by Eva Ashwood
Fuck. She’s back.
My muscles tense unconsciously. I never really gave Reagan a second glance before all of this. She’s slight and quiet, happy to follow along in the wake of a loud, brash girl like Caitlin. On the outside, she’s not the type of girl who looks like she should be able to fight someone like me, but I know for a fact she is.
I know it from personal fucking experience.
“Shit,” Elias says, his footsteps slowing as they near us.
Declan cringes. “She looks like shit. Did you do that to her, Soph?”
“I guess I did,” I mutter.
A vicious sort of satisfaction bubbles through me. I guess I did give her the black eye, the bruised nose, and the split lip. She looks haggard and battered, and I could almost feel bad for what I did… but I won’t let myself. She’s not the only one covered in bruises. And mine aren’t just on the outside.
Caitlin pulls her shoulders back, cocking her head as she rests her hands on her hips. “I’m surprised you even dared to set foot back on this campus, you bitch,” she hisses. “First Cliff Montgomery and now my best friend?”
I fight the urge to roll my eyes. Caitlin is no closer to Reagan than she is to any of the other girls who hang around her—she can just control Reagan more easily than most of them. Which doesn’t surprise me, knowing how easily Reagan lets other people, including Alan, manipulate her.
“Cliff wasn’t enough for you, huh?” Caitlin continues, narrowing her eyes at me. “Do you just like getting in fights? Attacking people for no fucking reason? You really are a fucking psycho, aren’t you?”
Her eyes dart to Gray quickly as she talks, and I get the feeling this isn’t just about Reagan and whatever story she told the girls to make me sound like the bad guy. Caitlin can see the way all three men gather around me protectively, and considering how fast the rumor mill churns around here, she probably knows I moved in with them too. She’s pissed because I’m taking the exact role she wanted with the Sinners.
I may not be popular with the rest of the school, but I have the Sinners at my back. Each and every one of them. On paper, Caitlin is the type of girl these men should want. We both know that. But they chose me.
And she hates it.
I almost want to smirk, to taunt her a little, but what will that accomplish? Nothing more than what the truth already is accomplishing. I’m with the Sinners, and the Sinners are with me. All she can do is accept the fact, because even if she got rid of me, she wouldn’t take my place.
They’d never want her, even if I wasn’t an option. I know them well enough by now to know that.
When I don’t take the bait she’s throwing around like confetti, Caitlin only seems to get more irritated.
“You’re fucking unbalanced, Sophie,” she shrills. “You’re a danger to our campus and everyone here, and now you’ve brainwashed the Sinners or some shit. What the fuck do they even see in you? You look like a fucking vagrant, with those ugly-ass tattoos and blue hair and scars. Like a disgusting hooker.”
“That’s fucking enough,” Gray mutters, pushing me behind him and putting himself between Caitlin and me. My blood races as he leans down, his body vibrating with barely restrained anger. “Back the fuck off, Caitlin.”
She must see the seriousness in his face, because her face blanches. Gray isn’t here to defend me, to defend himself, to pick a fight—he’s here to state the fucking truth. And for some reason, my skin heats just a little, my nipples tightening with arousal at the deep rumble of his voice.
Fucking hot, I think, my heart racing in my chest.
“You wanna see people with mental issues? Psychos?” He smirks. “Look in a fucking mirror, or at the bitches behind you. It’s not Sophie you should be worrying about.” His gaze flickers to Reagan, then back to Caitlin. “Stay the fuck away from Sparrow, and keep your friends away too.”
I can hear that Gray is being completely fucking serious, and I know Caitlin gets the point. For the first time since I’ve known her, she looks almost… flustered. Scared.
“Well,” she says, her voice a little too high. Too shrill.
She looks like she’s about to say something else, but instead, she turns on her heels and snaps her fingers, demanding that her clique follow her as she sashays away. They scurry after her, and although I watch Reagan closely, she never meets my gaze.
When they’re gone, Gray spins around and faces me, grabbing me by the waist and pulling me flush up against his body before leaning down and kissing me hard. It’s a claiming, bruising kiss, one that communicates only one word.
Mine.
The heat inside me explodes, radiating outward and making me lean into his body, my hips grinding against his hips as our public display of affection turns nearly x-rated. A moan that only I can hear rumbles out of his chest as I kiss him back just as hard.
When he pulls away, I can tell by the darkness of his eyes that he wants nothing more than to drag me to the nearest staircase, shadowy classroom, closet—hell, even back to the car—and fuck my brains out, but he restrains himself. My whole body seems to pulse and throb, wanting it just as bad.
“That was hot as fuck.” I lick my lips and grin up at him, letting him know I don’t just mean the kiss. “It sure as hell beats the beginning.”
Seeing him stand up for me like that? I like it, way more than I ever thought I would. And having him kiss me in such a branding, claiming gesture? It makes all the shit he did when I first arrived at Hawthorne seem like a distant memory. He was an asshole to me once—all right, fine, more than once—but this kiss is a promise of everything he’ll do to make up for that.
When Gray releases me, Elias gives me a flirty grin that’s far from innocent. It’s a grin that tells me he’s thinking about his hands on my naked body, my skin against his skin, the way he fucked me last night. He tugs me toward him and plants a kiss on my lips too, sweeping his tongue inside my mouth when I open for him.
I know people are watching. Hell, some of them are openly staring by now. This is the first time the guys have kissed me one after another in public like this. As if it’s the most natural thing in the world, the way it was always meant to be. As if they don’t give a single shit what anyone thinks.
Declan tugs me from Elias’s embrace before his friend relinquishes me, and I chuckle as he winks at me. I have to stand on my tiptoes to reach him. When our lips meet, his hand slides down my back and cups my ass with a firm squeeze.
I smile against his mouth, a giddy sort of happiness filling me and momentarily drowning out my stress.
The rumor mill at Hawthorne has already been buzzing for a while about my relationship with the three Sinners. But there’s no need for the rumor mill anymore. The guys might as well have picked up megaphones and announced to the entire campus that we’re together.
I like it.
I like it a lot.
At least one of the men sticks with me at nearly all times for the rest of the day, watching out for me as much as they can. When I mention that I’m worried about them missing their own classes, they explain that they had some things rescheduled to make sure I’m as protected as possible.
They did all that for me.
For once, I don’t bitterly tell myself to enjoy it while it lasts. I just enjoy it. I enjoy having my men close to me, and I accept their help.
The next few days pass in pretty much the same way, and although I don’t run into any trouble on campus thanks to the Sinners constant vigilance, I still feel like there’s a guillotine hanging over my head.
Because it’s really not a matter of if Alan will come after me, it’s only a matter of when.
I’m still working on recovering more memories now that things have been jogged loose in my head, but it’s slow going. I’ve come up with a few more vague snippets from my past, but nothing that points to definitive proof that Alan held me captive as a child.
Right now, all we have is my word against his, and we all saw how fucking great that w
ent.
We need more.
Remembering what Doctor Cohen said, I try not to get frustrated or disappointed when memories are slow to resurface, but I sometimes wish I could reach inside my mind and physically pull the information out.
I need answers, and I need them now.
I need to take down the Montgomerys as quickly as possible, before they attack me or the people I care about again.
As I mull that thought over in my head on Thursday, an idea occurs to me.
My memories alone aren’t giving us enough. So maybe we need to go closer to the source. Alan has already proved himself to be slippery and savvy—not the type of man to make mistakes or be goaded into saying something he shouldn’t.
But his son?
That’s a whole different story.
13
It takes me all fucking evening to convince the Sinners to let me try this plan of attack. Every single one of them hates it, and I get why.
My last encounter with Cliff didn’t go well, and even though I was the one who put him in the hospital, I didn’t get out of it unscathed myself. Besides, if I physically attack him again, I’ll be playing right into his hands. He and his dad will most definitely press charges, and given the sway they seem to have in this town, I bet they could get me put away for a while.
But the point isn’t to fist fight Cliff. The point is to get him alone so he can do what he does best—be a creepy, lecherous asshole who likes to lord his power over other people. The thought of it makes my skin crawl, but I’m hoping that if I let him corner me, he’ll say something to implicate him and his dad in my abduction. I know he knows about the bunker.
Gray holds out the longest, insisting it’s too risky, but he finally relents. He insists that I shouldn’t truly be alone with Cliff though, and it’s hard for me to argue with that. So it’s decided that Gray will find a spot out of sight nearby, just in case my little chat with Cliff goes south.
On Friday morning, we all go through the motions of a regular school day, but my skin feels like it’s buzzing with an electric current as adrenaline simmers in my veins. I barely pay attention in my first several classes, and by early afternoon, I’m wound so tight that I feel like I’m about to snap.
Declan presses a kiss to my lips before veering away from me to head in the other direction across campus. Normally, he would walk me all the way to my next class, but we have to make it look like I’m on my own to give Cliff the confidence to approach me.
I pull my phone out of my pocket and scroll through it absently as I head toward a building on the far side of Hawthorne’s campus. Outwardly, I look distracted and relaxed, but my jaw tenses a little as I hear footsteps behind me. I don’t glance up, just shove open the door to Wyman Hall.
We timed things out on purpose so that I’d be a little late to class. The hallways are already mostly empty by the time I get inside, and instead of taking the elevator, I walk around toward the stairs at the back of the building.
But I never make it to the stairwell. Before I reach the door, a hand locks around my upper arm, spinning me and pressing me against the wall. It happens in an instant, and I have to tamp down on my immediate impulse to fight back, to break every finger of the hand that holds me.
My stomach threatens to revolt as Cliff leans into me, so close that his mouth almost brushes my ear, his hot breath gusting over my skin.
“You’ve been a bad girl, Sophie,” he says quietly. This hallway is completely empty, but he still speaks low, like he’s sharing some dirty secret. “But then again, you always were a bad girl, weren’t you?”
He doesn’t mention the bunker. Even though the tone of his voice is creepy as fuck, his words don’t give away anything specific.
That’s not fucking good enough.
I need him to say something that implicates his dad for keeping me captive. Something irrefutable.
“You’re fucking obsessed, you know that?” My jaw tightens as I stiffen in his grasp. At least I don’t have to pretend to like his touch. This plan would never work if I had to be that good of an actor.
“I’m obsessed?” He chuckles. “It seems to me that you’re the one who’s obsessed with my family. It’s a little pathetic, honestly.”
“Maybe I just think we have unfinished business,” I grit out, trying to take shallow breaths so our chests won’t touch.
I feel the vibration of his chuckle as he laughs. “Well, you may be right about that.” He lets out a quiet sigh. “I don’t know why you had to ruin everything, Sophie. Why you had to be so violent and unhinged. I liked you. I truly did. And even when you’re bad, I like your fighting spirit. I could tell we were meant for each other.”
I don’t have to look at him to see him smirk, and my skin crawls with disgust and fear. He draws back a little, and my eyes dart to his face, staring at the little scar on his right cheek that I noticed the first day I met him at Hawthorne.
“We are meant for each other, Sa—Sophie,” Cliff continues, and I tense as he almost calls me by my old name. The one that feels so strange and foreign. “We were promised to each other. And I won’t be satisfied until I get what’s been promised to me.”
My breath catches in my throat as his words settle in my ears.
Promised to each other.
The phrase bounces around inside my head, seeming to crash against the inside of my skull.
Promised.
My stomach clenches into a tight knot as an unexpected new memory rips through me. It’s not a vague, half-formed image of Cliff as a little boy. No, this memory is crystal clear.
I knew him. When I was a little girl, being held by his father for reasons I still don’t understand, I knew Cliff. He used to come to the bunker, and he left Reagan alone, but he never did the same to me. He was obsessed with me.
He wanted me.
And just like he said, his father promised he could have me. That he could marry me one day, when he was old enough. That I would be his.
I remember, in a rush that makes bile rise in my throat, the day that Cliff came to tell me the news. The way his little face lit up with cruel satisfaction as he told me I would be his. That there was nothing I could do about it. That we were meant for each other.
My gaze stays locked on the scar on his cheek, the old and faded one, and I realize I gave him that scar too.
I gave it to him on the day he told me I was doomed to be his.
His obsession with me didn’t begin last semester because he thought it’d be fun to go slumming with the foster chick or that I’d be an easy lay. He’s been obsessed with me since we were kids.
And Alan promised me to him.
Jesus. They’re both fucking psychos.
I suck in a breath, trying to get my whirling thoughts to settle. I have to get back on track. I have to draw him out more, keep him talking.
But it feels like a volcano is bubbling under my skin, heating my veins almost painfully and making my blood roar in my ears.
My stomach twists as I reach up and touch the scar on his cheek, dragging a fingernail against the place where I took a small chunk out of his flesh years ago. I don’t miss the way his body presses harder against mine or the slight shiver that moves through him. His eyelids droop a little as his Adam’s apple bobs in response to my touch. It makes every inch of my skin crawl.
“Cliff.” The word tastes like poison on my lips. Our faces are too close together, his mouth close enough to my own that we’re almost kissing, his lips parted in obvious lust.
“Yeah?” he rasps.
“I remember that promise. I remember your claim.”
His lips curve up into a smile I recognize all too well. He presses his body closer to mine, so close I swear I can feel his cock hardening against me. “I knew you would. I knew you’d want—”
“And you better watch out,” I continue, my voice turning harsh as I cut him off. “Because next time, I’ll do a lot worse than leave a tiny little scar on your face. If you or your dad
try to come after me again, I’ll fuck you up so bad you’ll be unrecognizable.”
Cliff’s reaction to my words is immediate. The smug satisfaction and lust drain from his features. He growls, pure rage shaking his body as he shoves me up against the wall.
“You’re not as safe as you think you are, Sophie.” His lips pull back from his teeth, his eyes narrowing. “You think your boyfriends scare me? Don’t think that I won’t just drag you back to that—”
His voice stops abruptly, his gaze flickering over my face as his jaw clenches.
Tension ripples off his shoulders, and I silently beg him to continue, to threaten me, to tell me that he’ll take me back to the bunker himself and fuck me up.
But he drags in a long breath through his nose and shoves away from the wall, opening up space between our bodies. He’s breathing hard, clearly furious at me. Still, he doesn’t utter another word, just turns and stalks away.
Fuck. God fucking dammit.
I pull my phone from my pocket, pressing the red button on the app to stop the voice recording. I was so fucking close to getting something good from him—I was supposed to be baiting him, taunting him into saying something that would implicate him, but I lost control. I fucking lost control when he brought up being younger and the promise his dad made to him. The flood of memories that crashed into me with those words threw me completely off balance.
I reacted emotionally, lashing out, wanting him to fear me as much as I remember fearing him. Threatening him wasn’t part of the Sinners’ and my plan, and I’ve just made this a whole hell of a lot worse.
I glance around, unsure where Gray has been hiding during my exchange with Cliff, and my heart stops when I see that he’s already making his way toward me, anger radiating from him.
He doesn’t give me time to explain myself or to make excuses. He doesn’t give me time to do anything, just drags me down the hallway and up several flights of stairs. When we reach the rooftop, he shoves open the door and pulls me outside. The door shuts with a dull thud, and he slams me up against it, his dark eyes flashing.