Bad Wolf

by Jo Raven

  “Shut the fuck up. Just… shut it.” He stands uneasily, nervously, shoulders hunched as I unlock the apartment door. He shoves a hand through his greasy hair. “Open the goddamn door.”

  I give him a long look, my hand on the door. He’s sweating. He’s not high, I realize. He’s actually coming down from a damn high, and he looks kinda green around the gills.

  Fucking joy.

  Pushing the door open, I switch on the lights and throw the keys in the bowl on the kitchen counter. “Make yourself at home. Just don’t puke on the couch, okay?”

  “Whatever,” he mutters, but doesn’t sit down, parking his skinny ass against the back of the couch instead.

  “I’ll make you something to eat.” I know the routine. Something light to line his stomach. “Meanwhile, here, drink some water.”

  “You drink your fucking water. You’re not my mom. Gimme something stronger.”

  “No can do.” I turn the tap and fill up a glass. “And your mom would hate to see you like this. Drink this, otherwise you’ll—”

  He retches, and I turn just in time to see him throw up green puke all over the back of the couch and the carpet.

  Shit. I rub at my face and put the glass down on the counter. “Christ, man. What did you take this time? Please tell me you’re not doing meth.”

  “None of your fucking business,” he grunts, braced on the stained back of the couch, hair falling in his face. “And I don’t need your fucking water, or your fucking food. What I need is money.”

  “Yeah, that’s not gonna happen.” I let my hand drop and glare at him. “Go clean yourself up in the bathroom, and I’ll clean up your puke. If you don’t want food, then don’t eat.”

  “Fuck, man, I can’t sleep. Haven’t slept in two days.” He pushes off the couch, starts toward me, his steps unsteady, his gaze pleading. “I’ll just borrow the money, okay? Give it right back when I get paid.”

  “No, dude. Sit down. I’ll make you something to eat—”

  He pushes at me, and I stumble backward, fucking amazed that he managed to catch me off guard twice in one evening.

  Goes to show how off my game I am these days, I think, and then my shoulder hits the wall, and I slam my palms on it to steady myself. My fucking bad knee twists, and I grunt in pain.

  “Fuck you, Seb.”

  “You say you look out for me,” he snarls, shaking his fist at me. “You think you can feed me food and lies and that I’ll suck it the fuck up and say thank you.” He stumbles two steps back and then turns toward the door. “I don’t need this shit, asshole. I don’t need you, okay? You can go to hell for all I care. Stay off my fucking back.”

  Jesus Christ. I watch him go, still stunned. Does he think I don’t want to?

  If only I could.

  Tangled in my covers, I plunge through darkness, through flashing images and sounds. Something’s about to happen, I know it. My pulse thumps heavily in my ears.

  Now, it’s already happening.

  A crash.

  A collision.

  Impact.

  I slam into something. My spine rattles. My body jerks.

  The car rolls and skids, metal crunching and folding. My head hurts. I’m too cold, then too warm. There’s a fire burning. I can smell it, singeing cloth and flesh.

  It hurts. My leg hurts.

  I’m so fucking scared I can’t breathe.

  When I scream, nobody answers. I’m alone.

  Everyone’s dead.

  Chapter Five

  Gigi

  Sydney and me, we haven’t talked in days. We’re avoiding each other. Well, she’s been avoiding me, because she knows I’ll press her to tell me about the drug incident at the club, and since then I’ve been avoiding her, too, because I’m pissed off at her.

  Acting like a three-year-old pitching a fit and I know it.

  Yeah, well, I still can’t believe she’s been hiding things like that from me. That she’d place herself in danger for a boy, and that’s if that’s what’s been going on.

  A big if. She didn’t tell me I was right when I asked.

  Hissy fits aside, the truth is I’m hurt. Knowing she kept this from me and I had to discover it by chance… That she left me alone in the club to go and buy drugs, Jesus…

  How can I trust what she tells me after this? How do we go back to where we were two weeks ago?

  The fact I didn’t tell her the guy I met that night at the club was Jarett is irrelevant. Totally unimportant info. Or that his brother practically assaulted me before Jarett stopped him and dragged me away.

  Yeah. I just don’t want to open up that can of worms.

  The memory of Sebastian’s grip on me, the emptiness in his eyes, still has me waking up in a cold sweat, his face morphing into the face of the two guys who’d cornered me in Destiny all those years ago, sneering and mocking as they drank in my fear and humiliation.

  Then again, why should I tell her when she’s been keeping so much from me?

  Back to three-year-old territory.

  Normally I’m perfectly adult. I can adult just fine. But not when it comes to Sydney. I think it’s a girl thing.

  Don’t ask.

  Not meeting with Sydney also means I don’t have a ride home after college classes, so I hoof it to the bus stop to wait with the other poor souls.

  On my way, I pass by a fast food joint, its big yellow sign telling the world that the best pizza in town is right there. My stomach grumbles at the smell.

  Then I notice a guy standing by the door, and I miss a step.

  It’s Jarett. It’s definitely him. Seeing him in broad daylight there’s no way I could be wrong. I’d know that face and those broad shoulders anywhere.

  He’s standing there with another guy, slouched by the door of the store. What are the odds?

  Unable to stop a grin from spreading over my face, I turn my steps that way. Of course it’s him. That hard jaw, the cat-like eyes, the soft mouth, the big, muscular build.

  “Hey.” I plant myself right in front of him. “I didn’t get a chance to talk to you at the club, after… you know.”

  I wait for him to reply, but he just stares at me, barely blinking.

  Um. Weird.

  “Yeah, what happened at the club?” The other guy drawls. “Who’s this chick?”

  “Nothing happened at the club,” he says, his jaw tight.

  “Okay… But you’re Jarett, right?” My heart is racing. “You remember me? I’m—”

  “I don’t know you,” he spits out, expression flat. “Now get out of here.”

  Whoa. “Jarett—”

  “Look, I don’t fucking know you, okay? Now get!”

  I stare at him, at those pretty green eyes, and I taste doubt for the first time. I swallow past a lump in my throat. “Jeez, okay. Don’t get your panties in a twist. I’m going.”

  “Get lost,” he says. “Go on.”

  Lifting my hands, I walk away, trying to act like it doesn’t matter, although my pulse is hammering in my ears. Could I be mistaken? Maybe it’s not him after all?

  But no. It’s been three years, not thirty. I know Jarett. I know him.

  My mind is spinning in circles as I walk down the sidewalk, my hands in my jacket pockets. Got a bus to catch, a family to spend the evening with, a bestie to make up with. I don’t need this nonsense. My neck burns with anger and shame.

  Jarett wouldn’t have treated me that way. It can’t be him. Maybe he has an evil twin? A doppelganger?

  I glance over my shoulder to catch one last glimpse of him, as if that would solve the riddle, and stop.

  He’s limping away from the shop, together with that other man, and two other guys who weren’t there before.

  Limping.

  Okay, that clinches it.

  “Hey!” I turn back around and march over to them. I’m fuming. After Sydney’s betrayal, this seems like the last drop. “Jarett.”

  He turns.

  He frigging turns at the soun
d of his name. That son of a bitch. His eyes widen as I approach them, my hands fisted at my sides.

  “I knew it was you.” I jab a finger at him, panting with fury. “What’s wrong with you?”

  His eyes narrow again, that look of shock vanishing as if it’d never been there. “With me?” He steps away from his buddies to stand in my way. “Are you deaf, or are you stupid? Didn’t I tell you to get lost?”

  “It was you at the club the other night,” I hiss, doing my best not to flinch at his sharp words. I lift my chin. “You helped me. Why deny it?”

  “I wasn’t helping you. I was helping my brother.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Listen…” He cocks his head to the side, his mouth tipping up in a crooked, dangerous smirk. He has a fading bruise on his jaw, I notice, and in the afternoon light, those eyes are so green, like leaves. “If you were so desperate to see me, you should have left me your number the other night.”

  Say what?

  My mouth falls open. “What are you talking about? Are you crazy?”

  “I know I’m hard to resist,” he drawls, “but I’m kinda busy right now, as you can see. So go away.” His smirk fades. “I mean it.”

  “Yeah, take a hike, chick.” One of his buddies swaggers over to him, slams his hand on Jarett’s shoulder and grins like the Joker. “Can’t you take a fucking hint? Guy doesn’t wanna know you. Come on, let’s go, dude.”

  And Jarett just looks at me, chin lifted, long lashes lowered, his expression flat.

  My God.

  “I thought I knew you,” I whisper, my throat suddenly, embarrassingly clogged with tears. “I was so wrong.”

  “Guess so,” he whispers back, and I don’t know if to laugh or cry.

  Turning on my heel so fast I skid on the concrete, I march away, my vision blurry and my chest tight.

  Good thing I never told Sydney how I felt about Jarett, or that I found him again.

  Not that it matters, since Syd and me, we’re not on speaking terms right now.

  And that makes it even worse. God, I wish we’d never had that fight. I wish I could just call her and tell her what happened. Of all nights, tonight I need her the most.

  But I’m not making the first move. No way. Not happening. This is on her. She lied to me, and even when confronted won’t tell me the truth.

  So it makes no sense that I find my phone in my hand just as the bus arrives and I climb up inside. My finger is scrolling down my list of contacts before I know what I’m doing.

  Calling Sydney.

  When the call connects, and I hear her voice, I have to turn away for the other passengers to hide my tears.

  She picks up on the second ring. “Gigi?”

  “Syd… Can we meet? Please.”

  She’s my bestie, even if she lied, even if she didn’t make the first move. I’m the one calling, all but begging to see her, talk to her. It’s kind of humiliating. Kind of humbling, to realize how much I need her. Her support, her friendship, her presence.

  To think I have no pride when it comes to those I care for, that caring for them makes me so weak.

  Is all love that way?

  “So, let me get this straight,” Sydney mutters, sprawled on her belly on my bed, mouth full of my mom’s world-famous butter cake. “The guy talking to you at the bar, the one you wanted to go back to, was Jarett? Jarett Lowe, from our school?”

  “That’s the one.” I balance my plate of cake on my knees as I lean back against the headboard.

  “The one you wanted to marry?”

  “I never said that,” I scoff, picking at the cake, crumbling it on the plate.

  Did I?

  Nah.

  “The one you wouldn’t ever shut up about,” Syd goes on, and I pause with a crumb of cake in my hand. “That you drew hearts and arrows with your initials in your notebooks.”

  “Not true. Why are you saying these things?”

  “Because they’re true?” She grins at me. “Come on, Gigi. You had a mega crush on the guy, admit it.”

  Maybe so, but I shake my head stubbornly. “I was a kid.”

  “Hardly. Three years ago, Gigi. Just three years.”

  Yeah, I know, okay? Jeez. “Can we please drop the topic of the crush I never had on Jarett, and focus on what he did?”

  She chokes on laughter—and cake. When she can breathe again, she wipes at her mouth with her fingers and sighs. “Sure. For now.”

  I shoot her a glare. She knows I haven’t forgiven her for the other night, right? That this is a truce, but that eventually we will be talking about that night? “Great.”

  “So, let me see if I understood exactly what happened: at the club, he saved you from his brother’s slimy advances, helped you when you felt dizzy, and then the next time you saw him… he was an asshole to you?”

  I shiver. “Not just an asshole, Syd. He pretended not to know me.”

  “Man. That’s a dickish move.”

  “You think?” I frown down at my destroyed piece of cake, my heart slamming painfully in my chest. It shouldn’t hurt so bad. “I mean, if it was just a random guy I talked to at a bar… but I used to know Jarett. He used to know me, too. We talked a lot.”

  Well, I talked a lot.

  Details.

  “He behaved like a douche.” She sits up, tucks red curls behind her ears, and her golden hoops catch the light. “Wait a minute. Was he alone the second time you met?”

  “Nah, he was with some buddies of his. Why?”

  “Peacocking,” she says with a straight face.

  She can do that, say stuff like that all serious.

  I guffaw. “What?”

  “How guys behave in front of their guy friends. Peacocking. Showing off how macho and tough they are, and trying to impress women.”

  “You’re making that up.”

  “Psychology 101, baby. It’s legit.”

  “Well, the move didn’t work on me. Obviously.” I set my plate aside, my appetite all gone. “Besides, I doubt peacocking means you get to pretend not to know the girl you’re supposedly trying to impress. That makes no sense.”

  She waves a hand back and forth. “It doesn’t matter. What I meant is that he was probably acting differently because his friends were there. He was trying to seem, I dunno, tough and with chicks hanging off him, so many he can’t even recall their faces… know what I mean?”

  Yeah, a picture is starting to form, and my mouth twists in disgust. “You’re saying he’s a manwhore. And an asshole, if he turns into such a douchebag for his friends.”

  And my heart hurts, because I’d been so happy to see him again, to see he was okay, that he was still in town.

  “You never said… why you never kept in touch with him after you moved?” Sydney is observing me as she twists a section of her hair into a tiny braid.

  I shake my head. “Before we moved… we had a fight. He’d been in a mood, and… he told me not to talk to him again.”

  She hisses. “So being an asshole isn’t something new for him.”

  “It was new to me. And later I tried calling him, finding him, despite what he said, but his Facebook and Instagram accounts were turned off. His number wasn’t available, as if he’d changed it. And when I finally decided to go look for him, the house was up for rent.”

  “That’s weird. So suddenly?”

  “Yeah, just like that.” I tug on my knee-high socks. These ones are black with white skulls at the top. I love my knee-high socks. “Like the dinosaurs. You know… a meteor hit, and poof. Wiped out. Gone.”

  “Oh my God.” She throws a pillow at me, laughing. “You didn’t just compare Jarett Lowe to a dino. Jarett Lowe, Gigi. You nuts? Guy’s hotter than that meteor impact you mentioned.” She fans her face with her hand. “He could wipe me out anytime.”

  I make a face at her. “Awkward metaphor, Syd. And since when do you have the hots for Jarett? I thought you never glanced his way twice.”

  “I don’t have the hots
. But I’m not blind, either. He’s handsome. That’s a proven, scientific fact.”

  “Whatever.” Maybe it is a fact. He’s attractive, no argument from me. But it pisses me off all the same.

  And I have no clue why.

  I bet it’s because I’m already pissed off at Syd. Yeah, that must be it. I fold my hands over my knees and rest my chin on them.

  She sighs. “Back to the guy in question. Maybe he didn’t recognize you at first? Maybe he thought you were one of his stalkers?”

  I frown harder. I like this even less. “But why would Jarett—”

  The door to my bedroom flies open, and a blond head pokes through. “Hey, have you seen my tablet? Oh, hey, Sydney.”

  “Merc, jeez, don’t you know how to knock?” I glare at my little brother who winks at me and shoots me a crooked grin. “We could be discussing something personal here.”

  “Like Jarett?” he asks, the cheeky bastard, glancing from me to Syd. “Jarett who?”

  “None of your business,” I say.

  “Jarett Lowe,” Sydney says, the traitor.

  “That name rings a bell,” Merc says, stepping into the room, his headphones hanging around his neck. He towers over us.

  My little brother has just turned eighteen, and I swear, he’s still growing. He can barely pass through doors without hitting his head, and he’s been working out, so his chest and shoulders are bulging with muscles.

  I still want to pat his head sometimes and give him cookies. Little brothers…

  “Personal,” I growl at him. “What about that word wasn’t clear to you?”

  He leans one shoulder into the wall and folds his arms over his chest, smirking. “I’m family. No secrets between us, right?”

  “Since when?”

  He ignores me. “Jarett, Jarett…” he mutters. “Wasn’t he at our school? Hey, he used to live in our neighborhood. Now it’s all coming back to me.” His brows draw together. “Isn’t that the guy you had a crush on?”

  Dear God. I lift my hands up in the air. “Why does everybody think that?”

  Merc pretends to think. “Maybe it was the way you followed him around like a lost puppy?”

  “I never! That’s it, you’re out of here.” I grab a pillow and throw it at him.