Dana waved a hand in front of her nose like she smelled something foul. “He’s a jerk, is why. It’s been months since we made plans for Homecoming, and he didn’t buy the tickets no matter how much I reminded him, and he wouldn’t let me buy them. He barely acknowledges me when he’s with his friends, and he’s never even asked me out on a real date. So I told him to find someone else who would go with his sorry ass to Homecoming.”
Caleb immediately stood, and Kyle followed suit. “I will find him. And I will kill him,” Caleb said in a poor imitation of Liam Neeson.
Dana giggled. “Sit down, you two. Much as I appreciate the gesture, you have the soccer game this Saturday, and I’d feel terrible if you were benched because of me.”
“Are you sure?” I asked. “I don’t have a soccer game, but I do have a taser.”
“How about you just have half my sandwich?” she laughed, giving me half. The boys reluctantly sat again, and we talked for a while. Kyle kept picking at his sandwhich with an absurdly happy grin on his face. I knew I should tell them about me and Asher, but how does one drop that in the middle of a conversation? ‘Hey, I started going out with Asher Grayson, you know, the guy that went through girls like napkins, beat the living snot out of anyone who confronted him, and went to juvie for vandalizing a strip mall’.
That’d go over great.
Plus, it would seem callous since Dana broke up with Jason like five seconds ago. It would be like rubbing my happiness in her face, although I knew she would be excited for me.
The decision was taken out of my hands when a few seconds later, Asher entered the cafeteria. He was Plastic-less, and he headed straight for my table.
“Hi-” I said when he sat beside me, but my words were stopped when he pulled me to him and closed his mouth over mine. The same spread of electricity through my body occurred, and I fisted my hands in his jacket, forgetting our audience. I felt him smile against my lips before he pulled away.
It took a few seconds for the Asher induced high to fade, and I noticed the gaping stares of pretty much everyone in the cafeteria. Caleb, Dana, and Kyle looked absolutely bowled over, and I saw Asher shoot Kyle his signature smirk.
He couldn’t have found a better way to broadcast that I was off-limits if he’d scarped his knuckles on the floor and thrown me over his back.
“Look! A giant UFO is flying over us! Quick, too the moon-cheese!” My attempt at distracting them failed miserably.
“What-when-how-why,” Caleb stuttered incoherently. “Um.”
“It’s about freaking time!” Dana whooped loudly, making all of us except Asher jump a foot in the air. “The sexual tension between you two has been…I mean, damn. It was only a matter of time before you ripped each other’s clothes off, you know? I assume you haven’t done that, yet, which is good, pacing yourself and everything. Ahaha, that’s an innuendo, oops-”
Dana would have continued completely and utterly humiliating me, but I grabbed Caleb’s cookie and stuffed it in her mouth, effectively gagging her. “Shut up!” I hissed. I felt like every part of me was redder than a fire engine.
Asher, Caleb, and even Kyle were besides themselves with laughter. I buried my face in my hands, cursing Dana to the fiery pits of Hades. Asher, still chuckling, pried my hands apart. “Hey, it’s okay.”
Was it though? My traitorous mind was against me, and the worry that I wouldn’t be enough for Asher, or suited to his lifestyle, festered.
And suddenly, I wasn’t in the cafeteria anymore.
I woke up, sweat coating my body and the scream lodged in my throat. The door burst open, and Paul ran towards me, hugging my shivering form to him. He smoothed a hand over my hair, rocking us back and forth.
“It’s okay. It’s okay. He’s not here, he will never hurt you again. Stay with me sweetie,” he murmured, over and over like a prayer.
The vividness of the dream clung to me. Would his face be the only thing I saw when I closed my eyes? Would he always haunt me? Paul’s arms tightened around me as a heaving sob wracked my chest.
I pressed my hand to my neck, feeling the imaginary blade pressed to my neck. The night before he got arrested…the night that sent me to the hospital, it was the worst night of my life. I felt scarred inside and out. How could I listen to Paul? How could there be a brighter tomorrow, if all I could see was the blackness of yesterday?
I was cursed, and I would curse those who loved me.
Even in absence, he got what he’d always wanted.
My solitude.
My flashback ended with me shaking in my seat.
“Ivy? Angel, what’s wrong?” Asher tilted my chin up to meet my eyes, and I saw his confusion grow. He wasn’t looking into the eyes of the girl he’d met.
He was looking into the eyes of the girl Jared had ruined.
Oh God, I was going to have another panic attack. I could feel the hysteria building in my chest like a dam, and I couldn’t let it spill over in Darwin High’s cafeteria.
“I, uh, have to go ask my English teacher a question. You know how I am with Romeo and Juliet, I barely understand the gibberish,” I said airily, standing. I grabbed my backpack and waved to my friends. Asher made as if to follow me, and I pushed his shoulder down. “I won’t be gone long.”
I quickly made my way through halls and into the school parking lot. I took deep breathes as I started my car and drove quickly, avoiding the commonly crowded areas of traffic.
Thank goodness no one was home. Mom and Dad were both at work, Spencer was being forced to go to a tutoring session, and Paul was catching up with some old friends. I hurled myself up the stairs and barely managed to close my door before I was sliding down it, tears tracking down my face.
I had just hit the ground when I sprang up again, turning around slowly. It couldn’t be. How could he…
“Don’t bother asking questions that’ll waste our time together,” Jared said casually, uncrossing his legs from my desk chair. “I told you already, I always know where you are. I was alerted the minute you left school.”
When I just stared at him, aghast, he stood, crossing the room to me. I was too frozen with surprise to move away. “Still keeping mum?” he mused, reaching toward my face. I jerked away, and his gaze darkened.
He grabbed my arm, twisting it behind my back and pulling me so my back was to his chest. His mouth moved over my hair, and his free hand traced my collarbone. “This was hardly the reunion I was expecting. It’s extremely hard to get near you lately. You’re always with family, those despicable friends of yours, and that boy.”
My blood ran cold. How did he know about Asher? My heart hammered in my chest, and Jared placed his hand directly over it. “Good to know I haven’t completely lost my touch.”
Jared was twenty-one, older than both me and Asher. It made him all the more dangerous.
“Tell me, how long have you been screwing him?” Jared asked casually. “I’ll bet you threw yourself at him. That’s just the way you are. Never did have any pride, and you never will.”
Don’t let him get to you. The mind tricks can’t affect you anymore.
“Did he take pity on you? The poor girl with the big, bad ex-boyfriend? Trap the poor bastard in with your sob story,” he scoffed.
Jared released me and I faced him, backing away a few steps. I forcibly stopped myself from cowering against the wall. I couldn’t let him see my weakness, prey on it. He’d cut his hair since the last time I’d seen him, and the haggard look had vanished from his moss green eyes, replaced with a feral glint.
“It’s no matter anyway,” Jared said, smiling. “I’ll get rid of him for you. I’ve got contacts, and they are well aware of the best way to deal with Asher Grayson.”
What? NO!
“Don’t you dare lay a hand on him!” I shouted, my anger so pure I literally saw red.
Jared’s eyes widened slightly, and he laughed. “Finally, a reaction. I was starting to worry you weren’t happy to see me.”
The sc
ary thing was, I knew he sincerely thought I was happy to see him, that I wanted Asher out of the way so we could be together again.
“I’m not happy to see you,” I sneered. “I would rather have seen you dead.”
Jared’s ‘friendly’ façade vanished, and it was like I’d been transported back to my sophomore year all over again. “If I recall correctly, that was the plan, wasn’t it?” he growled, advancing toward me.
Against my will, I found myself retreating. “But you ruined it, like you ruin everything,” Jared said, slamming his fist into the wall next to me. “You know what the worst thing about you is, Ivy? You are a liar. You swore to me you’d never leave me, that you’d love me forever. But you were lying.”
Our eyes locked, my gaze filled with nothing but hate and rage. “I loved you, despite everything you did to me, I loved you!” my voice rose until I was screaming. “You nearly killed me, you tried to kill me, and I protected you till the very end! It’s you who never cared for anyone, Jared, even yourself.”
His expression broke then. “What?”
I shoved him away, and he stumbled back, unprepared. “You heard me. At the hospital, I denied everything. The doctors were the ones who compiled the evidence, Jared. If I hadn’t testified, they were going to charge you with assault, domestic abuse, attempted murder, and rape of a minor. And as much of a lowlife bastard you are, I still loved you enough not to let you get wrongly accused for statutory rape. It was either I testify with the truth, or you might have been jailed your entire pathetic existence.”
Jared was completely still. “I didn’t know,” he whispered. “I had no idea.”
I laughed sadistically. “Even if you did, would it have changed anything?”
Jared’s eyes flashed to mine, and I shivered. It was the same lost, broken look that had always followed one of his episodes. His look of remorse when he’d throw me into the wall, or backhand me across the room. It was a reason why I’d stayed so long. He needed me so fiercely that he ripped away my self-esteem to make sure I never left him, that I thought I was lucky he would have me because no one else would.
The front door opened, and we both glanced at my bedroom door. “Ivy?” Paul’s voice drifted up to us. “Are you home?”
When I looked back, Jared was gone, and my window was wide open.
Paul knocked once before sticking his head in. “Hey, I didn’t know if you were home.”
I tried to control myself, I really did. But I think my control capacity had been used up getting out of school.
“Ivy?” Paul came in fully, catching me as my knees gave out. “What happened? Ivy?” he was frantic.
Tears flowed freely down my cheeks, and tried weakly to push him away. He only tightened his hold. “It’s ok, little sis. It’s okay.”
I let him do what he did best, which was bring me back from the edge every time I teetered off the cliff. When I didn’t feel like I was on verge of screaming, weariness won over, and I drifted into a dreamless sleep.
A hand traced the line of my cheek, and I roused from sleep. My vision cleared and I found myself staring into a pair of concerned cobalt eyes. “Hi,” Asher murmured.
Tears welled up again, and I stared at the ceiling in hopes they’d sink back down. “What are you doing here?” I croaked.
“Wondering why my girlfriend lied to me at lunch today.”
Girlfriend? Did he just call me his girlfriend? My giddiness was short-lived.
“I needed a break.”
“What happened, Ivy? Why did you run out?” Asher asked, and I could see him restraining the urge to demand.
I sat up, grateful to find I wasn’t in my PJ’s. “Because I needed some air, alright?”
It’s not his fault. None of this is. He just made the stupid mistake of getting involved with me.
Scrubbing my hands over my face, I inhaled shakily. “I don’t think I can do this to you, Asher.”
Asher frowned. “Do what?”
“Drag you down!” I yelled, frustrated. Why couldn’t he just see? I was crackled, fragmented into a million pieces I’d painstakingly put together. But I’d never be the same again. “There’s more to what happened with Jared that you don’t know, okay? And even if there wasn’t, I’m too messed up to be the kind of girlfriend you need.”
“Kind of girlfriend I need? What makes you think you can be a judge of that? Whatever that bastard did, you can’t let it control your life. I won’t let you,” Asher said angrily. We both stood up and faced each other, and once again I was grateful my room was so cut off from the rest of the house.
“I am doing you a favor,” I informed him tiredly.
“Bullshit. You’re doing yourself a favor. Stop worrying about what I can and can’t handle, would you? Do you really think I’d be with you out of some type of fucking obligation?”
When I didn’t respond, he reached forward, capturing my chin and forcing me to meet his gaze. “What exactly happened the night you were admitted into the hospital?” he inquired gently.
I ripped my chin from his grasp and glared. “You want to know? Fine! Maybe it’ll be the last step for you to finally see the light.”
No matter how much I tried, I couldn’t pull my mind from propelling itself to the night I’d tried so hard to forget. The worst night of my existence.
I was at Jared’s apartment, where I basically lived. He was gone for the night, out with Devin. Standing in front of the mirror, I memorized the reflection of who I’d become. Pale skin, bloodshot eyes, cuts and bruises marring my flesh, and hollow cheeks.
Walking slowly, I went into the kitchen and reached over the fridge, pulling down the bottle of pills I’d hidden there this morning. I slowly filled a glass full of water and set it on the counter. Bracing my hands on the counter, I tried to breathe. I tried to fight past the fear, a different kind than what I lived with every day.
I couldn’t do this anymore. I couldn’t take this pointless living, this suffocating fog of hatred and regret I couldn’t see past.
Forgive me, Mom and Dad. Forgive me, Spencer and Paul. Dana and Caleb.
Forgive me God.
A strangled sob tore from my throat as I dumped the pills into my hands and shook them into my mouth. I raised the glass-
Suddenly, the glass was knocked from my hand, shattering into a million pieces on the floor. Jared stood behind me, and I had never seen him so angry. “WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?” he roared. He pried my lips apart and thumped my back, until I had no choice but to cough up the pills I’d tried to frantically swallow.
He extracted a sleek black gun from behind his back and wrapped his arm around my throat, trapping my back against him so that we were both facing the mirror. Jared ran the gun along my cheek, a sick parody of a caress. “If you wanted to go, I would gladly have sent you off, my love. But not alone. Neither of us will ever be alone when we have each other, and the same goes in death. We can both leave this world. Together.”
When I realized his intention, what it was he meant to do, I writhed. He held me tight, to the point of choking me. “Please, no,” I gasped as he pointed the gun at me first.
“I’ll be right there behind you,” he murmured, running his hand over my hair. The click of the gun echoed through the room. I froze and watched the gun in the mirror.
“I love you, baby. This way we’ll be together forever,” Jared’s lips moved against my ear, and I watched, as if in slow-motion, as his finger pulled down the trigger.
Several things happened at once. The front door slammed open at the same time I twisted, deflecting the bullet so it buried in my shoulder. My scream of agony rang through the room, but I somehow got a hold of the gun from Jared and pointed it at him. From the corner of my eye I could see Paul and hear the footsteps of people thundering up the stairs.
Maybe it was my rage at him, my bitterness. But I wanted him to hurt as much as he’d hurt me.
So the last thing I remembered before blackness consumed me a
shot going off, the gun falling from my hands, and Jared’s scream.
Asher’s sat heavily on my bed. He ran a hand through his hair. “Holy shit.”
I pulled the edge of my sweater aside so he could see the scar from the bullet wound on my shoulder. “This is why I quit dancing, why I dress the way I do. Jared wasn’t the only one to blame, Asher. I tried to kill myself that night.”
Asher stood, and the rage in his expression was overwhelming. “I’m going to kill him with my bare hands,” he snarled.
“You can’t, and you can’t tell anyone what I just told you. Paul thinks Jared shot me, and I shot him on accident. He doesn’t know what happened before, or why. If anyone found out, all hell would break loose.”
“Why are you protecting him? We still haven’t gone to the police, and you won’t let me take matters into my own hands. Am I just supposed to sit here and watch you suffer, Ivy?”
“No,” I mumbled, knotting my hands in my comforter. “What you’re supposed to do is run away from me as far as humanly possible.”
Asher stopped pacing and tilted my head towards his. “Get this, angel, because I’m only saying it once. You are not getting rid of me. Deal with it. I don’t care what you throw at me, I will stay with you. So do us both a favor and stop trying to push me away.”
My phone rang then, breaking the hypnosis his eyes and words had cast over me. Fumbling, I located my phone and pressed it to my ear. “Hello?”
“Ivy Robello.”
Oh no. What did he want, and why did have to call now?
“Yes,” I answered curtly.
His next words succeeded in making the night worse than it already was, a feat I was assured was impossible.
“I’ve got a job for you.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Mystery Man Unveiled-Take Two!
I am an idiot.
That was the only logical explanation for why I, Ivy Robello, the girl who was an avid believer in moon cheese and more interested in a red velvet cupcake than the latest fashion trend, was currently standing in an abandoned warehouse with men who were no doubt in the mafia.
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