by Maya Nicole
I unclasped the sides of the box and pulled the lid off. There was a blue envelope with my name on it and that was it.
My birthday was in a few weeks. Maybe this was where she hid smaller presents and I had just uncovered her secret hiding place.
I opened the blue envelope and pulled out the card. It was just a folded piece of card stock. I opened it and inside was a letter to me.
Ri,
If you're reading this, that means something has happened to me to cause you to go snooping. When you're done reading this, you need to destroy it.
I can't put much in this letter, but know that I love you. Anything I do, it's for you, and you're going to have to trust that my decisions aren't from a place of selfishness.
Over the years I've quietly been stashing away money for you. Just enough where your father wouldn't grow suspicious and come back into our lives. Hidden in one of your favorite things is a list of contacts.
Call the first number and tell him the situation. I love you.
Mom
I'd been right all along, something had happened to my mom.
Chapter Fourteen
I'd found the list of numbers inside Little House on The Prairie. It had taken me almost an hour of flipping through books on my bookshelves to find the small piece of paper that had three numbers.
The man that answered hadn't said much and we arranged to meet on Tuesday after school.
It had been a week since my life had taken a drastic turn from sitting in the background to being the center of attention. It felt surreal that three teenagers could so easily flip the switch on someone's life.
I still wasn't sure what to do about the video I had recorded in the back of the car. I wasn't sure if it was incriminating enough, and it also incriminated me. If they wanted to turn the tables and say I broke into their house, I'd be in just as much trouble as Jax.
I parked my car and shut my eyes, trying to calm my nerves before facing the three assholes that were making my life hell.
A knock sounded on my window and I jumped. Morgan stood with the paper bag I had left on the back seat of Jax's car. I swung open my door, hitting him with it.
"Ow. What was that for, vixen? I thought we were friends now." He shoved the bag into my hands. "You forgot your clothes. Where are mine?"
"I burned them." I looked into the bag. "Where are my underwear and bra?"
"They're on the bottom." Morgan looked over the top of my car. "Gotta go."
He took off at a jog and at the gate, threw his arm around a girl's shoulder and kissed her temple. I couldn't see who she was from the back, but she had long, bleach blonde hair and shorts that almost showed her ass cheeks. Maybe I'd report her for violating the dress code.
I threw the bag into my car and slammed the door. It's not like he was mine, yet seeing him touch another woman made my blood boil.
I was losing it. Why was I jealous?
"Oh, shit. What happened?" Aiden fell into step with me as I walked toward the gate. "It can't be worse than sand."
"Thanks again for helping me." I looped my arm through his. "I never knew sand was so intrusive."
"We could have just left it and your mom would have a nice surprise waiting for her this afternoon. It could have been payback for not responding to your calls and for taking your money." We got to my locker and I shoved the stuff I didn't need until later into it.
"What if she isn't back when I get home?" My mom was supposed to be back in the early afternoon, but I had been brushing off the idea that she wouldn't be home. Now that I had read her letter, I was leaning more toward her not returning.
"The police said you have to wait twenty-four hours, yeah?" I nodded, and we walked toward English. "Then we deal with it when we get to that point."
"I have to go to the bathroom. I'll see you in class."
We separated and I went into the bathroom. I had needed a pick-me-up after my long weekend and drank coffee even though I didn't care for it. It made me jittery and have to pee way more than usual.
I stepped out of the stall and was washing my hands when I heard the lock and looked up.
Melissa.
With her were the two girls Jax had kissed from the bonfire and the girl who had made the fish breath comment the first day of school. The same girl Morgan had wrapped his arm around before school.
They stood blocking the door with looks on their faces that I thought were only reserved for bitches in mean girl movies.
"Can you please move?" I threw my paper towel in the trash and faced them. There was just the five of us in the bathroom, to my dismay.
"We need to talk." Morgan's plaything stepped forward and I took a step back toward a stall.
I knew the predicament I was in. I wasn't a fighter and there were four of them. I wasn't sure how much locking myself in a stall would help besides putting me closer to becoming a swirly victim.
"Talk?" I could make it into the stall I had just come out of, but wasn't sure I would be able to lock the door in enough time. My body would be able to hold the door shut.
"Morgan is mine. I want you to stay away from him."
"Not a problem. Are we done here?" I was inches from the stall when Melissa lunged forward and grabbed me by the ponytail.
She was strong and she slammed me against the section of wall between the stalls. "We aren't done."
I suppressed the urge to scream for help or fight back. I didn't need to make this worse on myself. "What else?"
"We have papers due in two weeks. You'll write them for us." Of course that was what Melissa wanted. She had to take summer school every year.
I couldn't do that. "We'll get caught." I flinched as Melissa grabbed shoulders and spun me around so my face was against the wall.
I attempted to free myself, but her nailed thumb pressed against the base of my skull. "How hard do you think I have to press to cause damage?" The other girls laughed.
"Let me go."
"Stay away from them." Melissa shoved me and my chin hit the wall, my teeth piercing my lip. "Ta-ta for now."
They were gone before I could even turn around. I spit the blood coming from my lip into the sink and held a paper towel to the split skin.
The bell rang and I groaned. In all my years, I had never gotten a tardy. The goody-two-shoes in me wanted to cry, but the new side of me was pissed and wanted blood.
An eye for an eye.
I walked out of the bathroom and almost ran into Officer Thomas. "You're late."
No shit, Sherlock. "Four girls jumped me in the bathroom." I moved the paper towel away from my lip and pointed. "What are you going to do about it?"
He had already started walking away and stopped, turning back to me with a scowl. "I don't like your attitude."
I don't like your face. "My apologies. I thought your job was to serve and protect."
"Get to class." He turned and walked off.
How much were the Tritons paying him to ignore me? Instead of heading to class, which I was late to already, I went straight to the office.
"Excuse me. Is Mrs. Miller in?"
The secretary looked up from her computer and her eyes widened. I knew my hair was half falling out of the ponytail and there were a few drops of blood on my shirt.
"Don't you mean Mrs. Angela, the nurse? Mrs. Miller took a leave of absence. We aren't sure when she'll return."
My stomach dropped. "What do you mean she took a leave of absence? I just saw her on Friday!" My voice cracked. "She didn't say anything about leaving and said I could come to her anytime."
"Sometimes life happens. Let's get you into the nurse's office."
I was freaking out. Instead of listening to her or asking to see the principal, I walked to English on a mission. Maybe if other people saw what they had done to me, they would be on my side.
I threw the bloody paper towel in a garbage can and pulled open the door to English with a flourish. Every single head turned my direction.
Mrs. Williams st
ood from her desk. "Riley, what the hell happened?"
I ignored her question and the fact that I looked bad enough to cause her to have a slip of the tongue. I marched right toward Blake, who stood.
He opened his mouth to say something and I smacked him across the face. His face turned with the slap and gasps spread across the room. Blake's eyes flared and his jaw clenched as he turned his face back to look me in the eye.
"Keep your pussies of the week away from me." I turned and left the room.
I thought my breaking point would be a little further down the line, but apparently not. I hid out in the bathroom, worrying about whether I was going to be suspended. Yet another thing that hadn't even been in the realm of possibility a week ago.
The bell rang, signaling the end of first period. I had cleaned myself up and besides the slight swell on my bottom lip and the fury in my eyes, I looked like myself again and not a deranged lunatic.
I checked my phone and had texts from not only Aiden and Ivy, but the entire lunch crew and a number I wasn't familiar with.
Unknown: Who did that to you?
Me: Who is this?
Unknown: Blake. Where are you? I convinced Mrs. Williams not to write you up.
I shoved my phone back in my bag and left the bathroom. Did he want recognition shouted from the rooftops? He knew damn well who did it to me.
I entered Psychology and sat down in my seat, pulling my notebook out and ignoring the stares and whispers that were being sent my way. Now I was going to be known as the crazy girl who smacked guys.
Hopefully no one got that on video.
The tension was just leaving my shoulders when Blake walked in and came to stand by my desk. "Outside."
I looked up at him and then at the teacher who was watching us like a hawk. Blake looked over at Mr. Bancroft and he gave Blake a nod.
"You're paying off the teachers now too? Unfuckingbelievable." I crossed my arms. "I'm not leaving this room. Go get fucked by your little bitches."
"Ms. Kline, need I remind you that you are in a classroom?" Mr. Bancroft didn't look up from his computer. "Sit down, Blake. She doesn't want to talk to you."
Blake slid into the seat in front of me, even though it wasn't his assigned spot.
The rest of the morning passed without much fanfare, but that didn't stop me from being on high alert. I gave up trying to hide and sat in the cafeteria with the only people who weren't giving me looks like I had ten heads.
Melissa and the other three girls who had cornered me in the bathroom were sitting at a table on the other side of the cafeteria away from the Tritons. It hadn't taken Blake long to figure out who had assaulted me in the bathroom. I should have been happy they hadn't sent them, but it didn't matter.
Their hatred toward me had extended to others now. I had a giant target on my back.
"Stop glaring at them." Aiden was picking at his food. "Maybe the principal or the police need to get involved. They did break into your house again."
I had taken pictures and videos of the sandstorm that looked like it had blown through the entire bottom floor of the house. They hadn't stepped foot upstairs from what I could tell.
"I think they did something to Mrs. Miller." I bit into a fry and inhaled sharply as the salt stung my busted lip. "And they’re paying the resource officers to ignore things. They’re probably paying the police chief."
Piper snorted. "You sound like a crazy person."
I dropped a fry and glared at her. "You try having three assholes making your life a living hell and literally have no adults paying any mind."
"You could go to social media or the news." Ivy pushed her tray away. "We could beat their asses."
I snorted. "What good is the media going to do? They won’t care about a kid being bullied.”
I did have the video where Jax practically admitted to breaking and entering, but I had listened to it twice and there was no way to edit it without it sounding manipulated.
I was on my own on this one. I just needed to be prepared for things to get ugly.
Chapter Fifteen
Morgan
We were assholes. I normally didn't care what people thought about me, but for some reason, when that vixen with green eyes set her glare on me, I cared more than I should have.
"Are we really going to do this?" I crossed my arms over my chest and waited as Jax tied the bra and panties to the flag pole. "Seems a little... childish."
He glared at me in typical Jax fashion and pulled the rope to raise the American flag right along with red lace boy shorts and a red lace bra. God bless America and the need for sexy lingerie.
"It's necessary. We need to remind her that we still need her father. Friday night and Saturday morning set us back a bit." He pulled a hundred out of his back pocket as we walked back onto campus, handing it to the head resource officer.
I never had liked Officer Thomas, but he was easily paid off and left us alone. The last thing we needed was a nosy police officer. Most could be bought as long as you weren't committing a murder. There were still quite a few that refused to acknowledge we had all the power. We let the admiral take care of them.
"Have you entertained the thought that maybe she is telling the truth about him?" Blake stopped as we got to the building his class was in. "She has nothing to gain from lying about it."
"Someone is paying for everything and it's definitely not that mom of hers." Jax glanced back at me. "What do you think?"
"I think we need to up the stakes to make sure." Honestly, I didn't know what to think about her claims that she didn't know her father.
Regardless of my thoughts on the matter, Admiral West was putting pressure on us. With the reach he had, he had already exhausted all sources of information on the whereabouts of Robert. Riley appeared to be the only way that might lead us to him.
I didn't bother going back to class and sat down on the planter ledge, waiting for school to be out. I was so over the high school experience. Swimming was about the only thing it had going for it.
And the girls. Always the girls.
The bell rang and a flurry of activity came out into the halls. We had someone post about "Riley taking to the pole" on social media.
Sure enough, students came racing to the flag pole to take pictures and laugh. Riley was nowhere to be seen, but it wouldn't be long. She'd have to walk right past it to get to her car.
Emily sauntered over to me, swaying her hips like she was the hottest thing on Earth. She wasn't, especially with her horrible dye job and shorts that let any guy practically see her cooch. She sat down on my lap and wrapped her arms around my neck.
"What do you want?"
"When are you going to stop being mad at us? We said we were sorry." She stuck out her bottom lip as if that would work on me. "You should be happy we roughed her up a little."
I removed her arms from around my neck. "We didn't ask you to do our dirty work for us. Not to mention, we never asked anyone to rough her up."
She stood and put her hands on her hips. "You are so confusing!" She marched off with a flick of her blonde hair and I rolled my eyes.
I looked at the time on my watch. Any minute, Riley would be rounding the corner after stopping at her locker. She was going to be a force to be reckoned with during dance. It would piss her off further when she discovered I'd be there today.
As if on cue, she rounded the corner with Ivy and came to a stop, looking up at the flag pole. Instead of having a reaction, she walked straight to it, pulled the ropes to bring it down, and untied her panties and bra. She raised the flag to half-mast and then turned and gave me a look so deadly that I wondered if she hadn't put the flag half-mast as a threat.
My cock stirred in my pants.
She and Ivy ignored the laughter and phones recording them and went into the parking lot.
I followed a safe distance behind her to the dance studio, but instead of turning into the parking lot, she kept driving. She turned into a strip mall with a coff
ee shop and sat in her car for a few minutes before going in.
I got off my bike and followed her inside. She was already seated with her back to me, a middle-aged man across from her.
I slid into the seat behind her and hoped she wouldn’t notice me.
Chapter Sixteen
Riley
I was fuming as I left school on Tuesday. I hadn't even looked in the bag with my clothes in it, but I should have known they'd do something with my underwear. Everyone knew they were mine too thanks to social media.
Social media was fun until you were the subject of the entertainment.
I drove a little faster than I should have to the coffee place where I was meeting Mr. Nguyen, the trustee for whatever fund my mom had set up for me. He had wanted me to meet him at his office, but I wasn't going to a strange man's office.
Yet, I'd sneak into some strange boys' house. I was on the hot mess express and I needed to get off before I crashed.
I spotted the man easily. He was the only one dressed in a suit with a briefcase sitting on the table in front of him. I'd picked this location because it had high-backed booths that allowed for some privacy.
"Mr. Nguyen? I'm Riley." We shook hands and I slid into the seat across from him.
"Ms. Kline. Any word from your mother?" When I shook my head, his eyebrows pinched together and he removed his glasses. "She thought this might eventually happen."
I thought I'd be more upset or frantic that my mom was now overdue on her arrival time, but sometime over the past several days, a numbness had washed over me. It was like my brain couldn’t process the fact that she might be in trouble.
"After I'm done here, I'm going to the police station to file a missing person's report. They said I had to wait twenty-four hours after she was supposed to return." I folded my hands on the table. “Is CPS going to put me in a foster home?”
"You’re almost eighteen. Unless you are a danger to yourself or your living situation is a danger, you’ll age out before they can even get anything in place.” He pulled some papers out of a briefcase. “I'm sorry you’re going through this. As soon as your mom had you, she began preparing in case this happened."