“I heard some things, but no one’s really told me the whole story.”
“I won’t bore you with the details, because I don’t like to tell them. Suffice to say, I was kidnapped, forced to see things no one should see, and assaulted. By the time my friends rescued me, I was broken. I’m mostly put back together now, but in a different way. I’ll never be the woman I was before that happened. I like to think I’m better, but some days are harder than others.”
“I’m sorry, Ellie.”
“Don’t be. I survived, and so did you. I just want you to know I’m here if you need to talk. I also think you should see my shrink. Reina might make you anyway, but Nate and I think she’s cool.”
“Nate?”
“That’s his story to tell.”
“Of course.”
“Call me anytime, day or night. I mean it, okay?”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
I’ve said those two words so many times today, and I’m pretty sure I’ll keep saying them as everyone else stops by. As much as I love them all, there’s someone I want to see who I know won’t come. I wish he would, but I went into this knowing it probably wouldn’t change things. Waking up to see Ethan and not Wayne next to my bed confirmed it. It’s really over between us.
Wayne
My parents are the stars of this party, and that makes my heart swell. Everyone has made them feel welcome, because my friends are the best. My dad is talking football with Ainsley, and my mom is trading recipes with Gavin, while offering to volunteer at the cooking school. If she’s planning on that, then I know they’re taking me up on my offer to move here to Vegas.
Tegan and her family come outside and I wave them over with a smile. My smile slips when Ethan charges me, and slams me to the ground. “I hate you,” he yells over and over, punching me in the ribs repeatedly, until he’s pulled off of me.
“Ethan Caleb Hall, you stop it right now,” Tegan tells him, as I struggle to my feet.
“He’s having a party while Jen is recovering from what happened to her. I was the one there when she woke up, even though she did it for him. I hate him!”
Caleb grabs him by the back of the neck, and tosses him in the pool. “Don’t come out until you’ve cooled off, and can behave.”
“What is he talking about?”
Tegan glances at my parents, and I know she’s not sure what to say in front of them. “Let’s go inside.”
I lead us into the house, picking up Reina on the way. Once we’re in the library, with the door closed, I turn to them and wait. Reina doesn’t make me wait long. “Why don’t you sit down, Wayne?”
“Do I need to sit down for this?” It’s a stupid question, because I know whatever they say is going to be bad.
“Yes.”
I sit on the couch, and look back up at her. “Go ahead.”
“We had the video of Chad, but since there are no cameras in any of the hotel rooms themselves, there was still a small chance the charges wouldn’t be dropped. We don’t take chances.”
“I appreciate that.”
“Ainsley and her team, with Scott’s help, located Chad in Primm. I was going to send Darcy in undercover, but Jen begged to be the one to do it. Stella transformed her so well that none of us recognized her, and she went out to Primm. Kali, Matisse, Waverly, and Rose went out there, too, but while they could stay close to her at the casino, Chad’s house was secluded, and the closest we could get them was several minutes away.”
“She went to his house?” No. God no.
“He picked her up in a bar at one of the hotels, and yes, she got him to take her back to his place.”
“Why not just drug him at the hotel?”
“We’d been following his patterns, and knew he was too paranoid to go into the room alone. He befriended someone at the front desk, bought him off, and always found out the room number of the woman he was hitting on. He made sure he had several men in a connecting room. We couldn’t take a chance that one of them would get to her before she could get the information from him. We thought about trying to neutralize them, but we didn’t know if other people at the hotel were working with him. There were just too many variables, so his house seemed a better choice. He was comfortable there, and more likely to let his guard down.”
“I knew something was wrong that night. It’s why I called Alesha to the jail, asking her to reach you.”
“Alesha didn’t contact me, but more about her later.”
“More?”
She nods, and Tegan comes to sit next to me, taking my hand in hers as Reina keeps telling the story I need to hear. “When Jen got to the house, it was full of people. We could only go off of satellite footage, but we knew at least a few people would be there. None of us expected as many as there were, though. Within minutes, the girls were on their way, but it was too late for Jen to get out.”
She has to stop, and close her eyes. Tears fall from her eyes as she rubs her baby bump. “From what we heard, and what she told us, they formed a circle around her. Men and women with weapons they planned to use on her before gang raping her. She managed to jam the truth serum into Chad’s neck, and reveal who she really was before they started in on her.”
“What did they do to her?” I don’t want to know. I have to know, but I don’t want to.
It’s Teeg who answers. “She was whipped, stabbed, and choked with a chain. She was losing consciousness when Waverly, Rose, Matisse, and Kali got there. They took out everyone except for Chad, because they didn’t know if we’d need him to clear you. He’s in jail now.”
“And Jeny?”
“She has a couple of scars, but thanks to the medical advances we’ve developed, her physical wounds are mostly healed,” Reina tells me.
My beautiful girl has scars she got while clearing my name. She did it even though I sent her away. And I know what Reina’s leaving out, so I call her on it.
“What about her mental health?”
“Teeg told you what was done to her. You don’t go through that without getting some emotional scars, too. Those aren’t as easy to look past. She needs time, and love.”
“I love her.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Then I need you to help her. You can’t fix her, but you can help her. She thinks it’s over between you, and that’s breaking her probably more than what was done to her, because she loves you, too. She doesn’t think you’ll forgive her for that one small moment of doubt she had.”
“I do. I forgive her. I’ll tell her that now. Is she still in the hospital ward?”
“No, she’s on a plane home.”
“What? No. She can’t leave.”
“She’s coming back. Maybe after her charity event, or maybe later. Either way, she wants to come back.”
“I forgot about her event. I’ve been so caught up in all of this shit, and I forgot.”
“That’s to be expected, Wayne. Everything else, well you know how I feel about the things you said to her,” Teeg tells me.
“I’m obviously going after her, but I need to do a couple of things first. Both of them require your help.”
“What do you need?” Reina asks.
“I need to see Sonia, because even though I didn’t rape her, Chad did what he did because of me. I want to apologize.”
“Funny, because she wants to apologize to you. She asked if we could arrange it. What else?”
“I need ten minutes alone with Chad.”
The two women share a look, before Reina answers me. “We can arrange that as well. I’ll call you with the details for both.”
I go back out into the party, and find my parents. “How would you guys feel about attending a charity polo match on the island country of Cyndryann?”
“You mean you’re finally going to introduce us to this princess of yours?” my mom asks, smiling.
“She’s currently not mine, but yeah, I want you to meet her.”
“Stella will take care of that.”
My dad nudges my mom with a smile. “I guess I could dust off my one suit, unless you think Stella could get me something, too.”
“She’d love to help you both.”
“Then count us in.”
21
Jenysis
Darcy and Brayden offered to fly home with me, but I didn’t want to be coddled, or catered to. I don’t want that; I want Brayden to argue with me over the best seat on the plane, and Darcy to beat me at Call of Duty. I want normal. I want to be me.
I’m not sure who that is right now, which is why I need some time alone to figure it out. No one looked at me differently, or made me feel less, but I know they’re worried. What happened to me could have been so much worse, but I won’t pretend that it wasn’t bad. The scars on my hip, and my thigh, will be reminders forever of that. I want those reminders, because what I faced, and beat, is helping to shape who I’m becoming.
There’s still a princess inside of me, but there is also a warrior. Not just a fighter, but a bloody fucking warrior. Maybe that’s what I am now, a warrior princess. Has a nice ring to it, I think, Jenysis the Warrior Princess of Cyndryann. Except for the fact that no one can know I’m a warrior.
I expect there will be a story concocted about a kidnapping gone wrong, or something just as ridiculous. Whatever the palace needs to do to explain why I have some scars. There’s no way they could let anyone find out that I got them while facing down a rapist and his friends. If the people found out I was almost gang-raped, and that I was assaulted in other ways, it would make my father look bad. I insisted on leaving the island with no security detail, because I wanted to be the same as the others, but no one will blame me. They’ll blame him, and no way am I going to let my father suffer for my choice. Or rather, choices.
I may not be able to tell the world I’ve fought and won a battle, but I know it. I know I took the pain, and I persevered. My body may have been breaking, but I got the confession we needed. I’ll consider that a win until the day I die.
I know I’ll be okay as far as all of that is concerned, while I keep focusing on what I was able to do, but I also know a time will come where I’m going to have to completely face what was done to me. I can say I love my scars all I want, and I can know I completed a mission that tested the limits of my mind and body, but it won’t last.
I’m going to have to allow myself to cry. Not for my skin being blemished, but because I was scared in a situation where I couldn’t show fear. And when I woke up to find a boy I love by my bedside instead of the man I’m in love with, I hurt more than I ever have in my life. I hid it as best I could, but the psychology courses I took at university are serving me well. I know I have to let the pain pour out before I can truly start to heal. I have to acknowledge it, and own it. There’s no other choice if I don’t want to end up in a padded room somewhere. I’ll try on my own, but if I need help, I’m not afraid to ask for it. That’s what true warrior princesses do.
Apparently warrior princesses also fall asleep after giving themselves a kick-ass internal speech. The captain’s message about putting on my seatbelt for the descent onto the island is what wakes me up. The flight attendant comes over to make sure I woke up, and tells me she didn’t want to disturb me for dinner. Of course my stomach grumbles when it hears the word “food” but it can wait until we get to the castle.
I close my eyes again, not to sleep, but to mentally prepare myself for the press who will undoubtedly be waiting on the ground for me. I can fix my outward appearance once we land, but I need to think about what I’m going to say to them. If I thought they would be asking me about the charity event, I’d be fine, but I know better than that. I know they want to talk about Wayne.
I saw the online articles before I left. The ones where an “anonymous source” told everyone we’d broken up. I’m not going to confirm it, but I can’t deny it, either. I try to figure a way to straddle that line between telling them too much, and not telling them enough, and I suddenly realize what I have to do.
I am going to confirm it, because I need to own my pain, and not let it own me. Waiting for the inevitable—for Wayne to confirm it—isn’t healthy. I need to take this first step, and keep on walking.
Wayne
Reina sent a car for me, along with a blindfold. I’m not sure why I need a blindfold to go to the jail, but I’ll play along. The car stops, and someone helps me out. I know it’s not the driver, because the cologne is different. Look at me being all spy-like and shit.
I let him lead me through a door, and down some stairs, because I trust Reina. It makes sense that I couldn’t be alone with Chad in a jail cell, or prisoner meeting room. I don’t know how she’s arranged for me to see him at all, but I knew if anyone could do it, she could.
Once we’re at the bottom of the stairs, my blindfold is taken off. I have to blink a few times before I can see, and when I do, I see that I’m in a house. Faith is standing in front of me, and Aiden joins her.
“Do I even want to know what’s going on?”
“Nope,” he says. “Plausible deniability is always best.”
“You cannot tell anyone, and I mean, anyone, that you’ve seen us here with Chad.”
“Are you going to kill him?” I really want them to.
“Dude, plausible deniability, remember?”
“Yeah. Okay. I promise not to tell anyone.”
Faith looks me over from head to toe. “Take off your leather bracelets, and the chain around your neck.”
“I only took off the chain when I was in jail. It was my grandfather’s ring, and it always stays on me.”
“He could choke you with it.”
“If he gets a hit in,” I say, trying to sound braver than I feel.
“Such a sweet boy you are, Wayne. There is no way that asshole in there is not going to kick your ass if he’s loose. Reina said you want to be alone, but we can restrain him.”
“No. I know I don’t know how to fight, or anything else you guys know how to do. In fact, I was going to ask about getting lessons. There’s no time for that right now, but I have to go in. Yeah, he’s going to mess me up, but I’m going to hurt him, too. Maybe not as badly as I’ll get hurt, but I’m going to do something to him. I have to do something to him. He touched the woman I love, and hurt an innocent girl. I’m doing this for both of them.”
“My respect for you just sky-rocketed,” Aiden tells me, holding out his hand for me to shake. “We’re not giving you ten minutes, because you need to live long enough to go after Jen. Just do your best, and we’ll take care of the rest.”
“Thanks.”
I shake his hand, give Faith my jewelry, and walk to the closed door at the far end of the room. I shake myself out, straighten so my head’s held high, and open that door. “Hey asshole, you ready to pay for your sins?”
“You’re a dead man,” he tells me with a smile as he gets to his feet.
The room is completely empty, with no windows, and no other way out. It’s worse than a jail cell, and better than he deserves. I’m glad he’ll never see the sun again.
“I don’t think so.”
He lunges at me, and slams me so hard into the brick wall behind me that I can feel my bones rattle. I think about the videos I’ve been watching for the last day, and use what I’ve learned. I pummel my fists onto his back, and feel satisfaction when he grunts in pain. My euphoria is short-lived, as he throws his head up, catching me on the chin, and startling me enough to let go of him. I manage to block him a few times, and I do get a few hits in, but I’m no match for him. He learned how to fight in jail, and he’s throwing everything he has my way.
I’m a mess, but I’m not dead when Faith opens the door again. I know it’s probably only been a few minutes, but it feels like hours. Probably because I know my ribs and a couple of fingers are broken, plus I’m bleeding from hits to the face, and I don’t even
want to know how many bruises cover the rest of my body. But, I’m alive, and once the room stops spinning and I can walk again, I’m moving on to the next part of my plan.
“You did alright, man. Not great, but honestly better than I thought you would,” one of the Aidens in front of me says. I see three, maybe four, right now.
“Thanks,” I tell him, trying to reach out to him.
I stagger, and then slump against the wall a few feet away. “Easy, Wayne. I think you have a concussion. Ken’s almost here, but I need you to stay awake for me.”
“I don’t think I can. My eyes are so heavy.”
Cold water hits my face, and my head snaps back in shock. “You can do it, and you will,” Faith tells me, and what can I do but believe her when she looks at me like that?
22
Jenysis
“Food before your father, huh?” he says, catching me stuffing my face in the kitchen.
“Sorry, I fell asleep on the plane, and missed dinner.”
“So you decided to eat every dessert in the palace?” he asks, motioning to the table, where there are various cakes, pies, cookies, and other sweet things spread out before me.
“I had a sandwich first,” I tell him, not meeting his eyes.
“I’ve heard about this phenomenon, where your daughter drowns herself in sweet things when she gets her heart broken. I don’t see any ice cream, though. Or maybe that’s not a real thing. You’ve never done this before, so I don’t know.”
“I was waiting to eat the ice cream last,” I mumble. “I’ve never been like this because I’ve never had a boyfriend before.”
“Richard would disagree.”
“Okay, I’ve never had a real boyfriend. Richard just wants the crown.”
“I’m not going to disagree with that.”
“I’m going back, you know. I came here to eat my weight in treats, wallow a little, and have a good cry, but then I’m going back.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.”
Society Girls: Jenysis Page 14