Kelsey managed to turn to look at me, gesturing for me to close the door. “There’s another bathroom downstairs—” She bit her lower lip as he started to fuck her harder. “Please—” My best friend was begging me to go, and I had no reason to stay.
Not anymore.
Sawyer didn’t even look in my direction, didn’t stop as he fucked her. Couldn’t even recognize me off the high he had. Or was he just drunk? Either way, I didn’t know, didn’t care. Either way, I was shattered.
I closed the door behind me, walking like a robot as I headed down the stairs. Right out the front door in a daze. I walked down the sidewalk, not knowing whether Travis was still downstairs fighting that brute and whether or not I’d killed that bitch.
Did it matter? Did any of it matter?
I walked down the line of Greek houses, my world falling apart around me. Tears formed in my eyes, but no matter how many times I blinked, they wouldn’t go away. I was hurt, I was hurt in so many different ways. Tonight was supposed to be a fun night, not one of the worst days in my life.
Just when I thought life couldn’t get any worse, it had to show me in the worst possible way that it could.
Brooklyn hit me with her car. She was going to get Batman to rape me while she watched, and the only reason I got out was because of Travis, my new psycho stalker. I already had one of those, I didn’t want another. And then…then Sawyer and Kelsey. How was I supposed to cope with all of this? How was I supposed to survive this night with my sanity intact?
I passed a few houses, stopping when I felt myself lose it. My fists clenched at my sides. How the fuck was I supposed to act like everything was okay? I spotted a tree in the yard beside me, and I felt my blood boiling. Boiling so hot it threatened to sizzle and sear my veins.
I moved to the tree, picturing it was Sawyer’s face. Red flashed in my vision, and I didn’t care how tired my body felt or how bruised and banged up it was. I hit the tree, digging my knuckles into the bark. Didn’t even wince. Again and again, over and over. Both hands, eventually.
Time didn’t matter. Time could’ve sped up or slowed down. I didn’t give a shit. Everything I cared about was ripped from me. I couldn’t be happy. I could never be happy. I was destined to be this miserable fuck-up until I died.
Why the hell couldn’t that be soon? Why not sooner rather than later? Why was I still here when the world had tried to kill me?
The tree became Brooklyn and I pounded away at it. If I’d snapped her neck by pushing her down the stairs, I didn’t care. So what if my fingerprints were on her? Didn’t matter. My life sucked anyway.
My life was as good as over.
Travis shouldn’t have been there. If he wasn’t there, bad things would’ve happened, but I could’ve lived with it. I could’ve survived and proved that bitch wrong, but now I knew. I knew for a fact what Travis was.
Just like him.
Just like Ray.
Travis was tattooed and pretty, but in the end he was just as psycho as Ray. I suppose I knew it, deep down, after he’d tried to chain me up in his room to punish me, but I’d hoped that I was wrong. That he was a lesser evil.
As it turned out tonight, there was no such thing as a lesser evil.
Sawyer and Kelsey…out of everyone she could’ve chosen at that party to sleep with, it had to be him? I mean, why the ever-loving fuck was he even there? This was a Stanton party. Surely he didn’t come just for Brooklyn…but he was high, on whatever drug he liked. He wasn’t the king of good decisions—hadn’t I thought that before? None of this should surprise me. Not one single bit.
And yet I was. I was stunned, hurt, and angry. Shocked that my life could get so shitty so quickly, hurt that I’d let myself start to care for that dickhead prick, and angry that Brooklyn thought the best way at getting back at me was to hit me with her fucking car.
Well, the joke was officially on her, wasn’t it? If she wasn’t dead, she knew what I was capable of. And if she was dead…then what? What would I do if I killed someone? I…no. No, she had to be alive. She had to. I wasn’t going to revert back to that horrible place.
I wasn’t. I wasn’t.
But I was.
My mind lost itself in flashbacks, and I stopped hitting the tree. My hands burned, my knuckles and fingers especially. I dropped my gaze to my hands, spotting numerous places where the skin had broken and peeled back. Blood. So much blood, everywhere. All over the tree, along my hands and my fingers, dripping down my arm and dropping to the grass.
My hands started to shake as I stared down at them. I didn’t remember hitting the tree that much. Did I? Did I blackout? Did I let the anger take over and let it steer the ship that was my body? I didn’t know.
I watched the blood ooze from the wounds, flexing my fingers. Was it bad that I couldn’t feel the pain? I was numb from the night already; my body couldn’t take any more pain, be it physical or mental or…
“There she is,” a low voice spoke, chilling me to my core. My broken, shattered core.
The trembling in my hands only intensified as I turned to view the car that had just pulled up, parking along the street near me. I nearly choked on the air as I watched my ex get out of the car. If the world spun before, it threatened to switch its tilt as he moved around the hood of the car and gave me a smile that made my gut heat up and twist in the worst way.
Ray Ruiz, my thirty-five-year-old ex. The Midtown Strangler. He was here, and he was looking at me like he’d just struck gold.
I was stupid. Ray never would’ve hit me with his car. That would’ve damaged me. He much preferred mental torture and payback. Hitting me with a car was a spur of the moment thing, something a drunk girl did while following me. Stabbing Will and hurting Declan? That was deliberate, planned. Much more his style.
One didn’t become a serial killer on accident, hence the serial part.
“Amorcito,” he used his favorite pet name for me, his hands stuck in his jeans. His face had a bit of brown scruff, his hair cut short. His normally tan skin looked a bit pale, considering. But his eyes…oh, his eyes were still the most beautiful shade of jade. “How’s my girl doing?”
My girl. I wasn’t his girl anymore.
I opened my mouth, about to deny him, but no sounds came out. I was motionless as he strolled over to me, his feet drawing him through the grass and right to my side. He was at least a foot taller than me, very handsome for his age. Mature. And even now, he radiated an aura of danger…and I found myself leaning toward him like a starving beggar needing her next hot meal.
He reached for my face, touching my cheek in a way that was tender yet laced with danger. Anything Ray touched was infused with danger, even me. Ray had a hand in the girl I was now, and I was stupid to pretend otherwise. He’d made me who I was. I pretended to be strong because of him, and now—now what did I have?
Nothing. I had nothing. There was nothing to keep me here, not really.
“As beautiful as always,” Ray whispered, his gaze falling to my hands. “Come with me. Let me take care of you, let me do what I should’ve done before.” An ominous tone lingered, and I knew I couldn’t trust him.
But, really, could I trust anyone around here? Any of these guys? No, no I couldn’t. Hell, I couldn’t even trust my best friend. I literally had no one, no one to turn to, no one to trust. I was alone, and I didn’t want to be.
I let out a shaky breath, my weakness threatening to take over. “I don’t want to die,” I whispered, voice cracking, speaking it because it was true. I’d lived through so much, seen so much, and yet still I didn’t want to die. It was selfish of me, because it was clear the world would continue to spin even after my death.
Sawyer didn’t need me. Kelsey didn’t need me. Declan and Travis didn’t need me; they could each find another girl to obsess over. And Will? Will nearly died because of me. He sure as shit didn’t need me, either. No, none of the guys in my life needed me. Right now, Ray was the only one who did.
Ray gave me a
small smile, and I’d be a liar if I said I felt nothing towards the man standing less than a foot from me. “You know I would never hurt you. You’re mine, amorcito. Always mine.”
The hand touching my face fell to my arm, and I let myself be corralled to his car like some lost lamb. My hunter had found me, and he was about to take me home. My hunter, my stalker, my ruin. He had me wherever he wanted me.
He held my hand as he helped me to the car. He opened the passenger door for me, giving me a warm smile before helping me in. My blood smeared on his fingers, but he didn’t care. He didn’t care, even after what I did. Even after running, throwing the police at him, and hiding from him all this time.
I’d hurt him, and still he said he wouldn’t hurt me.
Ray got in the car, starting it up. He tossed me a lingering stare with his bright green eyes, and just like that, I was lost. No more Ash. I was what he made me, his completely, reverting back to how it always should’ve been.
No more running. No more hiding.
What was the point?
Chapter Twenty-Four – Travis
I was too far away, but I was able to get a good video. Whoever that man was, he wasn’t a stranger. Ash would never have gone off with a stranger, not while she was falling apart. My beautiful, broken girl…I didn’t blame her for freaking out, not after what happened in that basement, but to go off with him? I hated thinking that they were together, but as I caught his face on video, the way he watched her, it was obvious.
That fucking man was in love with her.
Really, it was too damn bad for him, because she was mine. I didn’t know who he was, but I’d find out.
They drove off, and I made sure to get a good picture of the car and license plate. My jaw clenched, and I could feel my rage steadily growing. That fucking prick in the basement got off lucky; he was lucky we were in someplace relatively public, or else I would’ve done worse to him.
And Brooklyn…
No. Now wasn’t the time. Now was the time to send that video to someone who could help me track her down and find her. I would not leave Ash in that man’s clutches for long, whoever the fuck he was.
I sent the video before making the call. I stood on the sidewalk, just over seventy feet from where it had happened. I stared at the car driving off into the distance, hating that I wasn’t there with her, to stop her from getting in. Though I wasn’t right beside them, I still didn’t like the way that man had looked at her. As if Ash was his and not mine. As if he had any right to her.
The phone stopped ringing the moment he picked it up. He practically growled into the phone, “What the fuck do you want, Travis? It’s late—” He sounded irritated and upset, but then again, that’s usually how he sounded. One of my many, many brothers.
“I need your help, Markus,” I said, inwardly flinching when I said it. Asking for help in this family was not something that came without a price, but regardless of what the price turned out to be, I didn’t care. I had to help Ash. She meant too much to me.
He let out a groan. “Of course you do. Everyone fucking does. Can no one take care of their own problems anymore?”
I chose not to address his question, instead saying, “I sent you a video. I need you to help me figure out who that man is, and help me find him.” The hand hanging at my side clenched into a fist. The more I thought about it, the angrier I became.
Ash had gone with him willingly. Why? Was she so upset at what happened in the basement? My girl was so much stronger than that.
“Hold on,” he said, “sounds like it came through.” The sound became muffled, and I assumed he was watching the video. I imagined him lying in bed, frowning at his phone screen in the darkness. “You’re shitting me, right?” When I said nothing, he went on, “You don’t know who that is?”
Now it was my turn to growl into the phone, “If I knew who he was, I wouldn’t be calling you, asking for a favor.” If he was in front of me right now, I would’ve attacked him. A good thing he wasn’t, because there was no way I’d be able to beat him. Markus was…much more unhinged than I was.
Like I said, certain things ran in the family. Obsession, an unhealthy need to control, along with some other things I won’t get into here.
“That’s the Midtown Strangler,” Markus said. “Ray Ruiz. He got off not too long ago due to some stupid cop who couldn’t collect evidence right.” There was a pause. “I don’t know who the girl is, though.”
“The girl is mine,” I said, causing him to laugh.
“Right. You and Lincoln. I fucking swear this family turned into a sitcom when I wasn’t looking.” Markus grew serious, which was good, because this was about as serious as a situation could be: “I’ll see if I can locate him, track him somehow.”
Track. Right. Ash’s phone.
“Let me know what you find,” I said, hanging up. I swiped at the phone screen in my hands, hitting the square app of the tracker. It was one my family used, one that could be installed on a phone remotely. If I could track Ash’s phone, then…
I blinked, staring down at the phone.
It said she was just a few blocks away, so I did what I could: I ran. I ran as fast as I could, stopping only when I came upon the blinking red dot on my phone screen. Her phone sat on the curb, having been thrown from the window.
“Fuck,” I muttered, bending to pick it up. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Standing slowly, I grasped her phone, wishing I could make it morph into her. What the hell was Ash thinking? She knew this was the only way I’d be able to find her…that man, Ray, wouldn’t have known, which meant it was Ash who threw it out, not him.
Willingly, the word rang in my head as I walked back to the frat house. Ash had gone with him willingly. On my walk back, I Googled the Midtown Strangler and learned quite a lot about him, and about my Ash.
Ash had been hiding so, so much.
He was the reason she’d been acting strange lately. He was the reason she was trying to close herself off. Ray fucking Ruiz was the man to kill, apparently.
I made it to the frat house and pushed into the party, both phones safely in my pocket. Ash might not be strong enough, but that was okay. I’d be plenty strong for the both of us. I would be her strength when she had none, prop her up when she couldn’t stand on her own. I would do anything and everything for that girl, including wrangling her friend and getting her home safe before turning my focus on finding where Ash went.
Besides, Markus needed some time to work.
The crowd dancing didn’t hold her friend, neither did the crowd around the food in the kitchen nor the coolers outside. Around the bonfire, I spotted a group of four, but that’s it. Not her dark-haired friend.
I passed someone reaching for the basement door, but stopped them by grabbing their shoulders and showing them to the kitchen and the food that was still left. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I advised, squeezing his shoulders. He was dressed up as some plumber with overalls and a red hat. I forget what character that was, but I knew he wasn’t the kind of person who’d enjoy walking in on the scene downstairs. “Two of my friends are down there, and they need their privacy. Wait for them to come up, okay?” I slapped his thin back, practically knocking him over.
He took one look at my tattoos, gulped, and nodded along like a good little boy.
Returning to my search, I peered up the stairs, knowing she had to be up there if she wasn’t down here. I heaved a breath, wondering what the hell I was going to say to her, how I was going to explain the fact that Ash was gone and she had to come with me. She didn’t know me. She’d never met me. Anyone worth their stones knew not to go with a stranger.
I made it to the top of the stairs, freezing the moment I saw her friend, Kelsey, stumbling out of the bathroom, adjusting her pants. She must’ve been satisfied, for she wore a big smile, along with cheeks that were a tad too rosy.
“Kelsey,” I said, “we need to…” The last word, go, died on my tongue as I watched someone else exit the bathroom, b
arely able to keep himself up.
Fucking Sawyer.
Before I knew what I was doing, I rushed past Kelsey and had Sawyer by the neck, jamming my elbow into his throat as I slammed him back into the wall. A picture hanging nearby fell to the floor, its glass shattering.
“Hey,” Kelsey shouted. “What the hell, man? Let him go.”
Sawyer could hardly keep his eyes open. The pupils were dilated to the extreme, and I’d never felt more disgusted. “What the fuck were you doing?” I shouted, right into his face. The bastard didn’t even flinch, and I smelled the booze on his breath. Normally I wasn’t one to let my emotions get the better of me, but this was one of those rare occasions.
“Travis,” Sawyer muttered my name, trying to push me off and failing spectacularly. “What are you doing? I didn’t do shit—”
“Travis?” Kelsey echoed my name, staring at me as if she knew me. Did Ash tell her about me? Did she mention names? If so, it might be easier to get her to come with me. Sawyer could find his own way back.
“Bullshit,” I hissed. “You fucked up, Sawyer, you fucked up like you always do, and I swear to God if your fuckup ends up hurting Ash, I’m going to kill you.” A whispered threat that was no threat, but a promise. People in my family didn’t make threats.
Kelsey looked like she was going to be sick. “Wait. Sawyer? But—” She went for Sawyer’s hair, and I held him in place as she did. Her fingers touched what must be hair spray or some kind of black slick, for when she ran her palm through his hair, the faintest bits of pink became visible. “Oh, my…fuck.” She repeated the word fuck about a dozen times, hurrying down the stairs to presumably look for Ash.
Still holding Sawyer back, I whipped out my phone. Declan answered on the first ring, apprehension plain in his voice, “What’s going on? Did something happen?” He wasn’t going to be thrilled when I told him everything I’d found out, but for now…
For now I had to get Kelsey out of here, and I might as well bring the shithead along, in case he thought about doing something else.
Skank: A Dark College Bully Romance (Hillcrest University Book 3) Page 19
