Cruel Boys

by Nora Cobb

  Panic seizes me, but I feel another feeling slowly bubbling its way forward—a feeling that makes me feel shameful as soon as I can identify it: excitement. A part of me hidden deep inside wants this—it wants to see how far Dom will go, to lose control and let him do whatever he wants with me.

  No! I promised myself I’d never end up like this again—powerless and at someone else’s mercy. And just like that, the excitement evaporates.

  “Get off me. I’ll kill you!” I scream as I thrash under him. His hand covers my mouth before I can get another word out.

  “Stop moving!” He shouts behind my head.

  Panicking, I throw my head back. A sharp pain trembles across my skull as I smash into his face. Dom’s grip relaxes just enough for me to roll to the left and pull myself free.

  But I barely take a few more steps before he brings me down to the ground again. This time, I fall on my back. I watch as he looms over me. Tears trail down the side of my face and pool in my ears. The shameful excitement returns with vengeance as Dom sits on top of my waist.

  I haven’t felt this same panic—this same fight—in years, and I’m afraid that my mind will crack and leave me for good. No, goddamit! Fight! I have to fight. Snarling, I reach up to claw his face but he catches my hand.

  “Fuck you! Fuck you! HELP!” I scream with all my energy—even though I know no-one is coming. Why did I get in his car? Why the fuck did I think I can trust him?

  “I’m not going to hurt you!” He shouts as he pushes my arms into the dirt.

  I am pinned under the weight of his body. “The hell you won’t! HELP!”

  “Shit, Vicki! Stop! Just trust me. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  Fuck that. I try twisting under him to no avail. My legs flail against the soft ground. The pine needles scent the air and the smell of dirty fills my nostrils as I pant. Not like this. I spit in his face and it lands squarely in his eye. He frees one of my hands and I seize the opportunity to grab his other arm. I bring it close to my mouth and bite. Hard.

  Dom howls in pain but he lets me go.

  I scramble back up on my feet, rush into the driver’s seat, and slam the door shut. But when I step on the accelerator, the car doesn’t move. It takes me a second before I realize that the car isn’t on.

  I reach for the handle, but the door locks. Dom stands outside, a twisted look on his face. He slowly holds up the key and I realize that I’m trapped. An old familiar powerlessness washes over me. I feel the strength sapping from my body.

  No. No, no, no, no, NO! I want to scream but I can’t.

  The locks click and the door opens.

  “Step out of the car, Vicki.” Dom says. His voice deadly calm.

  “Please don’t.” I shiver.

  “Out.” He repeats. “Now.”

  There’s nothing I can do and I step out of the car. I’ve run from everything in my life before. But now, it seems, I’ve finally gone up against something I can’t run away from. I clench my jaw and look him straight in the eye, trying my best to not look terrified.

  He steps closer and reaches out. I flinch, waiting for his touch. Instead, he opens the rear door.

  “Get in.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Back to campus.” He says.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “You don’t have a choice.” He says.

  He’s right. I don’t have a choice. Not now. Silently, I climb into the backseat of the car. He shuts the door—more forcefully than I expected—and gets into the driver seat. I try pulling on the handle but it won’t catch. Dom enabled child-lock.

  The blanket is also in the backseat. I kick it away.

  He starts the car and looks at me through the rearview mirror. “You’re not worth my time.”

  “Fuck you,” I shoot back. “I won’t let you get away with this.”

  “With what?” His eyes drill into mine.

  “You tried to rape me.”

  He scoffs. “I did no such thing.”

  My mouth drops open in shock. Is he for real? Is he actually going to try and deny it?

  Dom shrugs his shoulders. “You failed initiation, Vicki.”

  “I don’t give a flying fuck about initiation right now.”

  “Then you’re dumber than I thought. This is how things are done in Hollywood.” He says as the car starts moving. “This is how we play the game.”

  “How many other girls did you do this to, you sick bastard? Did you also promise them that you’d help them, before you drove them out into the middle of the woods and held them down while they were screaming for help?”

  “Zero.”

  I fold my arms and look away. “Yeah, right.”

  “Believe what you want.” Dom stares at the road. “But don’t expect anyone from Redwood to help you—even if they make it in Hollywood later. Doors will shut in your face. You won’t land a role—not even as an un-credited camera assistant. You’re done, and so is anyone—and I mean anyone—dumb enough to help you.”

  “That’s what you think.”

  “That’s what I know.” Dom corrects me. “Because you have no idea what I can do.”

  ***

  After a twenty-minute ride in silence, Dom drives into the school parking lot, and I’m free of him. He stops his car at the end of the parking lot, and I hop out. I say nothing to him and hurry to my car. His car sits there until I get into mine, but he hits the gas and peels out of the parking lot. I check the time. It’s not even eleven o’clock.

  For a moment, I think about knocking on Theo’s door. But I shake my head. I don’t want to tell anyone what happened tonight. And even if I did, what’s going to happen to Theo and Luna if they’re seen with me? I know my name is going on a list after tonight, but it won’t be the list I want it to be on.

  But one thing is for certain. I’m totally screwed.

  Chapter Eleven

  I thought I liked school, but by Monday, I am having serious doubts. The classroom buildings are grouped together between the parking lot and the dorms. Instead of climbing stairs or taking elevators, people walk on paved paths from building to building. Most days, we spend the entire day in one building. I spend most of my time in Adler Hall for film studies and leave on Thursday and Friday for my humanities class in Crenshaw Hall. It’s a pretty set routine, which is good for me. Routines keep me too busy to wish I had pills.

  Hardly anyone’s around the day lot, but as I walk up the incline toward the rest of the campus, I see students hanging out before class. And they see me too and turn away like I did something rude. How lame. Not all of them act weird, but the ones I recognize from the film studies building are definitely antisocial. I’m walking toward Paloma, and she’s staring at me with bugged eyes. Her eyes are rounder than a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree circle, if that’s even possible. She’s with a group of kids, probably freshmen, and she looks terrified that I may stop and talk to her. Her expression is weirding me out, so I look away and continue walking.

  What the fuck do I have to deal with now? The gawking increases as I approach Adler Hall. These are the kids I have most of my classes with, so I know a few of them, but no one is speaking to me. Stares and whispers behind my back as soon as I pass by. I open the door and walk into the building. I shake my head and mutter a few obscenities as I hurry toward the auditorium for my History of the Cinema class. Dom didn’t waste time blackballing me, and these kids didn’t waste any time listening to his bullshit.

  Silas stands by the open door of the auditorium. They’ve made snide comments about my uniform of plaid shirts and cutoffs, but he wears a uniform too. He dresses as if he lives on the set for Vampire Diaries in skinny pants and untucked shirts. Gingerbread boy manages to pull it off, and I’ll admit I’m feeling jelly over his wardrobe. The rest of him can go to hell. Silas is with his coven of hollow-brained idiots; all the kids who think he’ll do something for them later if they do something for him now.

  He sees me before I ca
n pass by, and unlike his toffee-nosed minions, he’s staring at me. His cool green gaze studies my expression. Does he think I’m going to cry? I lock eyes on him. I’m not backing down.

  “Hello, Victoria.” He separates himself from the herd. “I was told about your extracurricular activities in the woods this weekend.” He smirks and lowers his voice. “Romantic lighting, plaid blanket on the ground, a handsome stud, everything a girl needs to spread her legs.”

  “You know a lot about my sex life, nosy boy. You should write an eBook.”

  Silas laughs, but he’s not amused. “Cinematography club isn’t enough to satisfy?”

  I scowl. “It’s better than being in the devil’s minion club.” I nod toward his followers. “You smell like sulfur and sweat.”

  He twists his lips. We whisper insults as the exchange heats up. “You’re supposed to fuck the teachers, not the students, Victoria. Maybe that’s why your grades are so low.”

  “Nothing happened with your boy, not with me, at least.”

  “Really?” Silas fakes surprise. “He told me when you spread your legs, he was afraid he was going to fall in.”

  I shake my head. “I was there, and when he dropped his pants and bent over, he moaned your name.”

  Silas grabs my upper arm, digging his fingers into my flesh. It feels like he’s trying to break my bone. I yank my arm away, and instinct takes over. I slap him hard across the face. He wasn’t expecting it. Neither was I. He takes a clumsy step backward then touches his mouth for blood. It’s only drool.

  For a fraction of a second, his lips twitch into a smirk as if the sick fuck enjoys being slapped. My eyes fixed on him, I back away. But he follows until he’s in my face.

  “I hope you’re ready, sweet thing, because I’ll even the score.”

  I hiss in his face, “You’re on, little wicked.”

  People are watching us, and I don’t like it. I lower my head, but then I lift it again as I switch my ass into the auditorium. In Hollywood, you better not slink away. The auditorium has stadium seating, so I can sit in the back and do something else unnoticed by the teacher. There are a few kids sitting in the rows in front of me, but I have the back rows to myself.

  Silas struts in like the Pied Piper of Hollywood and heads for the front. His minions shoot evil glances in my direction, especially Rosemonde Pascal. She wants to fuck him badly and doesn’t hide it. Rosemonde pats his pink cheek and coos over him as if he’s her baby. She’s so stuck up and from the East Coast too. She pretends to be French and insists on being called Rosemonde. Her name means horse protection in German, so she basically is known as a horse’s condom. I get salty just thinking about her.

  Class starts, and I’m not focused on the old black-and-white film. Mr. Carroll, the teacher, is droning on and on. He gets excited by cute kitten videos. People can be so strange. My thoughts are busy dissecting what happened with Silas. He knew there was a plaid blanket. As if he had seen it himself. If Dom described what happened, I doubt he would have mentioned that the blanket was plaid.

  Hey, bro, I was going to bang her in the woods on a plaid blanket.

  He wouldn’t say that. I sink further down in my seat and put my feet up. I find myself watching the back of Silas’ head. No ginger should be that popular, but he is. He looks over his shoulder, and I realize that he’s watching me. Staring at him. I look away and try to calm my brain enough to pay attention to the screen straight ahead.

  He passes something to Rosemonde. She smiles her big-toothed grin and passes a note over her shoulder to another girl. She turns around and passes to a kid with dreads behind her. He has to shake the foot of the ponytail kid behind him, and he reaches over and takes it. Ponytail’s about to open it, but dread guy shakes his head. Ponytail looks down at it and then passes the note back to the next kid. Hand to hand, little by little, the folded piece of paper travels the length of the auditorium. I reach down for my bag and start to ease forward in my seat. The piece of paper is two rows away. I look toward the head of the class. Mr. Carroll’s back is turned. I can run out quickly, and he won’t see me and ask where I’m going. It’s in the hand of a girl who turns and glares at me. She’s two rows away. I don’t have to take it from her. The girl flings it, and the note lands in my lap.

  A few people giggle, and Mr. Carroll turns around. His eyes scan the room, and I slump back down in my seat. Victoria is written neatly on the folded, unlined paper. The handwriting is impossibly neat and straight. Very anal and scripted like an invitation to a waspy wedding. I look up, and everyone is facing forward though I know somehow he’s watching me. I open it carefully and quietly in my lap, smoothing the wrinkles out, so I can read it. I wish I had waited.

  You’ll pay for it all, bitch.

  I leave class when Mr. Carroll starts discussing the homework. I don’t know where to look for Dom, but I’ll find the prick. He was wrong, not me. I’m not putting up with his badmouthing. We don’t have classes together, even though we’re on the same track. Redwood doesn’t call it a major since it’s high school, which is stupid. We all know where we are. In fact, Silas and Chase are in film studies also, and I see one member of the twisted trifecta in the halls at least once a day. Except when I use the back stairwell to avoid them.

  Dom spends a lot of time in the screening room on Level B. It’s his de facto office, and students have to check with him if they want to use the room. Dom says yes to his favorites though he has no special permission to monopolize the space. He does have a last name that gives him a right to do whatever he pleases. Almost.

  I head upstairs, and no one is hanging in the hallway outside the door. The campaign poster I had hung up on a student bulletin board is missing, but I see one on the door of the screening room. That’s odd. Quietly, I stand in the doorway, listening for voices. The wall with the screen is to the immediate right, and stadium seating is to the left. The layout resembles a small movie theater like the older places where art films are shown. I walk in soundlessly, and at first, I think no one is in the room until I hear an overly put-upon sigh.

  Dom is seated in the back row as if he’s waiting for someone. I’m not sure how long we’ll be alone. I have a right to be furious with him, but my nerves start to rise when he looks at me. His eyes are the coldest blue I’ve ever seen. Dom doesn’t speak; he just watches me as I walk up the steps toward the back of the room.

  My steps are measured to keep my knees from trembling. I’m dressed in a new white silk shirt with concealer on my arms. I have on black shorts and a matching tank top like I’m ready for an old-fashioned roller derby. Deep down, I want to turn and flee, but I act like the type of woman who’d skate over someone prone body like a ramp. Old Vicki had attitude, and I want that badass girl back.

  “I talked to Silas, but you probably know.” My voice is low as I tilt my chin up.

  “I heard.” He grins without feeling.

  “Of course you did,” I reply. “Maybe I’ll see it online later?”

  “Silas is careful about his image.” He looks me up and down as if I’m asking for his feedback.

  “I understand why he might be protective.” My hand starts to fidget with my shirt hem, but I stop myself. “I want to be clear. I don’t want your help with my campaign. Not after what you pulled. I don’t need to be linked to a sick fuck.”

  His gaze hardens with each calm word spoken. “You may not want a sick fuck’s help, but you’ll need it.”

  Finally, I lose my overloaded patience. “You’re so fucking smug for being a pathetic person.”

  “I can be, but I don’t think you can be, Victoria.”

  “Don’t call me Victoria. My name is Vicki. Use it.” My face is flushed. I can call him the foulest names, and it won’t have the same impact as when he says Victoria.

  Dom rests his feet on the back of the seat in front of him. I hate him even more. What he tried to pull in the woods was heinous, but showing no remorse is even worse.

  “You’ll regret saying
no.” He slides down further into his seat. “I don’t offer to help anybody. I don’t need to, but I thought you would appreciate it.”

  He places his hand casually in his lap and waits for my reaction. He’s using my emotions to play me. I have to find another way to get at him.

  “I’m not getting tangled up in all the strings attached.” I stand straighter and feel less fear and rage as I breathe in a deep breath. “By the way, it’s not what you can do that worries me. It’s that you don’t care about the consequences.”