Travis posed a question I wished he wouldn’t: “If you had something of hers, could you get rid of it?”
I stood there, mouth open, ready to retort, but nothing came out. He was right. The bastard was right. If I was fortunate enough to have anything of Sabrina’s, I knew for a fact I’d still have it tucked away safely, even after all this time.
A first love never died.
“It just seems odd you’d choose to take something that painted you in a bad light,” I said. “A suspect.”
He was unimpressed with my hedging, and he asked point-blank, “Are you insinuating that I killed her and took the evidence that would lead the police to question me?” When I only stared, he went on, “Smart, but no. I did not kill Sabrina—which is exactly what I told Ash when she asked the same thing.”
Ash had suspected him and never told me? She’d suspected him and spent so much time with him still? What the… I didn’t know what to think of that knowledge. Ash had been hiding things from me, evidently. I didn’t know why, but it hurt. I didn’t want her to lie to me.
I’m a liar, Declan. She’d told me those words, once. When she’d said them, I didn’t believe her. I didn’t believe her even after she handed me the journal and refused to tell me where she got it from. Now…now I was really starting to wonder.
What else was she hiding from me? What other things did she not want me to know?
“And how do I know you’re telling the truth?” I questioned, not wanting to fall for his games. Travis was the kind of person who could manipulate you and make you believe you were doing everything out of your own free will. He wasn’t your normal wealthy HU student.
“I suppose you don’t,” Travis spoke simply, blue eyes bored. “You either believe me, or you don’t. I have no reason to lie to you about this, not now.” He turned his head, glancing at the doors we’d come out of. “Not when Ash is…upset like this.”
“Upset?” I echoed. I knew something was wrong, but she didn’t look too upset. Mainly annoyed, aggravated. Not angry or raging.
“Something’s clearly off about her,” Travis said, confidence oozing out. He thought he knew her so well…hell, maybe he did. “And I don’t just mean the hit and run. She’s freaked out.” I could tell just by the way his blue eyes drifted to the side that he lost himself for a moment.
His words, despite me not wanting to believe them, rang true, because I was currently thinking back to Ash and how she’d acted, too. The things she’d said were downright mean, and they came completely out of the blue. If something was bugging her, if something was freaking her out and making her act like this, why couldn’t she just come out and say what it was? The truth always worked better.
I’d had enough of lies for the rest of my life.
Travis didn’t stop there with his theorizing. “What if it wasn’t just a hit and run? What if someone hit her on purpose and left her there to die? If Ash suspects who did it, then…” A helpless shrug.
It wasn’t the first time I’d wondered whether Ash’s accident was truly accidental, but hearing Travis mention it made me contemplate the entire thing differently. If someone was out for Ash, not because she was close to me, but for another reason altogether? Travis obviously didn’t do it, and he was honestly the only one I’d suspected.
What the hell could I do, especially if she didn’t talk to me about it?
“You think someone tried to kill her,” I spoke it not as a question but a statement, and by God, getting those words out took a lot out of me. I didn’t want to say them, fearing in my gut he was right, that I was right. “Do you think Sawyer had anything to do with this? He has the whole student body rallied against me.” I didn’t think Sawyer was capable of doing something like that, but maybe I was wrong. It could be that I underestimated him. He could pay anyone to do anything, and they’d gladly do it, seeing nothing but green.
“No, Sawyer’s…” Travis shook his head. “He’s too far gone. One of his downward spirals. And last night, he was preoccupied.”
Sawyer spiraling didn’t surprise me. It happened a lot, although I hadn’t heard a word about him this last year, save for the shit he put me through. “You know for a fact he was with someone else?”
Nodding once, Travis said, “He was with Ash.”
A slap in the face. That’s how I felt, after hearing that. Ash was with Sawyer last night?
“You didn’t know,” Travis said, studying me with a renewed interest. “She didn’t tell you.”
“Probably because she knew I’d tell her not to go,” I muttered, feeling the need to scream. Ash was with Sawyer—doing what? Doing him? I didn’t enjoy the thought of Ash being with Sawyer in any capacity, especially one that involved them both naked.
“Still, she chose to keep it from you.” Travis let out a sigh, closing his eyes as he tilted his head up to the sun. “Ash picks and chooses what she tells us. She’s a lot better at this game than I thought she was.”
Game? What game was Travis going on about? I had no idea, so I asked, “What game are you talking about?”
“This,” Travis spoke. “Us. Everything about us.”
“Our lives are not a game,” I growled out. Travis, no matter what he said, always seemed to get under my skin. But then again, maybe that was our murky past talking. “Ash isn’t playing us.” As I said it, I hoped it was true. If it turned out Ash had been stringing us by all along…I’d be crestfallen. Crushed completely. Heartbroken in every way.
Travis met my stare with a smirk of his own. “I hope you’re right, because I have the feeling that things are going to get worse around here before they get better.”
I found myself asking something I shouldn’t, something I shouldn’t even be aware of, “Do you really care for her, or is it some…game to you, too?” I used his own word choice against him, waiting with bated breath for his response. I didn’t know if I could trust a single word he said, but I was going to do my best to wade through the bullshit.
“For her, I’d do anything,” Travis remarked. “She’s everything I need that I never knew I needed. She’s unique in every possible way, and I’ll be damned if I let her push me away.”
“I’m not going to lose to you this time,” I said, meeting him head-on. His azure stare held mine, neither of us looking away. Who would look away first? Who would bend first? It might’ve been me in the past, but this time, for Ash, I would stay strong, no matter the storm around me.
“Well, then, I suppose we both should try to get back into her good graces,” Travis suggested. “Or find out what’s really bugging her.”
Getting back into her good graces, figuring out what bothered her, would be tough, let alone trying to do it while Travis sought to do the same thing. Still, I meant what I said and I said what I meant.
I wasn’t going to give up on Ash.
Chapter Nine – Ash
They let me out of the hospital exactly twenty-four hours after I’d woken up, true to their word, as much as a hospital could be. They had me sign all of my discharge papers and then gave me back my clothes—and a fancy new phone that had all of my pictures and contacts imported—and when I asked about the bill, they said not to worry about it. It was already taken care of.
I said nothing to that, figuring it was mostly Dean Briggs. Declan was to thank for the phone, and the medical bills being paid for was thanks to the dean of HU. Dean Briggs had stopped by my room again to tell me Will was still recuperating from the surgery, but everything went well. He also told me I didn’t have to go to classes this week, that he’d personally talk to my professors so they wouldn’t mark me absent and take away a percentage of my grade, but I told him I’d be fine.
And I would be.
I’d go to class, get back into the swing of things. Back to putting Declan at arm’s length. Back to pretending I didn’t have feelings for twisted, tattooed Travis and drunk, disgusting Sawyer. Pretty faces did not mean I had to crush on them. Pretty faces hid pretty lies, and I really
didn’t need any more lies in my life right now. My lies were more than enough.
Once I was dressed in my own clothes, I left the hospital. I had a prescription in my pocket for pain meds—because the doctor was right, my body felt a hell of a lot worse today than it did yesterday—but I wasn’t going to get it filled. Partly because I didn’t know where the nearest pharmacy was, and also partly because I didn’t have cash. Granted, I was certain there was a pharmacy in the hospital, and that if I asked, they could just bill Dean Briggs for that, too.
But no. I was done being the charity case. I might be the poorest student at Hillcrest, but I was done accepting handouts. I was done being nice.
And believe it or not, the Ash prior to Saturday night was the nice one. Now? Now I would be mean. Now I would match the bullying with equal if not worse measures of bullying. If Ray was here, following me, stalking me, then he’d see that I had no boyfriends. No guys competing for my attention and my love. No guys claiming my body as theirs.
Ray had to be happy with that, right? Hell, even after dating him for three years, I didn’t know how his mind worked. I thought I could read people so well, but he was an enigma wrapped in a deadly riddle, and I’d been there for it all throughout high school—but now I wanted it to end.
I walked back to campus, my arms folded over my chest. It took a while, since the hospital wasn’t right down the street, but it was cheaper than taking a taxi or an Uber. And, besides, my body needed some physical activity after being in a hospital bed for the last twenty-four-plus hours, besides bathroom breaks. This time, I made sure to only cross the road at crosswalks and also to make sure no cars were coming.
If Ray was here, if I hadn’t imagined him, then he was always nearby. I threw a look over my shoulder, glancing at the street to my left. Monday morning, and the four-lane road was full of cars. Ray could be in any one of them, or he could be behind me.
I threw a look behind me, mentally adding, nope. Not there.
I was fucked. There were no other words for it. Royally fucked, and not in the good way. It was one thing to be lost in the dark machinations of a group of rich boys, boys who had nothing better to do than to bully each other and make their lives miserable, but a different thing entirely when Ray was thrown in.
Ray meant death and blood. Ray meant the darkest of the dark. No high school pranks. No forcing a girl to dye her hair pink and then fucking her while thinking of me. No ill-sent texts meant to rile the receiver up. Ray didn’t know what playing cool meant. With him, it was all or nothing.
Did these rich boys even watch the news? I’d be the first to admit, I’d stopped after I heard news he was arrested and charged with sixteen counts of murder. At Hillcrest, sitting down and watching the news, or even Googling it, was the last thing on my mind. But these guys—Declan, Will, Travis, and Sawyer—none of them knew who my ex was. I bet none of them had even heard his media name: the Midtown Strangler.
A serial killer, in other words. I’d dated—and fucked—a goddamn serial killer…and unlike some people I knew online, I didn’t get off on that. I might like the danger, the tall and dark men who oozed an air of mystery and risk, but actually being with someone, knowing they had blood on their hands…two totally different things.
I wasn’t someone who got off on it. In fact, after living through what I did, I’d be happy with a normal boyfriend. Someone like Declan; someone who I could never have now because my past had finally caught up with me. Ray would make sure I could never have Declan or Will, or even Travis and Sawyer, if it came to it. They’d all die, so it was better to push them away and not give Ray any ideas.
Ray had enough terrible ideas on his own.
The Midtown Strangler got his name by the way most of the victims’ windpipes were crushed. I, personally, would’ve chosen something a bit different, because Ray was never about strangling. If he strangled, he did it to get them quiet.
No, Ray was a bigger fan of knives, preferably the sharper the better. His favorite place to slide a knife into flesh was the abdomen. Girl number sixteen, the one in the basement, had still been alive when she was stabbed, bleeding out before the police got there.
Oh, I’d watched the news perhaps a bit too much back then. My mom thought I was just trying to be more like an adult, aware of what was going on in the world, but I wasn’t. Kelsey must’ve had some idea, for each and every time news of the Midtown Strangler popped up, she’d give me a look that I pretended not to see. I didn’t need her judgment.
I didn’t need anyone’s judgment. I knew I fucked up, and I was ready to face the consequences.
Well…sort of. I sure as hell didn’t want to die here, and that kind of felt more likely as the time wore on, and I sure as shit didn’t want to go to jail. With the way Ray’s trial ended, how his lawyer had gotten him off based on some bullshit excuse of the evidence being tampered with, the police would love to pin the murders of those sixteen girls on someone, anyone.
My DNA was in that cabin. On the sheets in the bedroom, in the basement…who the hell knew where I’d dropped hairs, but I bet I did. I was sure the cops questioned the gas station worker to see if he saw anything, but being a blonde, white girl was a pretty generic description.
The pink in the hair…it was something I researched heavily in after what happened with Ray. I needed a change, and it seemed like the easiest change to make. I could get the dye in tubes for a few bucks, make them last a bit longer by diluting them with conditioner, and dye my own blonde hair. No salon necessary.
Mom liked the new hair, as did Kelsey, although Kelsey always side-eyed me, wordlessly asking me what happened. She’d seen the blood, so she knew I got into some serious shit, but she had no idea what really happened, and there was no way I could tell her. Making her drive all the way out there to pick me up was enough. Oh, and making her run into the nearest store for some cheap new clothes, too. Without Kelsey, I knew I never would’ve gotten out of that situation.
With what I did, I’d probably be girl number seventeen.
Hell, maybe I wouldn’t have. Ray liked me too much. He thought I was just like him in the most awful of ways. A monster finding someone else they thought was another monster—but hence the issue with me. I liked the dangerous one, but I didn’t like actual danger. There was a huge difference between falling for the bad boy and telling them to go kill a few people before dinner.
Ray.
As I headed back to campus, I still was in shock. For some stupid, idiotic reason, I never thought my two lives would collide like this. I was…well, it would be a lie to say I was having fun dealing with Declan, Sawyer and Travis, but it wouldn’t be a complete lie. It was kind of fun, being caught in the middle, pulled in multiple different directions. And then Will’s addition to the fray was something to consider, too. I was all about the dick and the men they were attached to, but the dick and the men were now two things I couldn’t think about.
For their safety, and mine.
My body ached something fierce by the time I made it back to the dorm, and I collapsed on my bed, inhaling the smell of my own sheets. My own scent, my own soft blankets. Even the university’s mattress. All of it was better than what I’d lived with at the hospital for the last day and a half.
Declan wasn’t here, and I was too tired to glance at my phone or the clock in the kitchenette to see what time it was. Depending on the time, he’d either be in class or at the hospital. I doubted he’d spend much time here while Will was recovering. It was good, I supposed, because the more time I spent around him, the less I wanted to push him away. And I had to keep pushing him back, lest Ray make an appearance just to teach me a lesson.
God.
Fuck.
What was with guys and lessons? Ray and his lesson that I was his and no one else’s. Travis’s punishment for me going out with Sawyer. Were any of the guys around here normal, or were they all fucked up in their own different ways? There was only so much fucked-up-ness I could handle, you know? Like,
I’d prefer to keep my sanity intact.
An impossible wish, at Hillcrest, especially with my past.
I rolled over and undid my shoes, feeling the ache deep within my bones. I wriggled out of my shirt as I got up, double and triple-checking the dorm door to make sure it was locked before heading in the bathroom, closing and locking that door as well. I stripped out of all of my clothes, starting to run the faucet.
I think, for the first time in years, I was going to take a bath. My weary, bruised bones needed a good soak, as much relaxation as I could get, given the state of my life.
As the tub filled with warm water, I reached for a hairbrush, running it through my hair slowly, meeting my grey eyes in the mirror. I stood before myself, utterly naked. My body was nice enough, I supposed. Thin and limber, pale, even with the bruising rising to the surface. The right side of my face was bruised pretty badly; I’d have to use some makeup to cover that shit up for class. It was the side that got hit by the car, the side that had fallen first to the pavement.
Getting hit? Not as glamorous as you might think. Not glamorous at all, really. Definitely not Instagram-worthy.
Once the tub was full, I shut the water off, getting in. Now would be the time for a bubble bath or…what are those other things called? The things that have color and fizz and turn the water into different colors? Oh, right. Bath bombs. Yeah, I could use one of those.
This bath wasn’t about getting clean. It was about sinking as deep as I could in the tub—which was relatively easy enough, considering I was a shorter than average person—and pretending I didn’t exist. As if I could crawl back into my mom’s womb, when everything was hunky-dory and just peachy.
Hey, back in the womb, I still had a dad. Really, things only got better the more you rewound the clock.
Skank: A Dark College Bully Romance (Hillcrest University Book 3) Page 7
