by Lily White
I recognized every person here tonight, some from Winter Ridge Prep and others from the community college. There were a few unfamiliar faces as well who I guessed were friends of friends that lived within driving distance of the area.
Crayton wasn’t too far away and it wasn’t unusual for some of those kids to make the trek for parties at The Pointe.
All in all, it seemed that Winter Ridge and the surrounding towns were about to be reminded of what it was like to have Soren around.
Not that he was the only one to blame. Quinton, Grady and Nolan enjoyed thinking up bullshit stunts for these idiots to prove their worth.
I could live a million years and never understand why anyone went along with it.
Maybe that’s just what life is like for bored rich kids. Money alone isn’t enough to keep them interested, so they have to come up with other ways to get in trouble.
As the night wandered on, I let down my guard a little when Soren kept to his side of the clearing and I kept to mine.
Every so often I would glance over my shoulder to keep tabs on the asshole and find that his group had attracted a bevy of females all willing to do whatever it took to make things entertaining.
What caught my attention most, though, was Maia. Every fifteen minutes, it seemed like she was bouncing over a new lap, making the rounds from Soren, to Grady, to Quinton and Nolan, then apparently working her way back to Soren.
I wasn’t surprised in the slightest, and I nudged Kendall and Shea a few times to hook a thumb over my shoulder so they would watch the action as well.
“What a fucking slut,” Shea laughed, only her eyes visible over the rim of her red cup. Kendall, on the other hand, seemed more angry than amused.
“Why are any of them okay with that shit?” She asked, her eyes narrowing on the group. “I’d love to see that bitch brought down a peg. What is so special about her?”
Shrugging a shoulder, I tossed back, “Who cares? She pledged in her freshman year and it seems like she hasn’t stopped since.”
I turned my back on Soren’s group, but Kendall flipped her red hair over a shoulder, refusing to let it go.
“Yeah, well, just as soon as Soren calls for the pledges tonight, she’ll find out she’s got competition.”
It was the first time she’d confirmed what I suspected all along.
“You’re really going to do that again? After what happened? It took six months to recover last time.”
Brown eyes met mine with pupils dilated behind a heavy fog of alcohol-induced courage.
“I wasn’t planning on it, but Shea and I both decided it would be fun.”
When I didn’t respond, Kendall cocked her head and grinned.
“Don’t worry, Olive. We won’t make you pledge as well. Everybody knows your big brother won’t like it.”
She was right, but it still didn’t sit right with me that I would have to watch the two of them get steamrolled by Soren’s reindeer games.
Feeling sick to my stomach, I wanted some fresh air away from the crowd. “I’m going to go find somewhere to pee,” I lied.
The woods left little to be desired for bathroom facilities. Thankfully, I hadn’t had so much to drink that I would be forced to pop a squat behind a bush somewhere while praying to baby Jesus or anybody who would listen that I wasn’t interrupted by a couple looking for privacy.
The next several minutes were spent wandering the edge of the clearing, my eyes scanning the party to keep Kendall and Shea in sight, while also taking a moment to see where Maia would end up next.
During one particular peek, I vomited a little in my mouth to see her kissing Nolan like the entire world wasn’t watching. My attention was so focused that I hadn’t noticed one chair in particular was empty.
A hand landed on my shoulder just as I realized the problem.
“Having fun?”
“Not particularly,” I answered, trying and failing not to feel weak at the sound of Soren’s smooth as silk voice.
It didn’t matter how much I hated him. There was still a natural reaction that I couldn’t deny. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t fight like hell to pretend I wasn’t inwardly drooling over the scent of his skin and the feel of a physique that shouldn’t have been legal.
He was a wall of muscle at my back, the heat of his body chasing away the cold of the night.
I hoped this was just a teenage hormone thing and I would grow out of it by the time my body chilled the fuck out sometime in my twenties.
Rather than spinning to face him and adding to the problem I was having by looking up into a pair of dark eyes that could tempt even a saint into Hell, I stepped forward to walk away.
Unfortunately, Soren’s stride was much longer. He succeeded in moving ahead of me only to turn around and corner me against the trunk of a large tree.
“What’s wrong with you, Olive? I haven’t done a damn thing to you tonight and you’re acting like I ran over your new puppy.”
Stepping closer, he pressed his body to mine, forcing my head to fall back against the trunk so my face wasn’t plastered to his chest.
At six foot two, he wasn’t exactly small enough to be this close to me comfortably.
“Talk to me, Olly. I thought we could be friends considering what happened between us before I left for prison.”
I opened my mouth to remind him of how he’d spilled all the details of that event to a bunch of fucking prisoners, but a small group of people wandered close, causing Soren’s head to spin in their direction.
At first, I thought he’d order them to get lost, but instead he grabbed the top of my arm like I was a toddler being dragged away from the grocery store candy aisle to escort me closer to the lake.
Casting a glance over my shoulder, I’d hoped to see Nolan marching our way like a good, angry big brother would in defense of his sister. But instead, I saw him with his hands wrapped over Camilla’s hips while Maia had moved on to Grady.
Seriously?
While I was being led farther away from any person that could help me, Grady’s head lifted from where he was kissing Maia’s neck, his lips moving with something he said that made her turn to look at me.
Soren grabbed my chin and directed my eyes straight ahead. “Don’t worry about what’s going on back there. You and I are talking.”
Shoving him away...
Okay, more like planting my hands against a wall of muscle that neither budged nor reacted at all to my pathetic attack.
...I tore my chin from his grip and took a few steps back, tilting my face up to meet eyes that were crinkled at the corners because he was apparently having a really good time at that moment.
“What do you want from me? To leave? Because I have no problem walking out of here if it means you’ll leave me the hell alone. Don’t you have groupies to entertain you?”
His lips lifted at the corners. Stylishly disheveled dark hair framed his face in such a way that shadows cut daggers across his high cheekbones, while the muscle of his jaw ticked in amused annoyance.
“You’re entertaining me just fine at the moment. Why won’t you pledge?”
“Because I’m not an idiot. Why won’t you leave me alone?”
Taking another step back, I lost my footing on a slippery rock, and would have tumbled into the Grey Lake if he hadn’t reached out to catch me.
Finally taking a moment to look at where he’d led me, my heart caught in my throat to recognize the two trees standing silently on either side of us like sentinels guarding the banks of the lake.
I could feel Teagan’s spirit standing behind me. Could hear her scream because nobody cared that she was hanging there lonely, exposed and forgotten.
“Oh, hell no.” Dodging left, I attempted to run past Soren, but someone gripped my wrist before I could get around him.
Turning, I saw Grady Ayer’s blue eyes. There was no fighting him, not with our size difference. One of his biceps alone was bigger around than three of my arms combined.
My eyes darted to Soren. He stood like the Lord of his kingdom in front of me. “What are you doing? I’ll fucking scream, if you don’t stop.”
Head canting left, he grinned in a way that clued me in that this moment had been planned all along.
“Little Olly. Don’t you get it yet that nobody here is going to give a shit?”
Laughter erupted around me, a perfect counterpoint to the sound of my heart hammering in my chest and blood rushing in my head.
“Nolan will care.”
Except it was obvious in the way my voice shook that not even I had much faith in that fact.
Soren shook his head and stepped aside to let me look out over the clearing. Bending down close enough to whisper, he asked, “You sure about that?”
Nolan was missing from his seat. Panicked, I scoured the clearing for any sign of him, but he wasn’t standing with any of the groups, wasn’t talking or laughing with someone while grabbing another drink.
He was nowhere to be found, and the first tear fell from my eye when Soren whispered to me again.
“Camilla is keeping him occupied for us. She took him to her place for the night. Looks like I’ll be your ride home.”
Struggling against the people holding me, I cried, every tear a traitor that I wanted to slap from my face.
“Just let me go. Why are you doing this?”
Crossing strong arms over his broad chest, Soren stood with his feet at shoulder width, his expression that of bemused patience. His black T-shirt did nothing to hide a solid physique, with his jeans riding low on his hips.
“I’ll ask you one more time: Will you pledge tonight?”
“No!”
My voice tore across the clearing, several heads turning to look our way in unison.
Nobody moved to approach us, but their interest was certainly piqued. Whispers rolled beneath the booming music, a few whistles erupting as friends nudged other friends to grab their attention.
Tsking his tongue against the roof of his mouth, Soren shook his head.
“That’s too bad. And here I was hoping you knew how to have fun.”
Nodding his head in Grady’s direction, Soren stepped back while two more people moved up behind me. I fought again, but couldn’t break either Maia or Grady’s hold, a sharp pain shooting down my neck every time I turned to see what the other two were doing.
Above my head, I heard a rasping sound and leaves rustling, my wrists burning from skin against skin until the rough texture of rope was set in place. Before I could jerk my hand free, the rope was cinched tight and my arms were hoisted above my head so high that I had to push up on my toes to stay in contact with the ground.
I looked up to see I’d been hung by my arms, one rope tied to each tree, in the same place and position that Teagan had been in when found.
“No! Stop! You can’t do this. Let me go!”
A steady stream of tears burned as they flowed from my eyes to slide down my cheeks. I blinked them away but they just kept falling.
Once I was secured in such a way that I couldn’t escape, the bastards who had tied me up stepped away, their laughter echoing across the clearing while Soren locked his hands together behind his back silently watching me.
“I mean it, Soren! This is fucked up. Tell your groupies to lower the ropes.”
He held my stare and smiled, the cruel expression on his face only frightening me more. Violently, I thrashed at the ropes, but it only knocked me off balance, my skin burning more where I was bound, my feet struggling to steady me over the ground and keep me from swinging.
“Let me go,” I screamed, but nobody was doing anything to help me, not Soren and his friends or any of the assholes staring at me from the clearing.
“Are you done yet?”
“No!”
Haunting images tumbled through my mind, a film reel of every nightmare I’d had since learning that Teagan died. Dead eyes stared at me, begging and pleading for somebody to cut her loose, for somebody to give enough of a shit about her to cover her naked body so she wouldn’t be cold.
Fuck! I was shaking from the inside out, my heart slamming against my ribs, my breath coming in short sporadic spurts.
Pain shot down my arms and across my shoulders, my head racing with the thought that they would leave me out here, their laughter trailing off as they disappeared down the path.
“Please let me go,” I begged, my voice breaking as thoroughly as my sanity. “Please, Soren. Please...”
I opened my eyes to see he was the only person still standing near me, his gaze studying me with morbid fascination.
Was this the last image Teagan saw before she died? The cruel smile of a beautiful boy who enjoyed watching her beg?
“Keep saying please like that and I might let you go.” His voice was rough, so deep that it was a rumble of thunder shaking the stars in the sky.
His pupils had dilated to such an extent that you could barely see a ring of rich, amber brown circling them. Black mirrors that could summon a person’s soul.
Terror crept down my spine, the pain of hanging chasing after it. I thrashed again, not caring that the rope was ripping at my skin and the dirt beneath me was dropping away into a trench I’d dug with my toes.
My body swayed as the rope creaked above me, leaves rustling over the branches of the trees that held me in place.
“Please.”
It was a whisper, that word. A pathetic keening sound that could only be heard between us.
There was a moment I thought he would laugh and tell me this was all a game, a single second where I hoped he was inching toward me so that he could reach up and release me from this place.
In many ways, that hope was far crueler than his rebel grin while I hung where a dead girl had been displayed.
Even while lifted off the ground, my height was nowhere near his. Bending down just enough, Soren pressed his mouth to my ear.
“Will you pledge?”
Bile was crawling up my throat, my fear mixing with the small amount of alcohol I drank to combine into something foul and toxic.
“Nolan won’t let me.”
I was attempting anything I could at that point, any argument or plea that could possibly force Soren to stop whatever plan he had in mind for me.
Behind him, the party had grown quiet except for the music that still played. Fires crackled in the stone circles. Wind whipped in insidious whispers through the trees. Nobody would help me. I knew it in my bones, and yet I still clung to the tiniest amount of hope that somebody would rush forward and tell Soren to let me go.
There was no hope.
Not with these spoiled rich kids.
Not in Winter Ridge.
Glancing over his shoulder, Soren turned back to me to grasp my chin and lift my eyes to his.
“Well, Nolan’s not here, is he? And even if he were, nobody gave him the right to call the shots. Would you like to change your mind before I walk away?”
“Fuck you,” I spat.
He leaned in and I could feel the corner of his mouth curl against my cheek. “Interesting choice of words.”
After lightly tapping his palm against my cheek twice, he stepped back.
“If you won’t pledge, then I guess you’ll have to be the reminder for the night of what happens when pledges fail at their tasks. How would it look if I let you defy me?”
His hand shoved against my shoulder, causing me to swing back. Releasing me to swing forward again, he shook his head and laughed.
“You look good all grown up, Little Olly. The tears are a nice complement to the rope.”
Turning to walk back to the fire, I watched his powerful stride as Quinton’s voice boomed over the clearing.
“Pledges! Line up!”
CHAPTER TEN
Olive
My arms went numb after the first ten minutes, but the ache in my shoul
ders and down my sides only became worse. It felt like my body was slowly being pulled apart, that my weight would dislocate my shoulders, two quick pops that nobody would hear while they pledged to perform whatever stupid tasks Soren would assign.
Would one of those tasks be me tonight? I wasn’t sure. But I wouldn’t put it past Soren to use me as some fucked up piñata, to hand one of his idiot groupies a stick with the instruction to beat me to death before leaving me to rot.
Growing delirious, I laughed to myself to think that at least I’d finally learned what really happened to Teagan. That put me one step ahead of the cops and an FBI agent who were still clueless as to the last week of her life.
How long had she hung here alive? Whose hands had dealt the final blow? I was beginning to suspect that Soren had been the one to crush her skull. All while wearing a smile with so much cruelty that her heart still fluttered in her chest as her life was tossed aside with as much importance as garbage.
That’s the real cruelty, to love someone who hurts you, to feel your heart swell while they tear your soul apart.
It felt like hours that I swung back and forth. Grey Lake was silent behind me, its deep dark waters perfectly still beneath the mist that hovered above.
Every so often, I swore I heard something scurry near me, and every time I wondered if I could be so lucky as to have a federal agent pop out of the bushes with gun drawn.
Why hadn’t I told Jonah about the party tonight? Why hadn’t he known about it already? Shouldn’t he have been stalking around trying to get just one peek at Soren?
No. Because he believed it was my brother who had a hand in Teagan’s death, and now here I was hanging in her place preparing to be the next sob story told while my body rots in the ground.
Near the bonfires, Soren, Quinton and Grady went over the bullshit rules the pledges had to adhere to in order to prove their worth. I’ll save you the long drawn out speech they gave that was intended to be formal and dramatic.
Rule #1: Nobody talks about what goes on in the group.
That one only made me laugh because we’ve all heard that line before.
Rule #2: Always be ready to perform your task. There is no warning that your name will come up next and it can happen anywhere at any time.