Skank
Hillcrest University: Book 3
Candace Wondrak
© 2019 Candace Wondrak
All Rights Reserved.
Book cover by Victoria Schaefer at Eve’s Garden of Eden – A Cover Group
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Chapter One – Ash
Chapter Two – Declan
Chapter Three – Travis
Chapter Four – Ash
Chapter Five – Sawyer
Chapter Six – Ash
Chapter Seven – Ash
Chapter Eight – Declan
Chapter Nine – Ash
Chapter Ten – Ash
Chapter Eleven – Travis
Chapter Twelve – Ash
Chapter Thirteen – Declan
Chapter Fourteen – Will
Chapter Fifteen – Ash
Chapter Sixteen – Sawyer
Chapter Seventeen – Ash
Chapter Eighteen – Ash
Chapter Nineteen – Ash
Chapter Twenty – Declan
Chapter Twenty-One – Ash
Chapter Twenty-Two – Ash
Chapter Twenty-Three – Ash
Chapter Twenty-Four – Travis
Chapter Twenty-Five – Ash
Chapter Twenty-Six – Will
Chapter One – Ash
My head pounded, and I asked myself: did you really think this was a good idea? Of course shit was going south. You saw the warning signs, and you chose to ignore them. You get what you get, and you deserve it all.
My body didn’t want to cooperate with me as I ran from the cabin. Spend the weekend at my boyfriend’s cabin in the middle of the woods. Right. Because absolutely nothing could go wrong. I’d told Mom that I was staying with Kelsey for the weekend, proud of myself that I was finally eighteen. An adult. I shouldn’t have had to lie to her about it, but if she knew the truth, if she knew my boyfriend was thirty-five years old, she wouldn’t have approved.
For good reason too, as it turned out.
My heart pounded in my chest as I pushed open the screen door and emerged into the crisp, clean air of the hilly mountains around us. In the middle of nowhere, basically. Shit out of luck in every way, no matter how you looked at it. Didn’t have his car keys, didn’t have my phone—everything was in the cabin, left and abandoned, as I hadn’t had enough time to grab it. All I had was me.
I would have to do.
I sprinted off the steps of the cabin, running as fast as I could away from it, full force speed I didn’t even know I was capable of. I went around the back, knowing he’d probably think I went straight out. The road was right ahead, a few miles away, but I knew it curved and winded in these mountains. I’d come across the road soon enough in the valley. I was ninety percent certain there was a gas station somewhere along the road, though once I reached the road, it was anyone’s guess which direction.
This was all a guessing game, a game of prediction. Who would win? I couldn’t say, but I hoped it would be me. If I lost…I just might lose more than my life. My dignity, my sanity. Everything I had.
It was a miracle my clothes were clean, even more of a miracle that I was still running, given the state of my anxiety. What I saw…it was real, and what’s worse, Ray was serious. I’d known he had a bit of a bad streak, but I never thought…never imagined he—
I was maybe an acre away from the log cabin when the ground became uneven, and the tip of my shoe dug into the dirt. I was moving too fast to catch myself, and before I knew it, my body tumbled to the dirt below. My hands caught myself, but not before I saw what lay around me…what was before me.
All around me. Seemingly going on for miles—but that was just my frantic, freaked-out brain. In reality, it didn’t go on for miles on end; it was big enough to hold them, though. He must’ve cut down the trees in the area, for this was the one spot the sunlight was able to stream through, to illuminate just how much shit I’d gotten myself into.
What I’d tripped on? A big mound of dirt.
To be more specific, a huge-ass mound of dirt, surrounded by other mounds of dirt, that seemed to be exactly the size a human would be, if they were dumped unceremoniously in unnamed and unmarked graves. And after what I’d seen in the basement, what Ray had tried to make me do…I knew that was exactly what they were.
Graves.
Fifteen of them, arranged in three rows of five.
The one in the basement would be sixteen…or I would be, if I didn’t get my ass up and moving.
I didn’t want to be number sixteen. I didn’t want today to be the last day of my life. What eighteen-year-old woke up and thought: today’s a great day to die?
Though I was behind the house, I still heard the front door burst open. Ray called for me, obviously in pain, “Ash, amorcito, where are you? These woods are no place for a girl like you.” His shouting was labored, and it was because of me.
A girl like me.
Because he knew me so well. In a way, I supposed he did, although I used to think I knew him, too. He was fire, he was life. He was the reason I got up in the morning and the reason I often went to bed upset. He was hot and cold, and we pushed and pulled against each other like polar opposites sometimes. We might break up, but we always got back together. Foolishly, at some point, I thought he was the one.
Hah. The one. There was no one for me. If I survived this, I’d be forever alone. It’s what I deserved. My instincts always led me down the wrong path, the opposite direction of where I should be going. Mom would be ashamed of me.
No more boyfriends. No more crushes. No more fluttery hearts and flirting. No more anything. If I survived this day, if I managed to make it wherever the hell I was going, I was going to turn a new leaf. That scholarship at Hillcrest might help. I’d be surrounded by boys, which, yes, might go against the whole no boyfriends thing, but they’d all be spoiled rich brats, and those guys just weren’t my type.
I liked the psycho ones, apparently. The liars. The ones who hid things behind their handsome smiles and you were too lovestruck to realize it. I liked the ones whose sanity was questionable.
I rushed to get to my feet, tripping on my clumsy toes only once before I stood up. I tossed a quick glimpse over my shoulder to make sure he hadn’t come around the cabin while I fell, and then I was gone, running as fast as I could through the graves, hightailing it like I’d never hightailed it before.
The air might’ve been clean around me, the trees and lack of human civilization the reason, but a part of me still smelled it. The rank, stale air in the basement. The stench of dried, metallic blood, not to mention the body odor of his latest victim.
She was supposed to be our victim, something shared between us. He wanted to introduce me to his way of life, make me a killer, just like him, but I wasn’t. I wasn’t a killer. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I might like it wild and rough, but murder was where I drew the line.
I wasn’t a killer. Ray and I could never be. He had to get locked up for what he’d done, for the things he’d continue to do unless someone stopped him.
And he would. I knew he would. Ray wasn’t the type to give anything up. He did what he wanted—in the beginning, I’d thought it was an attractive trait. A man who’d fight for me, who’d do anything for me. The stuff of swooning daydreams, and yet here I was now, on the run from the same man in a place where no one knew I was. Not my mom, not Kelsey, not anyone.
If something happened to me right now, they’d never know the truth. I’d become one of those missing girls, headlining the nightly news. The police would search for me for a while, ask anyone with tips to come forward. Try to track me. And, hey, maybe they’d track my phone…or maybe by that time, Ray would’ve already tossed my phone somewhere else, somewhere far away from where he stashed my body.
Maybe that’s what kept me going. Maybe that’s what made me push through the pain as I darted through the woods, running for miles even when my legs burned and my lungs couldn’t catch a breath.
I didn’t want to die. I was only eighteen. I still had a full life ahead of me, a life that didn’t involve seeing bloodstains on tile ever again.
The woods took on an angle, and I nearly stumbled down a hill, my feet catching on dead leaves and twigs. I dared not stop, fearing what would happen if I did. I didn’t want to partake in the special weekend Ray had planned for us, didn’t want to know what other sick and twisted things his mind got up to.
I could feel my sanity already slowly slipping away. Try and try as I might, it just oozed through my grasping fingers like mist, something intangible, something I could never truly hold onto, no matter how badly I tried. Impossible.
Numb. I was numb inside, which I supposed was good. Had to be numb, to get through certain things unscathed. Whether or not I would get through this totally unscathed was still up for grabs. With my luck, I’d probably run in a large circle and end up back at the murder cabin of doom.
No, that was wrong. No time for jokes right now. This was a serious matter, and I was in so much over my head that I was drowning. Drowning in the truth, in what just happened, in the harsh reality that was Ray, my boyfriend.
Time seemed to blur as I kept running. If it was ten minutes or an hour later, I wasn’t sure, but eventually I darted out onto a road, my shoes skidding to a halt as I looked both ways. Ray could theoretically come driving along looking for me, so walking on the road was a no-go. I had to be smart; I had to steer clear of the road.
But, I decided it would be okay to walk beside it, in the woods. Far enough away that any driving car wouldn’t see me. Out of a car’s line of sight. If Ray was driving this way, hopefully he’d drive right on by. If I was lucky—which, I was starting to think, I never was—Ray would think I’m still running away from the house, as if I’d gone straight from the front door and not made a loop around the cabin.
If. That’s a big if. An if that a lot of things rode on.
No, with my luck, Ray would know exactly where I was going, and he’d cut me off. He’d get in his car and make it to the gas station first. He’d grab me, lug me back to his cabin, and tie me up in the basement, right next to that girl.
I liked the kinky shit, but not the kind of kinky shit that involved blood. Or knives. I was a wild child, not a sociopath. I liked living near danger, just not being in it.
I mean, a lot of girls liked the bad boys. My infatuation with Ray was nothing new, and certainly nothing special. The ones who radiated an aura of danger always got the girl in the movies, didn’t they? Ray did more than radiate danger, though. He was dangerous, and this wasn’t a movie. This was real life, and it was so very fucked up.
I was fucked.
If I made it out of this day alive, I knew for a fact I was fucked. Even if I got away from him, even if Ray ended up in prison, I would be royally fucked no matter how you looked at it. I wasn’t a victim…but I was a survivor all the same. I was a survivor who would have nightmares about the things she’d seen.
Being fucked, having nightmares—seemed a small price to pay for my life.
Chapter Two – Declan
I let Ash go, not knowing what to do. It was clear she was just as freaked out about this whole thing as I was, and yet, as I stood there just outside the hospital, replaying her words over and over again in my head, I couldn’t help but wonder if there was more to it. If it wasn’t just Will’s attack upsetting her.
If there was something else. More to it that I wasn’t seeing, things she was hiding from me.
With the moon low in its descent on the horizon, the early hours of dawn nearly upon the world, I couldn’t help but wonder. She’d told me it was never about me—which I never claimed it was. She’d said it was about her.
What was about her? Will’s attack? My brows furrowed, and I sluggishly made my way back inside the hospital, sitting down in the waiting room. My shoulders slumped. Why the heck would Ash claim Will’s attack was about her? I knew she was embroiled in the feud between Sawyer and I, but would Sawyer go so far as to attack Will?
No. No, what ill-will was between us was between us. Ash might be caught in it, but Will wasn’t. Sawyer wouldn’t go after him, and stabbing him was not something Sawyer would do or have done. We used to be friends. I liked to think I knew what the spoiled one was capable of.
What happened to Will had to have been unrelated, not anything to do with her. Ash was just freaking out, I decided, putting blame where it didn’t belong, claiming the blame for herself so maybe I wouldn’t do the same. Trying to, in a weird, misguided way, protect me.
I blamed myself for a lot of things, but I wouldn’t blame myself for what happened to Will.
Did she think I was weak? Did she think I needed her to protect me?
As I sat there, in one of the most uncomfortable chairs known to man, I felt my arm itch. I tugged on my sleeve, because long sleeves were my go-to apparel now, and stared down at my scar.
It didn’t feel like too long ago that I was here, that the nurses and doctor told me that if my roommate hadn’t done what she did, I probably would’ve died. I owed my life to Ash; it was something I’d never forget. But tonight wasn’t about her, or even me—it was about Will.
And, damn it, I knew if Will was conscious, he would’ve wanted me to go after her. I wanted to go after her, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. Will was my brother. If I had to choose between Ash and my brother, shouldn’t I choose him? Family above all else?
God, that sounded like something Travis would say.
Travis was all about his family. Growing up, Sawyer and I never were privy to what it was his family did. And growing up, I didn’t care too much. Travis was peculiar, and I put most of my effort into Sabrina, especially once we started dating. For most of my life, I would’ve said Travis was my friend, and I never thought he could hurt me.
And then I found out he and Sabrina were together behind my back.
It wasn’t the first time Sabrina had wandered, but I’d always told her that I’d wait for her. Even if we had to take a break while she figured her stuff out, I’d be waiting. I loved her. She was everything to me, the only thing that mattered. The one thing in my life that really, truly mattered. It was, however, the first time I’d discovered she’d tried to keep her cheating a secret. Maybe it was because it was with Travis, or maybe it was because she was ashamed of it.
That, though, was the issue. That was why I broke up with her the week before she died. I’d found out and spiraled. There were never secrets between us. I was always an open book to her, and until I found out she’d been with Travis, she’d been the same. Until I walked upstairs into her room and found her in bed, naked and asleep, and Travis silently putting on his clothes.
Yeah, I supposed there still was a whole lot of bad blood between Travis and I. We were all friends: me, Travis, and Sawyer. Both he and Sawyer knew how much I loved Sabrina, and yet he still went behind my back and slept with her. And what was worse? She let him close. That last week, I’d started to wonder if I even knew who Sabrina really was, and then…
Then the
suicide. The hanging. The note blaming me, the Salvatores refusing to allow me to see her or even go to the funeral. To this day, I never got closure, and until this school year had started, I thought I’d continue to wallow and sink into a deeper depression. It was impossible not to, when everyone was out against you and those you thought were your friends were actually your worst enemies.
But who could’ve ever guessed that my dad, the dean of Hillcrest, would try to play matchmaker? That’s what it was. That’s why Ash got in ahead of the other girls. Starting next school year, Hillcrest would no longer be a private, male-only university. It would be a private university, open to anyone who had enough money and the grades for it.
Ash got in partly because of her grades, but also because my dad thought I needed a replacement Sabrina. Of course, this wasn’t something I brought up to my dad yet—because how the hell could I? Hey, Dad, did you happen to push for Ash to be an experiment, for her to room with me, all because she’s pretty and blonde?
No. I could not ask my dad that.
Ash was stronger than Sabrina was, or at least I thought so, until tonight. Until I looked into those beautiful grey eyes and saw a paranoia I couldn’t place. How in the world was Will’s attack all about her?
As I sat there, lost in my own mind, I couldn’t help but realize there was a lot I didn’t know about Ash. She woke up in the middle of the night sometimes with cold sweats, unable to catch her breath. She fell in the shower and practically zoned out of it ten minutes afterwards, not acting like herself at all.
I’m a liar—her words to me. I didn’t like dealing with liars, but I found what she said impossible. She wasn’t a liar. What did she have to lie about? And then, of course, I remembered waking up to a phone call from the hospital and finding out that she wasn’t in the room. She was gone, and I had no idea where she’d been.
I still didn’t know where she was when I called her, but I knew she’d been with Travis.
Skank: A Dark College Bully Romance (Hillcrest University Book 3) Page 1
