteen…and he was thirty-two.

  I tried to lift a hand, to touch him, to push him away…to see if he was real or if I was just imagining him before I succumbed to the pain, but I couldn’t lift my arm off the street. Or maybe I did and I simply couldn’t feel it.

  “Amorcito,” he spoke, his accented voice jarring…and yet still loving. “You’re gonna be fine.”

  I blinked, and then he was gone. I blinked, and suddenly it was as if my world hadn’t just shattered into a million tiny, unrepairable pieces. I blinked, and just like that, I was alone on the street once more, unable to move, unable to feel anything but the ebbing pain growing colder, more far off, distant—and the coppery taste of my own blood.

  My eyes rolled back in my skull, my eyelids closing, one last time. If this was my end, there was no way to stop it. If the mystery surrounding Hillcrest and what happened to Sabrina didn’t kill me, if those rich boys weren’t my demise, naturally it would be somethi
ng of my own doing. I’d signed my own death warrant without even realizing it. My past had finally caught up to me, and I was so very tired of fighting. When I gave in and let the cold embrace of unconsciousness take me, knowing this was it, this was the end of me and everything I stood for, my lungs let out a soft, slow sigh, and then I was still.

  Sometimes all you could do was give up.

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  Be on the lookout for book 3, Skank, coming soon!