by Rachel Rust
Published by Evernight Teen ® at Smashwords
www.evernightteen.com
Copyright© 2017 Rachel Rust
ISBN: 978-1-77339-453-4
Cover Artist: Jay Aheer
Editor: Audrey Bobak
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
DEDICATION
To my siblings—my earliest partners in crime who taught me how to fight, curse, and scheme. You’re all awesome.
A GIRL SCORNED
The Escape Series, 3
Rachel Rust
Copyright © 2017
Chapter One
My roommate was going to kill me. It was all over her face as she stared at me from across our dorm room. Given that she was the daughter of the criminal mastermind who I had royally pissed off, this was no big surprise.
Her Russian accent rolled from her lips as she told me how excited she was to finally meet me.
Of course she was excited, I was her next hit. I glanced at her bag, wondering where her gun was. It wasn’t on her because her skin-tight jeans and white t-shirt clung to her like a second skin. There were no bulges of any kind, except her perky boobs which were at the same elevation as my eyes. Death by pointy boobs? Sounded like my brother Josh’s dream death.
“Tell me, Natalie,” Remy purred, flipping her long brown hair behind her shoulder. “What is your major? What classes are you taking?”
Classes? My mind went blank. My classes this semester were just general education courses. I hadn’t declared a major yet. Stacked up on top of my bed was nearly a thousand dollars’ worth of textbooks, but I couldn’t even think of one specific class to answer her question. I couldn’t speak all. I didn’t want to speak to her. She was the daughter of Sergei Romanov—ruthless trafficking kingpin extraordinaire. And she was rooming with me. How was I supposed to excel at Columbia University and make my alumni father proud if I got myself killed before the first day of class?
Remy stepped closer to me, tilting her head to the side as she waited for answers to her questions, seeming to regard me as though I were a helpless kitten.
My mind raced with options.
Fight or flight.
I could run. The dorm room door was just behind me. I could spin on my heel, run away, and never look back. I could run all the way back to Rapid City … or at least to a cab to take me to the airport.
Except, I’d probably get lost in a state of panic. It was my first day at Columbia. If I fled, she’d likely give chase and then I’d be a rat in a new maze, zigzagging around campus, unsure where my escape exit would be.
So, there was my second option: Fight.
I could take her down. She was taller than me, but super skinny with no discernable muscle tone. Although, I supposed that didn’t mean there wasn’t any training in those slender arms—muscle memory and conditioning that would knock me out cold before I even knew what hit me.
The corner of her lip turned up into a slight grin, as though reading my thoughts. Her slightly-opened jaw snapped closed. And something about the muffled clack of teeth-on-teeth, and her now-stern face staring me down, triggered something in me.
I’d had enough.
Enough of being scared. Enough of being threatened. Enough of dealing with bogeymen. First The Barber, holding me hostage, threatening to send pieces of me to my dad. Then that asshole Brandon who kidnapped me, twice. And, of course, Sergei Romanov—watching me since I was a little girl, setting me up on purpose with Eddie for that school assignment, and hell-bent on destroying my life for some unknown reason.
“Screw you,” I said.
I needed my normal life back and Remy was the next obstacle. I took a step toward her. My fingers curled, clenching into tight fists, thumbs tucked down. I had punched Josh enough when we were younger to know proper thumb placement.
“Get out of my dorm room,” I said. “And tell your father to stay the hell away from me.”
“Or else what?” she asked, unfolding a sheet. She flung the material up in the air and it floated down onto the bed where she then proceeded to stretch the corners over the mattress.
Or else what? I had no good comeback. At least not one that didn’t sound straight off the schoolyard. Or else I’ll tell on you? Or else I’ll pull your hair?
As a straight-A student, I didn’t like feeling stupid, and this situation was making me feel exactly that. I wasn’t wily or cunning—I was bookish and sarcastic. Neither of these things seemed very helpful in the moment. Sure, I could read fast, and absorb and rattle off facts, but the cleverness of the criminal world stumped me. Criminals weren’t all stupid. Some, in fact, seemed so smart that I wondered why they didn’t put their intelligence to proper use. They weren’t much different from billionaire CEOs.
“Or else…” I took a deep breath, and then blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “You might not live to regret it!”
The threat sounded lame coming from my own mouth, but it got Remy to turn around and face me.
She scanned my form. “My father has a great interest in you.”
“I know. But why?”
She shrugged. “That I do not know. But he has an interest in great many things. So do not think of yourself as special, Natalie. You are—what do you Americans call it? A dime a dozen?”
I glared at her. She threatened me with her very presence, and now she was insulting me, too? Bitch.
“Take your things and get out of my room,” I said. “Or I’ll find someone to remove you.”
In a perfect world, that someone would have been Eddie, my FBI agent-turned-fugitive boyfriend.
Except, I had no idea where Eddie was. I hadn’t seen or heard from him in two months. Not since he fled after being accused of working for Sergei. All I knew was that Eddie still hadn’t cleared his name with the FBI, and that he was still on the lam. But where? And for how much longer?
The only other person who could help me take care of Remy was Eddie’s FBI colleague, Luke.
Luke was pulling double duty these days as both my official FBI babysitter, and also as Eddie’s off-the-record partner, working in the dark and without the FBI’s permission to exonerate him. Luke was supposed to come to New York City and be on campus with me, but I hadn’t seen or heard from him yet.
“Your friends are not here,” Remy said. She held her hands out in a come at me fashion. “Guess you will have to remove me yourself.”
“Gladly.” I launched myself at the photo of her and her criminal father that sat on top of her dresser. As soon as my fingers curled around the thick frame, I spun around and opened the door. I threw the photo across the hall where it bounced off the wall, shattering the glass into pieces. The frame and photo landed on the floor with a thud, sprinkled in glass.
“Oops,” I said. “Better go out there and get your picture.”
Remy’s long legs took two steps forward and slammed the door shut right next to me. “I did not care for that photo anyway,” she said with a sly smile.
My fingers curled around my phone, pulling it from my back pocket.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
I didn’t answer, scrolling down my contacts list.
Remy shook her head slowly back and forth. “I do not think you need to call anyone.”
Fear trembled through me. I hit Luke’s name to bring up his number.
“I said, you do not need to call anyone.” She led me to my bed and shoved me down, then retrieved my phone from the floor. “I think I will take this.”
In her hand, she held up my phone—my one connection with not only Luke, but the entire FBI. Plus my family and friends. There was probably a community phone or a payphone somewhere around here, but it wasn’t the same. My phone was my lifeline … I needed it, especially now that my roommate was a killer.
Remy placed it into her own pocket.
I rushed her, but she was too fast.
Her arm shot out, slamming into my shoulder. My upper body spun from the impact, and I thudded onto the floor near my bed. Before I could get up on my own, she yanked me to my feet. With one hand firmly around my upper arm, her other hand went to the side of my head and slammed it into the wall.
The world flickered around the edges of my vision and my muscles gave out. I slumped against the wall, sliding down the painted surface, until my butt hit the floor. The side of my head throbbed like no headache I had ever experienced before.
“You really should learn your lesson,” Remy said, turning her back on me to continue making her bed. “You will not win, Natalie Mancini, and the sooner you realize that, the easier it will be to face your unavoidable fate.”
Adrenaline coursed through me. I had no unavoidable fate. Not as long as my heart was still pumping—and pumping it was. The beats throbbed through my body, pounding inside my skull like a drumbeat.
I glanced at the pile of textbooks on my bed. At the top was a biology textbook—the biggest and heaviest of them all. Ignoring the pain in my head, I crept to the bed and grabbed the book.
I heaved myself onto my feet. Remy turned at the sound of my shuffling, but it was too late. I had the textbook raised high—the same height as her head. With every ounce of fear, adrenaline, and self-preservation I had within me, I swung at her.
The corner of the book slammed into her temple. She spun and dropped next to her bed.
My breaths heaved in and out as I stood bent over, hands on knees. In the momentum of the swing, the textbook had slipped from my fingers, and was now lying next to Remy.
I huffed an exhausted laugh. “Book smarts for the win.”
Chapter Two
With Remy sprawled face-down on the floor, I wasn’t sure if I was more fearful that I had accidently killed her, or that she was still conscious and just waiting until I was close enough so she could reach out and kill me.
“Shit.” I stepped back to my side of the room, hands running down the sides of my face. I hadn’t fully considered the lingering consequences of what to do if I actually managed to defeat her. How does one dispose of a psychotic roommate? “Okay, okay, okay. Just think. Calm down and think.”
I needed to restrain her. From the slight scarring around my wrists, I knew duct tape worked well—too well. But I hadn’t brought any of that with me. I didn’t even like the sight of it. It was one of the topics I had talked to my psychologist about … fear of the gray tape.
Remy’s suitcase was along the far wall. She might have brought duct tape to be used for me, but her bag was on the other side of her body, and I wasn’t about to go stepping over her to get to it.
My feet shuffled backward toward my dresser. It was only a matter of time before she came to. I had to act fast.
I flung open the second drawer where I had stored some shirts earlier that day. I grabbed two long-sleeved t-shirts. Maybe they were lengthy enough to tie her hands together. But as I twisted the material lengthwise, it was clear they were too bulky. I’d never be able to make a tight enough knot. I needed string.
My Nikes peeked out from under my bed. Shoelaces were perfect—unless she woke up and I had to run.
No, I thought with a shake of my head. My shoes needed to stay intact … just in case. But I thought up the next best thing. In the bottom drawer, I had shoved all my hoodies.
I pulled out the string from the hood of my Kennedy High School sweatshirt, fully aware of what a pain in the ass it was going to be to weave that string back into place in the future. Once the string was free, I tiptoed toward Remy. Her hands were on either sides of her body.
I slipped the string under her wrist closest to me and tied a tight knot. I lifted on the string, jostling her arm like a large marionette. She didn’t stir. Slowly, I leaned across her, pulling the string and her hand with me, until I was able to grab her other hand. I brought her wrists together behind her back, and wrapped and tied the string as tight as I could. The dense fibers dug into her skin.
Her head moved a bit, then settled back down into the carpet.
I hustled back to my dresser and removed the string from an old, worn-out Nike sweatshirt that I had stolen from Josh a few years ago. It wasn’t my fault he had left it in the dryer. He had demanded I give it back, until I doused it with perfume and stuffed tampons in the front pocket. After that I got a middle finger … and a new sweatshirt.
I tied Remy’s ankles together. And then I dialed Luke’s number.
His voicemail picked up.
“Dammit, Luke, pick up! Call me back.”
I sat on my bed, waiting for any sudden movement from the lump of evil that lay on my floor. She was going to be pissed when she woke up.
Maybe I should gag her.
I grabbed a pair of rolled-up socks from my drawer when my phone rang.
“Luke!” I answered. “I knocked out my roommate. I don’t know what to do.”
“Wait, what?” he asked. “What the hell did you do that for?”
“She’s Remy Chenko! Jack Chenko—I mean, Sergei’s daughter. She’s got a picture of Sergei, the accent … everything.”
There was a pause.
“All the paperwork we have states that your roommate is Mandy Torrance from Trenton, New Jersey.”
“Mandy was supposed to be here, but she’s not. Remy Chenko showed up instead. She smashed my head into a wall so I hit her with my biology book.”
“You knocked her out with a textbook?”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t have a baseball bat, okay? What should I do now?”
“Where is she now?”
“Lying on the floor. I tied her hands and ankles.”
Luke sighed. “Shit. Just stay there. Lock your door, don’t leave, don’t let anyone in. I’ll be there in a minute.”
He hung up before I could ask him where he was. In a minute? The only way he could be here so quickly was if he was already on campus.
A knock on my door made me jump and my heart leaped into my throat.
I crept to the door. “Who is it?”
“Um, my name’s Claire,” a soft voice replied in a southern accent. “I live next door. I think one of you might have dropped a picture out here in the hallway.”
My eyes closed. Shit. I cracked open the door, pressing myself against the gap to hide the body behind me.
A thin girl with long, straight blonde hair smiled back at me. Dressed in a maroon maxi dress with cowboy boots, she screamed small town. She held out the frame with Remy and Sergei’s picture. Small fragments of glass clung to the edges of the wood frame.
“Here,” Claire said. “Is this yours, or your roommate’s?”
My mind scrambled for a realistic lie. “Nope. I heard someone yell and throw something against the wall a few minutes ago, but it wasn’t either one of us.”
I hated lying to her, but I had to get her the hell away from me. There was a poorly tied-up girl behind me who was seconds away from stealthily slipping her restraints and slamming my head into the wall again—this time harder and with more lethal results.
“Oh, okay,” Claire said with a wrinkled brow. “I guess I’ll just go down the hall. The owner has to be around here somewhere.” She smiled widely. “I’m Claire, by the way …
but I already said that, didn’t I?”
I forced a smile. “Natalie. Nice to meet you.” Now get out of here, please!
“Well, Natalie, it was nice to meet you. I’m sure I’ll be seein’ you around.” She walked away with the billows of her skirt bouncing off her with every step.
Before I shut the door, a familiar face appeared around the far corner of the hallway. Luke.
Oh, thank God.
I nearly laughed at his clothes … skinny jeans, military boots, a grandpa-like cardigan, and a brown beanie stocking cap over his red hair. He was taking this undercover college thing too far.
“Going full-on hipster douchebag, are we?” I asked as he approached.
His only reply was to shove me back into my room, closing the door behind us. He stared down at Remy. “How long has she been out?”
“Ten minutes, tops. She’s stirred a few times, so I’m pretty sure she’s not dead.”
“Go downstairs and get some coffee.”
“Excuse me?”
Luke shot me an impatient glare. “Go downstairs, get some coffee. In other words, leave. Go down to that big commons area. Lots of people—safety in numbers. Stay there and wait to hear from me.”
“But…” I motioned to Remy. “What are we going to do about her?”
“We are doing nothing. You are leaving. There are other agents coming and unless you want to sit and explain what happened all night, get the hell out of here.” Luke kneeled next to Remy, and with a small knife from his pocket, cut the strings around her hands.
So much for re-stringing my hoodies.
“Why are you letting her go?” I asked.
“I’m not.” From his back pocket, he produced a plastic zip tie. Once he cinched it around her wrists, he cut loose her ankles. He slapped her face a few times. “Wake up, time to go for a walk.”