by Rina Kent
She didn’t even hesitate. “Yup.”
Hunter threw his hands in the air as he turned back to me. “Well, there you go.”
They were good. Doubt seeped into my version of reality, leaving me questioning whether or not I had it right. But she was asleep. I saw her closed eyes, and even if I hadn’t, she’d been out of it earlier that night. No way had she been in any condition to consent to having sex with him… or maybe they’d already had an arrangement? Did that even matter? Fuck, I didn’t know. If I’d known Jade wouldn’t even care, I would’ve just went home and left her there to do what she wanted.
But that isn’t me either, is it?
“All right, well, you’re not in prison, so I guess I made a mistake.” I glanced at Jade to see if anything flashed in her eyes, but she showed nothing but disgust. Paige still wouldn’t look at me. “Sorry for ruining your party.” I mumbled the false apology before turning and readying myself to bolt toward the door. Hunter grabbed me before I’d made it more than a step.
“Do you think this is over?” He asked, laughing dryly.
“Fuck you, Hunter!” I yanked against his hold, but his grip tightened to the point I had no doubt my arms would be bruised. I whipped toward Camden. “And fuck you too. Fuck all of you. You brought me out here to what? Scare me? You can’t scare me out of knowing what I saw, but you don’t need to worry. I won’t be crashing anymore of your parties.”
This time it was Camden who laughed. He took my jaw in his hand and applied enough pressure to make my heart skip.
“You’re a witness to a crime that didn’t happen, and we’re not trying to scare you. We’re trying to help you.”
Help me?
I didn’t ask the question out loud, but he must’ve been able to see it written in my expression because he answered it. “We’re gonna make your wish come true.”
He leaned in close, almost like he was about to kiss me, but he laughed instead. Minty breath brushed across my lips, and my mind screamed to spit, bite, yank out of their grasps. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t even move, couldn’t focus on anything but Camden’s words and their hidden meaning.
We’re gonna make your wish come true.
Dread sank low in my stomach about the same time Camden released my jaw and Hunter shoved me toward Trey who was ready and waiting. He caught me and threw me over his shoulder in one swift movement.
“W-what are you doing? Stop! Put me down. I’m serious!” I banged against Trey’s back, but he didn’t even seem to feel it. The whole group started walking to the football field, Camden following behind and smirking every time I met his gaze.
I focused on Trey’s back and inflicted as much damage with my elbows as I could. I didn’t want to look at Camden. Now I knew what was so off about his eyes. He was pure evil. No empathy or remorse shone in his dark irises. The others I could chalk up whatever they were about to do to anger and loyalty to Hunter, but not him. I still didn’t know what his motive was or if he had one at all, but he wasn’t making a decision out of misplaced rage. He was just having fun.
I screamed at the top of my lungs, hoping some passerby would hear me and come help, but that backfired. We’d reached the football field and Trey rolled me off his shoulder with no warning. My arms reached out searching for something, but I crashed to the ground, landing flat on my back, the air tearing from my lungs. I opened my mouth in a gasp but all that came out when I exhaled was a groan. Pain radiated through my body, and I squeezed my eyes shut and rolled to my side.
“Isn’t that too far?” The voice was Paige’s. I’d almost forgotten she was there and that she was capable of turning on me like this.
“She makes it too easy,” Trey said.
“Easy Eden.” Camden chuckled. “I like that.”
“What are we doing over here? I thought we were just going to talk to her.” Paige again.
Hunter’s growl sounded right above my head. “Trey, will you shut your girlfriend up?”
His hands were on me, tugging my shirt up to my chest. Chilly air bit into the skin of my stomach, and my back pressed against cold turf.
My eyes popped open and I shifted to my back, gripping his wrist with both hands. “Stop.”
Adrenaline surged through my veins and I broke out into a full-fledged panic as he managed to yank the shirt over my head and toss it aside. Trey knelt at my head and cupped a hand over my mouth just as I pulled in a breath to scream.
I squirmed and fought, my limbs flailing in panic and my eyes searching the group for a weak spot. It was Paige. A tear rolled down her cheek and her hand covered her mouth as if she were afraid she’d be the one to scream. Her regret did me no good, though. She was a coward, the same one who would’ve walked away from Jade Friday night.
Hunter jerked my jeans down my legs, despite my best attempts at fighting him off.
Every nerve ending fired, forcing me to feel everything. My nipples hardened from the cold and poked into the thin material of my bra. Hunter’s palm moved from my ankles to my thighs. He wasn’t on top of me, but I could feel him leaning over me. My eyes squeezed shut, but Hunter’s sinister intentions spilled onto me, making me feel like I was wrapped up in him.
My words were muffled by Trey’s hand, but I hoped they did something. Anything.
Stop.
His hands moved further up my thighs, and he pried my legs apart. I screamed past Trey’s hand and kicked as hard as I could, but it only seemed to add more friction to Hunter’s fingers pressed against the seam of my panties.
Stop!
Stop!
“Stop.” It wasn’t my voice, but Camden’s. My eyes popped open as he stepped next to Hunter, arms crossed. “That’s good enough.”
Hunter stood and threw my jeans over his shoulder before bending to pick up my shirt. Cool air rushed over my lips with each breath, and I blinked when I realized Trey’s hand no longer covered my mouth. He stood next, but I didn’t look back at him. I couldn’t take my gaze away from Camden.
What the hell is going on?
Camden’s lips were in a tight line, but when his gaze raked over me, taking in my chest heaving with each harsh breath, he smiled.
The others were already heading back—my clothes with them. They called after Camden and shouted a few vulgar insults my way.
This was it. This was my punishment.
Camden knelt next to me, and I fought the urge to scoot away. He was a monster, and I had no idea what he was capable of or what he was capable of talking his friends into. I glared at him and stayed still.
“Okay, you got me. We did bring you out here to scare you.” He flashed me his teeth and nudged my arm like I was in on the joke.
Psychopath.
“But I do hope you’ve learned your lesson about talking too much.” He raised his brows and waited for me to confirm, but something in his voice confused me. He wasn’t talking about Hunter or what I’d seen him do. He was talking about what I’d seen before that.
“You did all this so that I wouldn’t tell people you’re screwing your best friend’s mom?”
I forgot for a moment that I was half-naked, propped up on my elbows with Camden Knight kneeling over me. My resolve to avoid pissing him off further faded away and my narrowed eyes sharpened. The funny—well, maybe not so funny—thing was, I never would’ve told anyone about it. Rumors and gossip were reserved for his kind of people.
“You’re pathetic.”
The words slipped from my mouth, and I reared back in a dry laugh before I could regret them.
His smile widened and he stood, roaming his eyes over my body as if to remind me I was nearly naked.
It worked.
Goosebumps broke out across my flesh in all the places his gaze touched.
With a shake of his head, he met my glare once again. “You know, Eden. You really do talk too much.”
He winked before turning on his heels and walking back toward the school.
Cam
The sound of ty
ping filled the computer science room, creating a white background noise that made it even more impossible for me to focus on my screen. Our semester project was to code our own app and present it to the class, bug free. I was about half way through.
My fingers stilled as the bell rang, and I rolled my neck before shutting down the computer and pushing out of my chair.
Hunter was outside the room when I passed through the door. He was leaned against a wall, arms over his chest. He didn’t usually meet me outside this particular class, but it wasn’t a surprise to see him today.
“Hear anything?” he asked, pushing off the wall and falling into step beside me.
He was talking about Eden. It’d been an hour since we’d left her and Hunter had been paranoid ever since.
“She’s not gonna say anything.”
“How do you know?” There was a hint of nervousness in his tone. When we first talked about how to handle Eden, he’d been all for it, but now, I could practically smell the regret wafting from him.
“I just do.”
That was a lie. I had no idea if Eden would say anything or not, but that was the point. The purpose of this was to find out how good she was at keeping her mouth shut… about Hunter and about me. Either way, it’d be handled.
We turned down another hall, heading for our last class before football practice. My eyes glazed over as the image of Eden entered my mind. She’d trembled and screamed past Trey’s hand, and I’d almost forgotten to give them the signal to stop. My cock had hardened watching her so defenseless, yet trying so hard to get away.
Then when she’d gotten free, she didn’t try to run or scream or even cry. She’d glared at me, called me pathetic, challenged me. That hadn’t been what I’d expected, but it intrigued me. I thought I’d had her pegged, but there was something I wasn’t seeing underneath. I couldn’t quite figure it out, but I would.
I wasn’t nervous to see what she’d do… I was excited.
“Cam,” Hunter said, shaking my arm. I snapped back to the present and followed Hunter’s pointed finger.
Eden was walking down the hall with her chin jutted. She kept her eyes in front of her, but with the way her face hardened, it was apparent she’d seen us. She hugged her books to her chest, but it didn’t hide the baggy jersey that hung down to her thighs.
Both Hunter and I turned when she passed us, and my eyes widened when I took in the last name displayed on the back of the jersey. My name… my jersey.
She was wearing clothes that I’d kept in the locker room. I turned back around and continued forward, leaving Hunter standing there gaping.
My lips pulled into a grin, and my shoulders squared.
Game on.
Chapter Three
Eden
I didn’t mean to start a war, but that’s exactly what happened.
It’d been a week and one day since my ‘lesson’, and a week since I’d thrown it back in their faces… somewhat unintentionally. I don’t know what they’d expected me to do. Walk through the school half naked? Run three miles home? They’d taken my school bag, containing both my keys and my phone, and I wasn’t much of a streaker. Maybe they’d overlooked the obvious.
The locker room.
It took me all of five minutes to find Camden’s gym bag containing his practice jersey with his last name scrolled across the back. He had a pair of matching track pants in there that I’d had to roll several times to get them to stay on my hips.
My logic wasn’t nearly as vindictive as they saw it later, when they passed me in the hall, suited up in Camden Knight’s clothes. He was the one who made the call, so he was the one I felt owed me. There may have been a moment when I considered Hunter’s instead, but Hunter was a hothead, and to be honest I was afraid of him. I didn’t quite have Camden figured out. Sociopath? Probably. But someone so enraged by my wearing their clothes that they’d rip them from my body? I was banking on that being a no.
And I’d been right.
When he’d first spotted me after fifth period, he’d done a double take. I wasn’t sure which he was more surprised by—my being in his clothes, or my being at school at all.
He really didn’t know me.
Mr. Hines’s hand cut through the air in a straight line and all sound in the auditorium died at once.
“Good work, everyone. Let’s call it a day.”
I filled my cheeks with air before letting it slowly whistle out. We were still three weeks out from our fall program, but Mr. Hines was pushing us hard. That was a three-hour practice, and the fingers on my left hand were numb from holding the strings.
I lived for this. The cello was my whole world. It was… freedom from everything bad, no matter how big or small. Lately, it’d been the only reprieve I had from the constant pranks played on me by the jocks.
The ruffling of sheet music and chairs scraping along the marble floor filled the auditorium.
“Hey,” Sebastian said, spinning in his chair to face me. He was third chair violin, which put him directly in front of me.
“Hey.”
He must’ve sensed the exhaustion in my voice because he stared off into space instead of saying anything further. Today had been a particularly rough day. Leilani—queen of the bitches—had attempted to dress up like me in an unflattering way and spent the entire day mocking me. She even carried around a cello bow to emphasize her point, as if I didn’t pick up on the head cheerleader’s sudden change in wardrobe. That wasn’t the part that hurt, though. When I passed the jocks’ bench this morning, knowing they’d have fresh torment for me, Paige was there. She was tucked underneath Trey’s arm, and instead of staring at the ground while I walked by, like she’d done the past week, she’d laughed along with them to Leilani’s impersonation.
“You notice Paige hasn’t been at practice the last couple days?” Sebastian asked, fingering the folder for his sheet music.
I finished tucking my cello into its case and closed the lid. “Yep.”
He followed as I carried my instrument backstage and tucked it into a crawl space I’d found. I hated the idea of not taking it with me, but paranoia loomed that they’d find a way to get it from my car. Probably pay off a locksmith or something. At that point, there wasn’t anything that would surprise me.
“What are you doing? Just keep it with the spare instruments.” Sebastian didn’t even need to ask why I wouldn’t want it in my car. Things were getting out of hand.
“Where Paige can find it? No thanks.”
“Paige? You don’t think she’d do something like that, do you?”
After ensuring the cello was out of sight, I turned to Sebastian. His expression was one of disbelief, and I didn’t blame him for it. I’d worn that same face naively thinking Paige could do no wrong. Not anymore.
“I’m not planning on taking any chances… and honestly, Sebastian, neither should you. I hope beyond hope they wouldn’t come after you but—”
“I can take care of myself.” He appeared so serious as he said it, but his eyes softened a moment later. “Let’s just focus on taking care of you. Come on, I’ll walk you to your car.”
I forced a smile and let him lead the way. Sebastian had been nothing but supportive since everything went down, but unfortunately, he was the only one. The rest of my friends—while good, well-meaning people—sort of bailed on me. I didn’t blame them… not really. I was a target right now, and hanging around me put a target on their backs, too. And it wasn’t like they banned me from the lunch table or were mean to me. They just seemed to always have an excuse to leave if I was around. I’d gone from someone nobody knew, to the person nobody wanted to know, all in a matter of a day. Hell, in the matter of a class period. As soon as I wore that jersey into school, I’d sealed my fate.
Sebastian held the door for me, but I froze as soon as I’d made it a foot outside. Camden’s black Jeep was parked next to my car, and he was leaning on the hood.
The urge to turn around and go back inside, maybe hide
myself in that crawl space, almost overtook me, but before I had the chance, Sebastian was at my back and the door was slamming behind him.
“What the hell is he up to now?” Sebastian grunted, already making his way toward the parking lot. I followed him, struck between accepting his protection and telling him to stand down.
He didn’t stand a chance against Camden.
“Sebastian.” He ignored me and continued toward my car. We were about halfway to the parking lot when I increased my stride and got in front of him. I spun and stopped, placing a hand on his chest to stop him too. His brows were creased and he had so much anger in his expression it was hard to remember it wasn’t directed at me.
“I’ve got this, okay? Just go home.”
“I’m not leaving you again, Eden. Not after what that asshole did to you the last time.”
My heart squeezed. I’d asked Sebastian to stay behind the day they took me to the football field. I hadn’t even considered the guilt he must’ve been experiencing.
“Look.” I pulled my keys from the small purse I kept strapped over my shoulder at all times since the incident. I didn’t trust leaving my keys in my locker, but there was another thing I wouldn’t be caught without… again.
I showed him the tiny canister of pepper spray I now had dangling from my keyring. “It’s just one of them. I can handle it, I promise.”
“Why don’t you want my help?”
“Because…” The words lodged in my throat.
Because he’d kill you.
Because I don’t want to put you in their crosshairs.
Because I’m more afraid of what he’d do to you than enduring more of his torment.
None of those seemed like a convincing enough answer. All were true, but Sebastian was too good of a friend to let it sway him. He didn’t care what the jocks thought of him being friends with me, and he would’ve put the target on his back in a heartbeat. I couldn’t let him do that.
“Because he just wants to talk… I know that doesn’t make sense, but—”
“Are the rumors true?” His face hardened to the point he looked like a statue, and this time, I think the anger was directed at me.
