Corrupt

by Penelope Douglas

  What the hell? The lanterns from my home and gate flew past the window, and I shook my head, dread knotting my stomach. They passed my house.

  “Yeah,” Damon continued. “He never gets that look over a girl. I’d say he was damn close to taking you home and popping that little cherry of yours.”

  My breathing turned shallow. “Kai?” I broached, ignoring Damon. “We passed my house. What’s going on?”

  “You want to know why he didn’t take you home?” Damon cut in, continuing his one-sided conversation.

  And then the locks clicked, and I sucked in a breath, squeezing the door handle. I shot a glance to Will, seeing his head bob as dead weight on his neck. He was passed out.

  “He doesn’t like virgins,” Damon finished. “He never wants to be that important to someone, and it’s a lot less complicated to fuck people who know there’s a difference between sex and love.”

  “Where are we going?” I demanded.

  But he ignored the question. “You saw the girl at the old church today,” he mused. “You liked it, didn’t you?”

  I breathed hard, my mouth going dry as we turned down a dark, gravel road.

  “You wanted to be her,” he stated. “Pushed down on that floor and fucked…”

  My eyes burned, and I could barely breathe, my heart was beating so hard.

  “You know why?” he went on. “Because it feels good. And we’ll make you feel so good if you let us.”

  I darted my eyes to Kai, unable to stop the shake in my chest. Why was he so quiet?

  He wouldn’t let this happen. Please.

  “You know,” Damon continued. “When guys let a girl into their gang, there are two ways for her to be initiated.”

  He pulled the car to a stop, and I looked out the front windshield, seeing the headlights shining on trees ahead. There were no other lights, and there was nothing out here. It was dark and isolated.

  “She either gets beat-in.” He shut off the car, killed the lights, and locked his dark eyes on mine in the rearview mirror. “Or fucked-in.”

  I shook my head quickly, clenching my fists. “I want to go home.”

  He sucked in a breath through his teeth. “That’s not one of the choices, Little Monster.”

  And then he and Kai, together, turned around to pin me with dark eyes.

  No.

  I immediately grabbed the door handle and began yanking again and again as I started to shake.

  What were they doing?

  “We can take what we want from you,” Damon warned, opening his door. “One after the other, and no one would believe you, Rika.”

  And then he climbed out, and I watched him through my window as he came to my door.

  He opened it, and I lurched back, crying out as he pulled me from the car.

  Slamming the door shut, he shoved me against the car and pressed his body into mine. I shot my hands up, trying to hit him, but he caught my wrists and held my arms down by my side.

  “We’re untouchable,” he stated in a low voice. “We can do whatever we want.”

  I breathed so fast my stomach hurt. He was pressing into me too hard, and I could barely get any air in.

  Kai came around Damon’s back, having just gotten out of the car. He watched me through his silver mask.

  “Kai, please?” I begged for his help.

  But he just stood there, silent.

  “He won’t help you,” Damon threatened.

  And then he forced my hands over my head, pinning them to the car as I cried out.

  He came in close, whispering against my forehead. “I’m going to feel so good.” And then he slipped his other hand around my ass, squeezing it and bringing me in to press against his cock. “You know you want to ride this.”

  “Damon,” I said, twisting my head away, “take me home. I know you’re not going to hurt me.”

  “Oh, yeah?” He got in my face, his lips on my cheek. “Then why have you always been afraid of me?”

  I remained silent, knowing he was right. Anytime I’d seen Damon coming down the hall at school, I switched to the other side. The one time I found myself alone with him in the kitchen when I was fourteen, I immediately left.

  I had never talked to him before today, and I was right to have kept my distance. It took less than a minute for him to force himself on me in the cathedral this afternoon.

  But I held out hope.

  For a brief moment tonight, after I’d smashed the glass of the jewelry store and Damon offered the small “thank you,” I thought he might see me differently. Maybe hold a bit of respect for me.

  He held my wrists and continued pawing my ass as he left a trail of kisses along my cheek all the way to my ear.

  “Damon, no!” I shook my head, fear sinking in as I jerked against his hold. “Let me go!”

  But then his lips were on mine, pressing against my teeth, and his goddamn body was everywhere. I couldn’t get out, and I could barely breathe.

  I twisted away, crying, “Help!”

  “He doesn’t want you,” Damon whispered, ignoring my protest as he brought his hand up to my breast, kneading it roughly. “But we do, Rika. We want you so bad. Being with us will be like having a blank check, baby. You can have anything you want.” And then he bit my bottom lip. “Come on.”

  I jerked my head to the side to get away from him. “I’ll never want you!” I growled.

  But then I gasped as he grabbed me by the sweatshirt and flung me around, straight into Kai’s arms.

  “Kai,” I breathed out, my heart racing as I clutched his sweatshirt and stared up into the dark holes of his eyes.

  What was he doing? Why wasn’t he helping me?

  “Maybe you want him, then,” I heard Damon say.

  Kai’s arms came down around me, and I shot my hands up, pushing away from him.

  “Stop!” I yelled and raised my hand back up in the air and came down across his mask.

  But all I heard was a laugh as he spun me around and shoved me forward, pushing me onto the ground.

  I landed on my hands, pain shooting up my arms as I quickly looked up and spotted the cell phone from Will’s pocket—my pocket—laying several feet away. It must’ve dropped out when I landed.

  The damp, cold leaves poked my fingers as I dug them into the wet earth, and my knees were chilled from the ground. I quickly flipped over, trying to keep aware of where they were as I slowly crab-walked backward to get to the phone.

  Kai and Damon stood a few feet away, watching me, but then I saw Kai launch and charge straight for me. I yelped as I reached for the phone.

  But he landed on me, and I grunted, emptying my lungs as his weight knocked the wind out of me.

  “You think you can hurt me, you fucking slut?” he whispered hard in my ear.

  “Get off me!” I screamed.

  He grabbed the back of my hair and called back to Damon. “Hold her arms!”

  “No!” I cried, my stomach shaking as I let out my wail. Despair spread throughout my body, and I began shoving and squirming against him. “Get off!”

  Kai grabbed my arms and pushed them up over my head, holding my hands to the ground.

  Oh, my God. How could he do this?

  He reached for my neck with his other hand to hold me still, and tears streamed down the sides of my face.

  But then a loud voice pierced the air. “Enough.”

  Kai stilled and turned his head.

  I continued to squirm under his weight, but I looked down under his arm to see who had stopped him.

  Damon stood back with his fists at his side and his eyes narrowed. He charged over, grabbing Kai off me and shoving him away.

  And then he dived down, dragging me up by the sweatshirt. “Stop crying,” he ordered. “We weren’t going to hurt you, but now you know that we can.”

  He grabbed me by the back of my hair, and I gasped as he brought me in, his warm breath falling across my face. “Michael doesn’t want you, and neither do we. You get tha
t? I want you to stop watching us and stop following us like a pathetic dog begging for someone to notice her.” And then he shoved me away, disdain written all over his face. “Get a fucking life of your own, Rika, and stay the hell away from us. No one wants you.”

  I backed away, looking at both him and Kai and wondering why they were doing this.

  A pathetic dog. Was that how Michael saw me?

  Tears filled my eyes, but before they had the pleasure of seeing me break, I twisted on my heel and took off. Into the forest and toward home as fast as I could away from them.

  I let the pain of the last couple of hours go and barely saw the world around me as I cried the entire way home.

  Alone, so one could see.

  Present

  “SHE’S LYING.”

  I looked over at Kai, his narrowed eyes glaring at me.

  Michael stood with his arms crossed over his chest, a flat expression on his face.

  “Kai was with me,” he stated. “He caught up to me at my house almost as soon as I got home, and we got drunk while watching game footage the rest of the night. He wouldn’t have had time to take you out into the middle of the fucking woods.”

  I shook my head. “No. That’s not right. He was there!”

  “She’s making it up to save her own ass,” Damon chimed in, stepping up next to his friends.

  “And I certainly don’t remember that,” Will added. “There was the warehouse and then nothing. I was drunk off my ass.”

  Michael looked away, shaking his head almost regretfully. “Just admit it. You leaked the videos, and we know.”

  My heart flipped in my chest. “What? Leaked the videos? You think…” I trailed off, scanning the air in front of me.

  We trusted you…

  Your tantrum cost us three years…

  You owe us, and this has been a long time coming…

  I closed my eyes, my lungs emptying. All this time they’d thought…

  I looked at them again. “You think I posted the videos that got you arrested? That’s why you’re doing this?”

  Oh, my God.

  Michael leaned in and grabbed me by the back of the hair. I let out a small cry, sweat breaking out on my forehead.

  “You had Will’s phone,” he charged.

  But I shook my head. “I didn’t! I would never have done that.”

  “You had the phone, because you had Will’s sweatshirt,” he argued. “Damon saw you with it. Say it!”

  “Yes!” I gritted out. “Yes, I had the phone, but it fell out of my pocket when I was fighting with them!”

  “You weren’t fighting with them,” he growled, his voice stinging my ears. “Stop lying!”

  “I swear!”

  He shoved me away, and I curled my fingers into my palms. None of this made any sense.

  “You’re already caught,” Will said. “Michael says Kai was with him. That’s how we know you’re making all of this up. He wasn’t even there.”

  I slammed my fists down. “He was! You all were, except Michael! You were passed out in the car, Damon was threatening me, and Kai grabbed me. When I hit him, he just laughed and said, ‘You can’t hurt me. The devil always has my back!’ You were all there, and the phone fell out when I was on the ground!”

  “’The devil always has my back?’” Kai repeated, looking confused. “I didn’t say that. I’ve never even heard that before!”

  I shook my head, closing my eyes in despair.

  “I have.”

  Everyone stilled and turned their eyes on Michael.

  “My father,” he said in almost a whisper, looking uneasy. “He says that.”

  Heat spread over my exhausted body, and I forced myself to take deeper breaths as I watched him turn his dark stare on Kai.

  “Trevor,” he said in a low voice.

  Kai’s stair hardened, and Will inched in to find out what was happening.

  Trevor?

  I thought back to that night. Trevor in Kai’s mask. Would he do that?

  Michael turned around, and I saw Damon lock eyes with him.

  “What?” he snapped.

  “Will was drunk as shit,” Michael challenged. “But you weren’t. You took her into the middle of nowhere instead of directly home, and you knew it was Trevor under that mask.”

  Damon blew out a stream of smoke and ground out his cigarette on the island. “You’re taking her side?”

  “You’re the one lying to me,” Michael replied.

  He shook his head as his friends all turned to face him. “This changes nothing.”

  They waited while he stood there, and I looked over at him, completely numb. Damon never pretended to be my friend.

  I felt nothing.

  But Trevor…?

  He’d played me for a fool. That’s why he’d whispered that night. So I wouldn’t recognize the voice.

  You think you can hurt me, you fucking slut?

  All these years I’d been unaware. How he must’ve enjoyed that.

  Damon hooded his eyes, looking bored. “Kai left almost immediately after you did that night,” he told Michael. “That’s when Trevor showed up. He was looking for Rika, and he wasn’t happy. Someone told him that she was with us, so he came to get her.”

  I walked around, standing next to Kai.

  “We had words,” Damon continued, “but then I realized that we could help each other. He wanted Rika away from us, and so did I. We decided to fuck with her.”

  “What was your problem with me?” I demanded.

  “You had no business with us.” He pinned me with a scowl. “Women always complicate shit. Michael couldn’t take his eyes off you, and Kai was starting to notice you, too.”

  Kai straightened next to me, shifting uncomfortably.

  “It was only a matter of time before you tore us apart,” Damon bit out. “You’re fucking pussy and nothing more.”

  Michael lunged.

  He charged for Damon and slammed his fist across his face, sending Damon flying back and crashing into the stove.

  He didn’t come back swinging, though. He just stood there, blinking long and hard and breathing fast. He was either in too much pain from the wound or he knew when he was outnumbered.

  He swallowed and stood up straight again, continuing like nothing had happened. “We went out to your car and got the masks. If she thought it was Kai, Will, and me together, she’d get the shit scared out of her and never come around us again. Will was piss-drunk, so we put him in the car and went back in to get her, but she’d already left. We caught up to her on the road.”

  “And you left my sweatshirt in the booth,” Will chimed in, “along with the phone.”

  “Which I found and wore on the walk home,” I added.

  Christ.

  “And then Trevor found the phone when she lost it in the struggle,” Kai finished.

  “So she says,” Damon snapped. “We can’t trust her.”

  “I trust her a hell of a lot more than I do you!” Michael bellowed.

  “Yeah, fuck you,” Damon growled. “She’s a worthless fucking cunt, and I’ll show you exactly what she’s good for!”

  Damon shot out from around the island and moved to pass Michael. I instantly backed up, steeling my jaw as he came at me, but Michael grabbed him and threw him against the counter.

  Damon howled, holding his wound, but before he could straighten up again, Michael threw a right hook across his face, sending him flying to the floor. He crashed, and Michael came down on him immediately, grabbing his hair and raising a fist in the air.

  “You choosing her?” Damon choked out, reaching up to grab Michael around the neck. “Huh? You choosing her over your friends?”

  Michael’s fist came down over Damon’s jaw, but then Kai and Will were on him, trying to pry him off as he fought against their attempts.

  Damon’s face turned red as he raged up at Michael. “You’re no better! What’d we bring her here for, huh? She’s nothing! And she’s making you we
ak!”

  Michael lunged for him again, tearing out of Will and Kai’s hold, but I didn’t stick around to see what happened next.

  I ran out of the kitchen and raced through the foyer. Slamming into the wall next to the door, I opened the keypad and punched in the code, unlocking the front gate. Digging my keys out of my pocket, I reached for the front door and pulled the handle. But then something hit the door, and I gasped as it was pushed out of my hand and slammed shut again.

  I jerked my hand back as I watched the basketball that had hit the door bounce to the ground and roll away.

  “You’re not leaving,” Michael’s voice came behind me.

  I reached for the door again, but he came and grabbed my arm, whipping me around.

  “Let me go.” I tried to yank my arm free. “I won’t stay here!”

  “We’re not going to hurt you,” he gritted out, and I could see blood on the knuckles of the hand he had wrapped around my arm. “No one is going to hurt you. I promise.”

  “Let me go!”

  But then I straightened, rearing back as I looked over his shoulder at what was coming behind him.

  Michael turned around, facing Damon. He wiped blood away from the side of his mouth as he charged toward us.

  “Get out,” Michael ordered.

  Damon shot him a scowl and then locked eyes on me, grabbing the door handle as Michael pulled me out of the way.

  He stared into my eyes, and what I saw there was no longer dead. His glare coursed right through me and coiled around my neck.

  Yanking open the door, he left the house, slamming it behind him.

  I let out a breath, my shoulders dropping.

  But then I felt a hand brush my cheek and heard Michael’s voice. “Are you okay?”

  I jerked away, slapping his hand off me. “Fuck you.”

  He dropped his hand and straightened, keeping his distance. He knew he’d fucked up. What they’d done tonight was unforgivable.

  “Fucking Trevor,” Will grumbled, charging into the foyer. “I can’t believe it.”

  “He always hated us,” Kai added, coming in behind him.

  Michael exhaled and turned away. Walking over to the stairs, he sat down and buried his head in his hands, looking completely defeated.

  Yeah, it must be a bitch to realize you wasted three years hating the wrong person.