by Beck, J. L.
My eyes seek out Caroline, and I see her face before I’m turned away. It is blank as if she is trying to ignore my struggling, as if she doesn’t want to acknowledge my fear. In the midst of my raging anger, my fighting instinct kicks in, and I start kicking my legs out and flailing my arms around me, but it’s no use, I’m basically immobilized. Tears dwell in my eyes, and fall down my cheeks.
When I realize my assailant is pulling me toward an old truck, I dig my heels into the ground, but he just picks me up and carries me to it. The driver’s door opens, and a second guy comes out. As soon as he comes into view, my heart stops. Banks.
Banks opens the back door so whoever is behind me can push me in. I’m guessing it’s either Sullivan or Oliver who has an iron grip on me. My chest tightens, and more tears escape my eyes, making my vision blurry.
“Don’t cry, we won’t hurt you,” Oliver’s smooth voice tickles my ear, confirming my assumption. I expected him to push me into the back, but instead, he keeps a hold of me as he slides into the backseat himself. Banks shuts the door behind us and climbs into the front seat. As soon as he does, we speed off.
The world seems to spin around me. I’m sitting on Oliver’s lap, his hand still covering my mouth and his other arm is like an iron bar across my chest.
Only then do I realize how much danger I’m in. I’m being kidnapped. They’re taking me to god knows where, with the intent of doing who knows what.
Every bad scenario runs through my head. Dread and terror spread through me, making my whole-body shiver in fear.
“Shh, it’s okay,” Oliver tries to soothe, his voice low and comforting. I can’t help but wonder if this is a sick game to him. He can’t actually expect me to believe him. Of course, he doesn’t know that I know now. “I’m gonna take my hand away. I’d prefer if you didn’t scream.”
I’d prefer? What an ass.
Slowly he removes his hand from my mouth, and I suck in a greedy breath. I don’t scream, mostly because there really is no point. We are in a truck driving down the road.
Who is going to hear me?
Digging deep, I find the strength to speak, to fight back. “Where are you taking me? What are you going to do?”
“I’ve already told you, we’re friends and we are trying to help you.”
“We’re not friends,” I growl, trying to fight against his muscled arms. “And you’ve hurt me. I know you have. Shelby told me everything. There’s no point in trying to hide it.”
“And what’s that?” he asks, slightly amused.
“I know you drugged me the other day at that party.”
“I don’t know why she would say that, but I can assure you, I did no such thing. What would be my motive for doing that?”
“I don’t know, why don’t you tell me? She told me you wouldn’t let her go back outside and told some random guy to bring me a spiked drink.”
“First of all, why would I drug you, and then sit in a car with you for three hours until you sobered up, just to drive you home? Second, if I would have really done that then why didn’t Shelby call the police?”
His words have the fight in me stopping dead in its tracks.
Why would he, and why didn’t she call the cops?
It doesn’t make sense to me. Shelby’s supposed to be my friend. She’s supposed to help me, not hurt me. Why would she do such a thing? Banks takes a sharp turn making us slide across the leather seat. The movement interrupts my thoughts.
Air swooshes from my lungs when I nearly make impact with the window. I would have hit my head against it if it wasn’t for Oliver’s strong arms wrapped around me.
It’s then that I realize I’m still sitting on his lap. Pushing off of him, I scurry off his lap, and take the seat next to him, and attempt to gather my thoughts.
I’m confused, beyond confused.
“I don’t know… but I do know what I saw. She showed me pictures of you and Tiffany. I know you terrorized me at school, that you hung up a banner with my number and spread rumors about me.”
Oliver’s face falls at the mention of those things, and I know that they’re true.
“I’m not gonna lie to you, Harlow. All those things are true, but that was before…” His voice trails off, and it sounds like he’s ashamed.
His words hurt more than I anticipated. I already knew the truth, but part of me was hoping that it wasn’t true, that maybe he would deny it, or had an explanation for his actions, but he doesn’t. Disappointment and jealousy settle deep in my gut.
“Why would I believe anything you say now? You just admitted to bullying me. You made my life hell, and now suddenly you want to help me?” I scoff, they can’t actually expect me to buy this bullshit story.
Oliver looks scorned, but not defeated. “You aren’t innocent, either. Yeah, I’ve done things and so have my brothers, but you did something just as bad. We wanted to ruin your life because you ruined our lives when you planted drugs on Sullivan.”
Banks takes that moment to say something for the first time, “What you did two years ago affected our entire family. Our father’s business went bankrupt, we had to move, completely start over again. So yeah, we wanted revenge. But we would never physically hurt you… never.” For some stupid reason, I look to the front seat, my eyes meeting Banks’ in the rearview mirror.
“Everything you just said only proves further that you should hate me and that I shouldn’t trust you.”
Oliver sighs loudly and scrubs his hands down his face in frustration, “You’re just gonna have to trust us, I guess.”
“We’re almost there,” Banks says, and I wonder where the hell there is. Looking out the window, it’s clear that we’ve left the city, given all the trees. Banks turns off the highway and on to a smaller road. After a few more miles, he turns down a dirt road, and my panic starts to mount.
“Where are we going?” I ask, doing my best to keep my voice steady.
“We bought a cabin up here to get away from school when we want to. We’re gonna stay there for a few days until we can figure out who is trying to hurt you.”
“No one is trying to hurt me, and if they are, I’m better off back at the dorms with dumb and dumber than I’ll ever be here with any of you.” At the end of the day, the Bishops and I will always be rivals, and nothing they tell me will ever change that.
“Sure, you can think that all you want, but you aren’t getting out of our sights until we decide it’s safe to do so,” Banks hisses.
Crossing my arms over my chest, I stare out the window, watching as we drive deeper and deeper into the wilderness.
“You can tell me whatever you want, I’ll never believe anything you say.” The words come out stronger than I anticipated, even though it feels like I’m a piece of crumbling rock on a cliff’s edge.
Oliver speaks this time, “That’s fine. Maybe you won’t believe us, but you can’t deny the truth when it’s right in front of you, now can you?”
“I’ll believe it when I see it, and kidnapping me is not looking too good for you.” I don’t dare look at him, because deep down, I know he’s right. Deep down, there’s no way I can look away from the truth. Now the real question is… what is the whole truth?
7
We pull up to a cabin out in the middle of nowhere. We’re probably miles away from any other house, and even though I don’t know which way to run, I won’t just let them take me inside that cabin.
Banks cuts the engine, and I push open my door at the same time. Before they even realize what I’m doing, I’m sprinting away from the car, leaving the cabin and them behind me.
“Harlow, stop!” Oliver calls after me, but I don’t listen or turn around. Pushing my legs to go as fast as I can, I run like the wind. Trees whooshing by me as my feet pound over the soft forest floor. I don’t hear anyone following me, and I’m confused that they’re not.
Then, out of nowhere, a body slams into me, arms circling my waist as I’m tackled to the dirt-covered floor. I’m
about to hit the ground face first, but mid-flight my assailant twists us around, so he lands hard on the ground, with me on top of him.
Still, the impact is harsh enough to knock the air out of my chest. Closing my eyes, I gasp for air, while my heart beats unnaturally fast in my chest.
Someone grunts heavily behind me, but his grip on me stays the same. “Shit… that hurt. Are you okay?” Sullivan groans into my ear.
“Let me go, and I’ll be better,” I snap back. Instead of letting me go, he rolls over so we can get up together. Keeping one hand tightly wrapped around my arm, he walks me back to the cabin I just ran away from.
Oliver and Banks are standing at the door, both of them have their arms crossed over their chest, giving me a disapproving look. Oliver actually shakes his head at me when I walk past him, and I have this urge to kick his leg.
“Don’t look at me like you’re my dad, and I just missed my curfew. You kidnapped me, did you really think I’d just let you and not try to get away?”
“You’re a pain in the ass,” Banks mutters under his breath somewhere behind me.
I ignore his comment.
Crossing the threshold, I step into the small cabin, which is basically one large room. My eyes dart around, there’s a kitchenette, a living space with a flat-screen, a recliner, a sectional, and angled off in the corner is a king-sized bed. There’s only one other door besides the front door, and I’m guessing that leads to a bathroom.
No. Hell no.
“I’m not staying here,” I yell. “Take me back to campus, right now,” I demand, but when I turn around, coming face to face with all three guys.
I find they’re each giving me a different looking level of sternness.
“No,” Oliver takes a step forward, forcing me to take a step back. “Stop fighting us.”
“Never,” I curl my lip. Taking another step backward, I nearly trip over my own feet. Sullivan comes to my rescue, once again, his hand gripping onto my bicep gently. The heat of his touch sears my skin, and instead of wanting to pull away, I want to lean into his touch, let him wrap both his arms around me.
“Well, this is going well,” Banks sighs, shutting the door and turning the lock. The noise of it draws my attention. Shit, I’m stuck inside this cabin with all three of them, with no way out. Fear slithers through my veins, but there’s something else there, something residing just beneath the surface. It’s warm and makes my stomach do summersaults. I don’t understand it, and nor do I want to. These men are my enemies, nothing more.
With his hand still wrapped around my upper arm, Sullivan turns to his brothers. “Did you explain to her why she is here?”
Oliver tosses his hands into the air, his handsome face riddled with frustration. “We told her she was in danger, of what we didn’t explain. It doesn’t matter right now, because she’s not going to believe a damn thing that we tell her. Shelby’s got her so brainwashed it isn’t even funny. Nothing we say is going to sink in.”
“Okay, let’s just sit down and take a breather,” Sullivan suggests, leading me to the sectional. We sit down, and Banks and Oliver follow suit. Oliver sits next to me, leaving me wedged between him, and Sullivan, while Banks sits down on the recliner.
A long, tense moment of silence fills the room, and all I can think about is what they are going to do next. How long can they keep me here? How long before someone notices I’m missing? They haven’t actually hurt me, and they’ve already had plenty of opportunities to do so, so maybe they are telling the truth, at the very least about that.
“Hypothetically speaking… say I do believe you… that you do want to help me and keep me safe from some unknown threat. Why? You already admitted to hating me at one point. Why not anymore? What changed that?”
“Well,” Banks snickers and I swear he gets even more handsome when he smiles. “You. You kind of changed that all on your own. We weren’t lying when we said we were out for revenge. I guess we never accounted for that hate to turn into something else, something that started to look a lot less like hate. We each spent a lot of time with you, and I guess you grew on us, in more than one way.” A mischievous grin appears on his lips, and it tells me that he is talking about something besides friendship.
“Oliver said we were just friends.”
“I don’t think friends do what we did,” Banks chuckles.
My eyes dart between all three of them. They can’t really be saying what I think they’re saying, can they?
“I….” My cheeks heat and a boulder the size of Texas starts to form in my throat. That guy from the party, he said I was into threesomes. Assuming what they’re saying is true, then he was right?
“Did I… Did I sleep with all three of you?” I cringe as I ask the question, though there’s a tiny spark, a tiny flame of curiosity that flickers inside of me. Ashamed, I bury my face in my hands. This is wrong, so wrong.
“You didn’t sleep with all three of us. Only Sullivan.” Oliver speaks through his teeth, his tone, filled with venom, signifying his distaste over the subject. Dropping my hands from my face, I turn to face Sullivan.
Shame and guilt mix inside his ocean blue eyes and I know immediately that there is more to this story than what they’re telling me.
“Tell me. What happened?”
“I don’t think now is the right time to talk about this,” Sullivan interjects before anyone can say anything.
“Why’s that?” Oliver hisses like a snake, and Sullivan’s gaze turns to steel, his jaw clenching so tight you could cut glass on the edge of it.
“You know why,” he grits out.
“Yeah ‘cause it would paint you in a shit light, and god forbid that happens,” Oliver snarls, and I notice that he’s vibrating with rage, his entire body tense. “I’m going outside before I do something stupid.”
Oliver tries to get up, but I grab his arm pulling him back. “Don’t go.” I’m not sure what compels me to say it and with the feeling behind it, but as soon as the words are out, Oliver relaxes next to me. “Please tell me what happened… all of it. The good and the bad. I want to remember it, but I can’t, so I need you to tell me.”
“We followed you to Bayshore, we wanted to mess with you, try to sabotage your school year, maybe even get you expelled,” Oliver starts explaining. “We followed you around, spread rumors…” His voice trails off, shame filling his eyes at the memory.
“Then we got close, really close,” Banks continues. “We actually got to know you, and we were working on forgiving you, but then you betrayed us again… or so we thought.”
“You denied setting us up again,” Sullivan says as if he’s lost in thought, “at the end, Banks and Oliver believed you, but I didn’t… I was so caught up in my own anger, so caught up in feeling like we had given you the knife to stab us all over again, that I secretly filmed us having sex.”
My eyes go wide at his confession, my heart all but lurching from my chest.
Filmed us having sex?
My mouth pops open, and I don’t know if I’m angry, shocked, or ashamed.
“Why? Why would you do that?”
Sullivan blinks, his eyes finding mine. “I was angry, I thought you’d made me fall for you as part of a plot against us. I had no idea you were so innocent. I was going to publish the video for all to see, show you as the dirty slut I thought you were, but I didn’t. I swear to you that I didn’t, nobody ever saw it. I knew the second that I saw the blood on your thighs, it was me who had wronged you. Both of our parents wanted to ensure we remained enemies, and I had gobbled that bullshit right up. They had me eating right out of their hands.” Shaking his head, he looks away, as if he couldn’t take looking at me any longer.
“Do you still have it? The tape...”
Sullivan turns, his eyes snapping up to mine. “Why?”
“Do you or do you not?” I ask again. The air grows thick as all eyes move to Sullivan.
His face pales just a bit, and then he says, “I swear no one’s see
n it but me.”
“But you still have it?” I push.
“Yes,” he finally admits. “Yes, I still have it.”
“Jesus dude, you didn’t delete it?” Oliver barks, and I swear he’s just looking for a reason to clobber his brother. Then again, I’m kinda interested in seeing it.
“I can’t believe you, you really are a dickhead,” Banks chimes in, just as disappointed in his brother as Oliver is. “I should kick you in the nuts right now.”
“I want to see it. I want to see the tape.” I don’t even think about the repercussions or how it’s going to make me feel afterward. All I want is to see it, because maybe, just maybe, reliving my past will make me remember it fully. Sullivan pulls out his phone and thumbs through it, pausing as soon as he finds the video.
Slowly, he hands it to me, shame and guilt, among a slew of other emotions paint his features. Ignoring how that makes me feel, I take the phone, and without any hesitation, I hit play.
The video starts, Sullivan and I are in a bedroom, already lying on the bed, naked. His body is covering most of mine, but I still feel weird with Oliver beside me, who can clearly see the screen.
“Do you want me to fuck you hard and fast or slow and gentle?” Sullivan’s voice comes through the speaker and my breath hitches. He sounds different, his tone laced with lust, his voice deeper, reaching into the tiny crevices of my soul.
“Slow, please,” my voice comes out strong, and I watch intently as he starts moving, his hips thrusting forward with determination. The muscles of his back ripple and he looks like a man on a mission, a mission of pleasure. As I watch, heat creeps up my neck and cheeks, while tingles of warmth spread throughout my core.
“Do you wish it was all three of us doing this with you right now? That we got to take turns with you? Making you come over and over again.” Holy shit. I almost drop the phone. Why would he ask me that? Swallowing loudly, I glance up at Oliver and Banks, who are both staring holes straight through me.