Popularity Rules

by Shamika Lindsay

I couldn’t bring myself to listen to him anymore, I turned my attention to Avery, trying to see if this was all some drawn out joke. “Avery…?”

  She turned to look at me, her eyes hard and her mouth set in a grim line. She betrayed no emotion and looked at me as if she didn’t know who I was. I felt myself slowly spiraling. Here I was in a city where no one knew who I was and I barely knew even where I was and I realized that I was alone. For the first time in a while, I was finally, truly alone.

  “Where’s my phone?” I asked bleakly.

  Avery turned her attention back to Elijah and he nodded almost imperceptibly. Without blinking, she pulled the phone from the pocket of her hooded shirt and flung it so hard into the neighboring wall that it shattered, and I heard the small pitter-patter of the little droplets.

  Elijah seemed delighted at my distress and grinned at me. I hung my head and tried to ignore how nauseous I felt. That long hug on her parents’ lawn, all that talk about Elijah having a soft spot for her, everything she told them she did. All she did was to lure me here, but I couldn’t figure out why.

  “All this time…,” I started, trying to find the words to finish. “You played with me?”

  “Don’t be stupid,” Elijah sneered. “Did you hear when I just said she only called me today?”

  Avery ignored him and looked at me, an eyebrow raised in defiance. “You never got it. I told you to leave me alone and you thought I was joking. All so I could be someone you ticked off your list. When I first met you, I hated you so much. You were so used to getting everything you wanted, and you had your eyes set on me, like a little plaything.”

  “You’re joking,” was all I managed to choke out.

  She laughed without humor. “Is it so hard to believe someone is oblivious to your charms?” My head swam as the familiarity of her words came rushing back to me. I felt my stomach twisting more and more as the time ticked on.

  “But then you actually fell for me, despite every horrid thing I did to you. You still wanted to help mend me. Well, it’s sad that you don’t realize that some people don’t want to be mended.”

  I looked at Elijah and he looked just as surprised as I felt. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I was stunned into silence. “When you said Elijah had a soft spot for you, you meant you did for him.” It wasn’t a question.

  Avery shook her head at me. “If only you had stayed away.”

  I nodded at her resolutely, if only I had stayed away. But I didn’t and I couldn’t go back into the past and make myself less attracted to her or make myself less inclined to feelings I couldn’t control. I wanted to feel regret somewhere but I didn’t. I tried my hardest to, but the sting of betrayal was crowding it out.

  She crossed over to where Elijah stood and looked him straight in the eyes. “Let’s finish this,” she said, clear enough for me to hear.

  There’s one thing I didn’t get; why did she leave in the first place if she was this willing to just run back to the life she detested so much? My brain couldn’t piece the missing bits together, but I just watched them warily, wondering what a person in this situation’s last thoughts should be. I could only replay the words that Avery said. Everything was a lie. Every irresponsible sacrifice I made for her had culminated into this catastrophic moment.

  “It’s too open out here,” I heard Elijah muse.

  Avery nodded stiffly. “That’s why I chose here. Or have you already forgotten our meeting spot?”

  Elijah looked at Avery with so much sincere compassion that my hands automatically uncurled from their fists. Maybe they did deserve each other, and I was just standing in the way. Avery stepped back from him and gestured to him to lead the way. Before moving off, he pulled his hand out of his pocket and revealed the smooth, black and quite ominous weapon.

  He looked at me with a wicked sneer. “Move.”

  I obeyed, my legs feeling like plasters of cement that were just beginning to harden. We only waited at the door for a few moments whilst a member of his three-man team picked the lock.

  The large doors creaked as they opened it, and the musty smell of dusty boxes slapped me across the face. I could barely see a thing inside, the thick cloak of black dredged up unpleasant memories for me and I forced my feet to comply with the message from my brain to move. I knew if I didn’t, it would be detrimental. But at the same time I knew if I did, it would still be detrimental. The thoughts of self-preservation were slowly waning, and I felt only the sharp sting of an onslaught of self-pity.

  The lights streaming through the high slits in the windows only illuminated the center of the warehouse. It looked so grimy, I wondered how long it had been left here like this and why no changes were made to it. One of Elijah’s cronies, who I hadn’t seen before, pushed me roughly to the center of the room. I posited because they wanted to make sure it would be me who would be snuffed out and no one else.

  I had my back turned to the group, realizing that everything I had been warned about had come to fruition. Nothing hurt more, though, than the daunting fact that Avery had been stringing me along. But I was still so confused.

  I turned around slowly and faced them, my brows drawn in a tight shadow over my face. “Why…why so long?”

  For an infinitesimal moment, I saw her expression change but before I could analyze it, it went back to the hard stare she was using moments before. “It wasn’t supposed to be for so long,” she said thoughtfully, but still managing to sound quite bored. “But as you said once before, you are stubborn and persistent. So why not give you a taste of your own medicine for as long as I could manage? Show you how all the other girls you did this to felt. Show you that you unwittingly hurt so many people over and over.

  “Then you looked like you started to actually love me and well, it was just icing on the cake. It’d just make everything worse.”

  Elijah’s eyes snapped to her face as he listened to her. He shook his head, slowly, probably trying to decipher if her motive made sense. But to me it did. For so long, so many of the girls I knew hated Avery because she was able to crack my code. Unfortunately for me, it appeared that she had cracked my code enough to break me irreparably.

  “I hope this was worth leaving your father for,” Elijah mused, raising his arm with the gun, almost lazily, as if he had so much practice, that this mere encounter didn’t bother him.

  Wordlessly, the two cronies stood on either side of me, presumably to stop me from trying to make an escape of futility. I looked at Avery long and hard, processing everything that had been said in the last ten minutes and accepting my fate. Accepting the fact that the infamous Jason Forbes would be no more, wasn’t as bad as I often had imagined it to be. In fact, I was awaiting it, despite how morbid it sounded.

  Avery narrowed her eyes at me and looked livid as if she’d much rather rip my head off from my body and shot it through the window. She held her hand out to Elijah, palm up. “I want to do it.”

  Elijah faltered and looked at her for a long moment. “Are you sure?”

  Avery’s eyes never left mine and I noticed how much her jaw clenched as she replied, “Positive.”

  Elijah’s eyebrows rose but he conceded all the same, handing her the weapon and standing back. Unlike Elijah, Avery didn’t hold the weapon as if it was a mere ritualistic object, instead she clutched it firmly in both hands and pointed at me—I had no doubts that she would miss. I watched her as she shook her head at me and made an exhale that resembled a scoff.

  With her mouth set in a firm, hard line. I watched as she pulled the trigger, not blinking once.

  Chapter

  XXXVI

  Hearing the loud explosion at point-blank range made my heart enter a race to beat out of my chest in the fastest possible way, but, being shot felt weirder than I expected. I expected a sudden burn that would spread to intense, unbearable pain that would ultimately lead to my death. Instead, I felt nothing but my heart escaping its natural trajectory. I slowly opened my eyes and saw Elijah raising a brow at
Avery whose face was set in a scowl.

  “Rusty?” he asked with a grin. “Let me do it,” he offered as if he was suggesting that he would drive to an undisclosed location.

  Avery shook her head and adjusted her aim. “I can do it.”

  Before I had a chance to react, she pulled the trigger and a bullet whizzed past my head. I took a sharp intake of breath, fully aware of how close I had been to death in just a second. I looked at her wide-eyed. If she was so good at it, why hadn’t she shot me by now?

  Elijah’s jaw had a noticeable tick and he raised an eyebrow at her. “You can’t do anything right,” he mumbled under his breath. “Give it to me,” he demanded loudly, looking about ready to yank it from her hand.

  Avery took a step closer to me. “One last try.”

  Before he could respond, she pulled the trigger, but this time she didn’t miss. And she didn’t hit me either. Instead, one of Elijah’s right-hand men got shot and he crumpled to the ground in pain, clutching his leg. I looked at him in wide-eyed surprise. Without giving the other a chance to retaliate, Avery turned and hit him in an identical location. His face crumpled in pain and he gave her a confused look before falling to the ground. They groaned and flailed, and I waited to see if they’d pull out guns of their own, but they didn’t. I guess Elijah didn’t trust his right-hand men enough.

  It had all happened so quickly that I didn’t know how to react. Whilst trying to get my bearings, Elijah swung his hand and caught Avery across the cheek with a loud resounding slap. In an instant, he pulled the gun from her grasp and threw it on the ground behind him. Avery looked up at him with an angry red mark on her cheek, seething.

  “You know that was stupid, right Avery?” he asked, shaking his head with a wicked smirk.

  Avery straightened up and looked at him. “You wanted to face me, you’ll face me alone.”

  Elijah looked at her and tilted his head to the side. “You want to fight me?” He snorted. “Are you forgetting what happened the last time?”

  “Fight fair and we’ll see who’ll win now,” Avery commented lightly, looking relaxed but still light on her feet.

  “I’ll give you what you want,” Elijah said with a smile, albeit cynical. “Only one thing: if my back-up goes, so does yours.”

  Avery’s eyes snapped to me and she shook her head at him. “He’s not a part of this.”

  Elijah circled her slowly. I tried to keep my eyes on the gun a few centimeters away from them, but he was making that increasingly impossible. “He is and you know it.”

  My fists balled automatically. I could see he was stalling to see what the best mode of attack was, and I wouldn’t give him the opportunity. I inched closer without them noticing, both engaged in a lithe dance of intrinsic moves that I couldn’t conceptualize. Before I could take another step, Avery’s eyes snapped to mine and she sprang into action; she swung a fist at Elijah who narrowly avoided it, ducking in the nick of time. He retaliated by kicking her legs from under her, she landed with an audible thud.

  Elijah scampered to get the gun and scrambled up quickly, pointing it at me, panting heavily and dangerously. “Enough of this,” he demanded, his voice echoing in the empty space.

  I stepped back as he approached me, ready to pull the trigger. “You know what gets me every time? That you still stayed, despite everything that has happened. Just let go already.”

  I stood defensively, waiting for him to take another step, if I was going to do something rash I needed to know I was doing it in good conscience. But it turns out, I didn’t need to worry; Avery ran up behind him and jumped on his back, clawing at his neck from behind. Elijah fought back, trying to pry her off of him but she was resolute. She grabbed the gun which went off into the ceiling and it came crashing to the ground again, making me nervous it would’ve disarmed. Elijah bent her fingers back slowly until she had no choice but to release her firm grip on him and she fell on the floor with a thump.

  The worst part about this was that there was nowhere to hide. Elijah turned his attention to me and raised a brow, seemingly inviting me to get some of the action.

  “Don’t let your girlfriend do all the work,” he commented snarkily.

  I snuck a glance around him and noticed that although Avery was winded she was mostly okay. The gun sat a few feet in front of me and I knew he saw it too. I scurried to where it was but Elijah managed to intercept my path, swinging his fist wildly towards my face, I narrowly missed it by ducking. In retaliation I brought up my fist toward his face, feeling the effects on my hand as soon as it connected with his jaw.

  “I’ve been waiting so long to do that,” I said through my teeth.

  Elijah pushed me back and planted his foot in my chest. I fell back from the effort, landing roughly on my back. I tried to ignore the winded feeling in my lungs to scamper up before he came over to me. But I wasn’t fast enough, he came over me and stomped on my chest, keeping his foot there and pressing it down with as much effort as he could muster. I tried to pry his foot off, but the mere attempt was futile. I could feel like ribs straining from the excessive force literally wracking them. He pressed down harder, and I swore I felt the fissure of a rib and I groaned in pain.

  I tried to ignore the agonizing burn in my chest but the longer he stood there, the more I felt like a blackout was fast approaching. Avery seemed like she came out of nowhere when she lifted her fist in such tumultuous speed, I didn’t want to blink to miss it. She caught him in the eye, the mouth and almost the cheek before he moved away from me and turned his attention to her. Hurrying around me, I watched as she grabbed the gun and pointed it squarely at him.

  Elijah suddenly stopped moving and only stared at her, his expression livid.

  “What makes you think I would want to be back on your side?” Avery asked breathlessly but still managing to sound curious.

  Elijah shrugged, inching closer to her. I attempted to extract myself from my position on the ground, hoping to at least sit up if my abdominal region could take it. “You called me,” he said simply, managing to control his breathing way more than she was. “Why else would you lead me to where you were?”

  Avery scoffed, holding the weapon steadily. “I needed to finish this myself. No one else needs to get involved.”

  I looked over at her and tried to decipher why exactly she thought this was a good idea, this could’ve easily gone south, with many foreseeable outcomes. I could’ve at least been made aware of this plan. Trying to understand her thought process was one of the most difficult things I would have had to do in our time together.

  “Why did you take him then?” he commented, casually.

  Ignoring him, Avery shook her head. “I couldn’t have you hurting Marc or anyone else who wasn’t involved, now could I?” She gave a small, sad smile. “You need me, don’t you? I was more than your second in command. I was your crutch and when I was gone you only began realizing how crippled you were.”

  I noticed a small tick in his jaw, but he kept his face straight. “So why don’t you do it? Why don’t you shoot me?”

  Avery looked at him levelly, not changing her stance but not answering either. “You can’t, can you?” he asked, showing something resembling glee on his face. When she didn’t speak, he inched closer yet again. “I thought with your best friend finally gone it would’ve changed you, but you’re still the same. You’re still so weak. You need me.”

  Avery smiled at him, contritely. “Jonathan is still around and well,” she said casually as if mentioning the weather to an old friend.

  Elijah faltered, narrowing his eyes at her as if he didn’t believe her. Truthfully, I didn’t know if I did either. She gave me the impression that Jonathan was no more, that he was just a figure in her past—distant and unforgiving.

  “He was still in the library,” Elijah commented, looking at her suspiciously.

  Avery shook her head and pressed her lips together. “I knew you wanted to get rid of him because you think he was poisoning my m
ind against you. Why else would you try to make a ‘statement’ at a public library? You knew Jonathan would be there, anything else would be collateral damage. Even then you had no qualms about hurting innocent people. And you think he poisoned my mind against you?

  “I thought he was dead too, you know,” Avery mused, tilting her head a little to the side. “I know they hadn’t found any remains. But still, I didn’t see him come out so I thought the worst. But imagine my surprise when Jonathan came to my house one night, telling me he’s fine. Asking me if I was okay, after I almost got him killed. It turns out, he was fine all along. But he realized a target was on his back because when one of you are out for him, all of you are, am I right?”

  Elijah’s top lip curled, and he looked about ready to snarl in her face. He approached her slowly, calculating, almost like a lion sizing up their prey using analytical powers to determine the best time or mode of attack.