I didn’t dare give her a grateful smile. I still didn’t acknowledge the sticky assault, either, refusing to brush off the bits which were clinging to me until I was all the way out in the hall.
“Man, you really pissed off the wrong guy,” the runner said sympathetically.
“I know, right?” I shook my head to get the spitballs out of my hair. The runner put some distance between us to avoid any second-hand spittle, which gave me the chance to check my phone. It had vibrated in class, but I hadn’t wanted to draw any unnecessary attention to myself. It was Blayze. I kinda expected that.
Library on 12th after school. Park in back.
The sane part of my brain told me not to go and told me in no uncertain terms that this was almost definitely a setup of some kind. But I wasn’t really embracing sanity anymore. That one display of utter abandon had earned me a wide berth from the people in that class. As soon as they started telling people about it, that berth would spread. Giddy with newfound power and recklessness, I strolled into the office.
16
Drumming on my steering wheel wasn’t helping my agitation. I’d left school way too early. There was that nagging feeling in the back of my head, telling me that I should have stayed behind to make sure Arlena got out of the parking lot in one piece. I had been so sure that they would leave her alone on the way out, considering how much trouble they thought they were facing for blocking her way in. But nobody had been acting the way I’d expected them to lately. I checked the clock for the hundredth time and then checked it again. I’d only been sitting out here for five minutes, so honestly, I shouldn’t have been as fucking panicked for her as I was. She’ll be here, I told myself.
My phone buzzed. I almost broke my screen in my hurry to unlock it.
Had to talk to the principal and his people. On my way.
She shouldn’t have texted me. I warned her about that. Right now, though, that text felt like a breath of fresh damn air after a life in the sewer.
I ruined my own sigh of relief by frowning. His people? Which people? Damn her and her vagueness. I almost wondered what she needed to talk to them about, then reminded myself that I was, in fact, an idiot. The fliers and posters were easy to ignore. Have the janitor throw them away and it was like it never happened, even if they showed up again the next day. Plausible deniability. That episode in the parking lot, though, had witnesses. Lots of them. Parents and bus drivers and random strangers out walking their dogs. The school would be forced to take action now.
Finally, after what felt like double an eternity, Arlena’s car pulled in. Nervous energy propelled me out of my car and to my feet. I lit a cigarette and leaned against the door with as much casual swag as I could muster—which wasn’t much. I was worried about her. I’d heard lots of stories all day, and none of them made me feel any better. She bounced out of her car and almost pirouetted around it, then leaned against her hood facing me.
“You look—happy?” I said uncertainly.
She cocked her head. “Is that a question or a statement?”
“A statement,” I said. “The question is ‘why’ and/or ‘how.’”
“Ah,” she said, tossing her hair back carelessly. A spitball fell out of it. I decided that I didn’t see it. “The why is multi-faceted and rather complicated, so pay attention. You ready?”
“Yep.”
“I get to see you,” she said, her eyes twinkling. “As for the how? I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t. I think all the serotonin I haven’t been able to get to for the last—however the fuck long—finally staged a coup and stormed my frontal lobe.”
I grinned. “Brain science today?”
“Yup,” she said, grinning.
I nodded slowly, taking a closer look at her face. Her eyes were unnaturally bright, her cheeks were flushed a hot, unhealthy pink, and she was breathing in quick gasps through drying crimson lips. She was high as hell. Maybe it was what she said, but I couldn’t be too careful around here.
“What did the principal want to talk to you about?” I asked, still looking her over from a reasonable distance.
“Oh, um—did you see that whole thing that happened in the parking lot this morning?”
“I did.”
“Okay, well, he wanted to ask me about that. And the posters. And the fliers.”
“What did you tell him?”
She shrugged in an exaggerated way that made her hands flop limply from her wrists. “I told him that some bitch found out who my dad is, and that most of the people at that school have friends or family serving time because of him. He seemed to understand.”
“That’s a one-minute conversation,” I said quietly. “Word in the halls is you were in the office all day.”
“Oh. Yeah, well, they wanted the nurse to check me over because I had this massive laugh attack in first period and they thought I might have had a seizure. I didn’t know you could have a laughing seizure, but I guess you learn something new every day, right? Anyway, she took her sweet time about it while the principal whispered with a bunch of important-looking people in the other room.”
“Then what happened?” I asked, gently prodding her to tell the whole story.
She fidgeted and started playing with the hem of her woolen miniskirt, plucking bits of paper and gum off it. “First, they wanted to know if I knew who accessed the PA this morning. I guess whoever yelled at all of us did it without permission, and unsanctioned threats of expulsion are bad news. He’s afraid he’s going to get sued.”
“Serves him right,” I said, grinding my teeth. “He should have made the announcement himself.”
She blinked at me. “Do you know who did it?”
“Yeah,” I said matter-of-factly. “I did.”
Her jaw dropped, then she narrowed her eyes at me. “I thought you said you couldn’t be caught helping me.”
I shook my head. “I said I couldn’t be seen with you. And hell—if you didn’t recognize my voice over the PA, then nobody else did either. I knew they wouldn’t, though. People only really see what they expect to see.”
“Boy do you have that right,” she said, slumping against her car.
I wanted to scoop her up and hold her tight, but shoved my hands in my pockets instead.
“It’s getting worse,” she said quietly. “I don’t know if I’m going to survive another escalation. I don’t understand why it’s happening this way.”
“I didn’t either,” I told her. “Then I figured it out. Well—Sam did.”
Arlena raised her eyebrows incredulously. “Sam figured out something for me?”
I shook my head. “No. She figured it out for me, because I wouldn’t quit pestering her about it. She’s tapped into the social network around here in ways I can’t even begin to understand. The long and short of it is that someone is waging a holy war against you, rallying his troops anonymously. I don’t know what happened this morning. Last I heard, they were supposed to attack you in the lunchroom. A school-wide food fight with a single target. That’s why I told you to eat in your car.”
Arlena frowned. “How?” she asked.
I explained it to her and her frown deepened with each word I said. “Do the cops know about the app?”
I shrugged. “I assume so, but your dad would know better than I would.”
She raised her arms and dropped them again, huffing exasperatedly. “Well that doesn’t help! The man refuses to talk to me about the work he’s doing or why. My mom filled me in on some of it this morning, and let me tell you, there are some things you just can’t un-hear.”
My jaw tightened. I really didn’t want to be talking about this with her. She noticed the change and took a step forward, making a pathetic little cry of dismay.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said, halfway between admonishing and pleading. “The things she told me, Blayze—”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said as gently as I could. “None of that is important right now. What’s important right now is
that you aren’t safe.”
Her eyes shone wetly, and she leaned her forehead against my arm. Instinct had my arms moving around her to pull her close, but I stopped myself with one arm draped awkwardly over her shoulders. She jumped back and looked up at me guiltily.
“I forgot about Sam,” she said in a near-whisper. “I keep doing that. I keep thinking about you as if you’re mine, just distant, as if you’d gone to war or something. I don’t mean to, I swear. I know I’m no good for your reputation, and I’m pretty sure you’re no good for me—under normal circumstances, I mean.”
That hurt. It shouldn’t have. I’d come to the same conclusion myself, months ago. But hearing those words come out of her sweet mouth felt like a slap in the face. The world seemed to jerk and shudder into slow motion as I reached out to her and pulled her back to me, holding her close so her head nestled on my shoulder, so the curves of her body contoured to me. I sighed, releasing tension way down my spine. I hadn’t realized it was there until that moment. Holding her like that made a feeling swirl inside of me that I couldn’t quite define. All I knew was that I didn’t ever want it to go away.
“You’re my friend,” I said, struggling with the words. “There’s no reason why I shouldn’t comfort my friend.”
Her breath caught and shuddered and she pushed herself closer into me. I could feel her pulse low in her belly even through our clothes, the heat spreading over her thighs under her thick tights, the heaviness in her hot breath against my chest. I held her around her waist and shoulders, but my hands wouldn’t be still. I wanted to run them all over her, pet her and tease her until every bad thought had been chased from her mind, until she was crying out in pleasure and begging me to be inside of her.
The thought made me twitch violently against her hip. So much so that she stopped breathing for a second. My heart raced and my mind went blank, giving me absolutely nothing. I had no idea how she was going to react, so I had no plan whatsoever.
She released a little mewling sigh and shifted against me, sliding over the rise in my jeans. I thought it was intentional, but I couldn’t be sure. I held her a little tighter, pushing the limits, letting my hands trail down near her ass and back over her neck. She felt like something wonderful against me, safe and real and familiar in a way that Sam could never be.
Maybe it was her sheltered purity or her surprising strength or the way she always looked at me like I was some kind of hero even when I was being a dick to her. I’d treated her horribly, but here she was, putting all of her trust in me. I wanted to tell her how stupid that was. I wanted to point out the mistakes she’d made with me, mistakes which could get her killed if I was anybody else.
But I wasn’t anyone else, and for the moment she wasn’t in any danger. Sam was miles away, doing whatever it was she did when I wasn’t looking. I used to care. I used to obsess about it, because she always seemed to be up to no good. Not anymore, though. I couldn’t care less what Sam was up to. It occurred to me that I had never once wondered what Arlena was up to when we were together—because she wasn’t shifty. She was never up to anything bad, and if she was, she’d want to tell me all about it.
She pushed gently away from me and I reluctantly let her go. “I’m sorry,” she said, sounding and looking a lot calmer than she had since she got there. “I’ve missed you. I’ve missed being held like that. It feels safe. It—you—” She bit her lip and shook her head.
“What?” I asked. I was hoping she could put a name to this feeling I couldn’t define, but she just smiled at me sadly.
“What are we going to do about the stalker situation?” she asked, turning around so that she was standing beside me instead of enticingly in front of me. She leaned against my car, keeping a side mirror between us. Smart girl. Annoyingly smart. I would have given up my right big toe to have her pressed against me just like she was pressed against my car, her curvy hips and ass tucked tight against my hips.
“Well,” I said, forcing my head to get back on topic. “All we know about this person is that they are determined, influential, and creepy. We know they either go to the school or work for the school, but also that they can manage to get away in time to leave notes on your porch before you get home. Which either means that they drive, or that they have a free period at the end of the day, or both.”
“We know they can break into my house without damaging anything or raising any alarms,” she added.
God, she was cute and naive and…was it even possible for someone to be this damn innocent? I brushed hair out of her face and smiled at her. “That doesn’t really narrow down the possibilities,” I said gently. “That’s an elementary skill around here.”
A look of infinite sadness washed over her face. I wished I could understand that level of sensitivity, but this was my native environment and I was numb to all but the very worst of it.
“Then what will narrow it down?” She wasn’t giddy anymore. That haunted look crept back in and hung around her eyes as she hugged herself tightly. “Or if we can’t narrow it down, how do we counter it? I’m scared, Blayze. I looked into so many faces today and all I saw was murder. I don’t want to die.” A single tear slipped down her cheek and she shuddered before moving a hand to wipe it away.
Guilt slammed into my chest like a sledgehammer. It was my fault she was so scared. If I had stayed by her when all of this first started, talked to her before unleashing Sam’s mouth on the school, shown all of them that I still trusted her in spite of everything, she would have been safe. But I hadn’t and now it had all gone way too far. If I stepped between her and the world now, publicly and brazenly, they would rip me apart. At best I would be forced to disappear. At worst, I wouldn’t have the chance to.
I put my arm around her and held her close, rubbing some heat into her body with my hands. Trust was broken, that was the biggest thing. Around here, all a person had were their reputations and their word. Her reputation had been fragile from the start, and her word was worthless now. If that were to change, it would reduce the Fugwidem person’s power significantly.
“I have an idea,” I said slowly. “But I don’t want to get your hopes up. Let me work on it for a while, okay? It’s going to take some time.”
She gave me a watery smile and, hard as it was to do, I managed to return it.
“You think I have time?” she asked.
“You will,” I said fiercely. “I’ll make sure of it.”
I held her for a while longer, praying that I wasn’t making a promise I couldn’t keep.
17
I was bone tired, but somehow I managed to get myself home. All I wanted to do was go straight to bed and stay there for a month, and I couldn’t come up with a good reason why I shouldn’t do just that. School didn’t seem nearly as important as it used to, and these furtive meetings with Blayze were a goddamn roller coaster every single time.
After shutting my car in the garage, I walked up toward my door and groaned. Someone had fished the envelope out from the bush and put it back on the porch, and had added two more to it. Another word-by-word message? More blood? I could only guess, but I didn’t even want to do that. Whatever it was, I suspected that the person leaving it was watching me somehow to make sure I took it. Why would they have looked in the bushes otherwise?
Not really sure of what else to do, I grabbed the three envelopes and went up to my room. I opened them one by one, but I was too emotionally drained to react to any of them. The first was a grainy picture of me with its eyes cut out and its mouth stitched shut. The second simply said, “Hang, bitch.” The third informed me that ignoring the letters would only lead to violence, though it was far more graphic than that.
I tossed the letters on my desk and glared at them. Rage sparked deep inside of me, burning through the helplessness I’d been feeling for weeks on weeks, tightening my hopeless muscles. I gripped the edge of the bed in two fists, shaking with the power of my fury. I felt like a caged animal, hounded and harassed by some unseen keeper.
“Fuck this,” I said out loud. “Fuck this!”
I grabbed the letters off the desk, ripped the old pinned message off my board, and took all of it downstairs. Mom kept a metal trash can under the sink. I dumped it out and grabbed a lighter from the little cupboard over the stove, then stormed back outside. I slammed the trash can down hard enough for the clang to echo up and down the street.
“Are you out there, you cowardly sack of shit?” I screamed. “Are you watching me? Watch this, motherfucker!”
I dumped the notes on the ground in front of me and picked one out at random. I lit the corner of it and dropped it into the trash can.
“Fuck your threats,” I said. I lit the next one. “Fuck your intimidation.” Next one was aflame. “Fuck your entire existence.” I grabbed the rest of them, balling them up in my fist, and lit the whole thing. “Most of all, fuck your whore mother for ever bringing you into this world!”
I dropped the smoking ball into the trash can. Flames leapt and danced, the single bright spot on the whole dingy, overcast street. I prayed that the stalker was watching. Prayed that he was close enough to see the murderous intent on my face.
“Don’t bother writing more. I won’t read them. I won’t even look at them. From this moment on, everything you leave at my door gets incinerated. Try it, you pussy ass bitch. See if I’m bluffing.”
Tension rolled on the air around me as the flames slowly died down. I could feel eyes on me from all sides, and I smirked. Good. Even if the stalker wasn’t personally watching me, a lot of other people were. Enough people to spread the word. He’d get the message one way or another.
I didn’t delude myself into thinking that this would be the end of it. I knew there was a very good chance that my challenge would only escalate the situation, but I didn’t care anymore. I was tired of hiding, tired of running, tired of withstanding the endless storm. The only way this was going to end was if I made it end.
Manic: A Dark Bully Romance Page 12