project

by Torrance, Asa

  I raise the strand of hair to my nose, smelling the concentrated scent of her shampoo. I can’t stop smelling her, obsessing over the sweetness that exists everywhere in this house, on her sheets, in her room, in the air when I trail behind her.

  It’s nearly infuriating.

  “Stop frying your hair,” I say, dropping the lone strand of hair rebellious enough to have strayed from her flat iron this morning. “You’re never going to pass for normal anyway. You’re curved and jagged and well, frankly, a fucking mess. May as well let the outside match the inside.”

  She glares up at me, but I know I’ve poked at her insecurities well enough by the way her bottom lip trembles right before she speaks. “Possessive much?”

  “You have no idea,” I tell her. “Now go downstairs and wait for me like a good girl. I want breakfast, too.”

  A laugh sputters from Windy’s lips. “Are you kidding me?”

  I narrow my eyes at her. “What do you think?”

  The fight clears from her eyes, even if it’s only temporary. It’s only then that I realize I just might like the combative side of her, at least a little. It makes fucking with her that much more satisfying.

  Wordlessly, she slips away from the wall she’s been pressed against, and leaves the room.

  5

  The sun seems abnormally high in the sky by the time I make it outside, and I squint my eyes to its bright glare as I grit my teeth together in frustration.

  I hate waiting for Damien, but by now, I really don’t have a choice. Up until five minutes ago, I had been checking the time periodically, considering the fact that I could still catch the bus if I just left right then, but by now it’s become more advantageous to just wait if I don’t intend on being late.

  As though he knows I’m out of any other option, Damien appears a minute later, coming down the footpath toward where I’m standing in the driveway. In his uniform blazer and shirt, his dark hair combed back over his face in neat lines that still crest into thick waves, he cleans up unbelievably good, and I stifle the sigh that wants to escape my lips.

  I know this is part of how he plans to win everyone over, especially gullible people like my mother, who still can’t see him as anything other than the straightlaced Sheriff’s son. If he weren’t good looking, his charm alone would be enough, but nature and nurture have made him a true triple threat.

  Handsome, charming, and mean as fuck.

  “Here’s your breakfast, your highness,” I mumble sarcastically as I hold out the plastic-wrapped honeybun I snatched from the back of our kitchen cabinet. Grabbing the most low-effort thing I could find had been to show him that he can’t control me, but as he snatches it from my outstretched hand, I realize I still listened, I still provided, and annoyance surges through my nerves once again.

  Damien slides the honeybun into the confines of the sparse single three-ringed binder he’s brought. I’d be shocked if he’s even brought a pen. It’s as though he plans on doing as little work as possible at school, like he’s only there for show, and to exert control.

  The binder slaps against the roof of the car on the passenger’s side before he pushes it to slide across to the driver’s side, and I suppress my innate urge to want to think everything he does is poetry.

  But I did it for so long, forgiving my infatuation with my best friend’s brother because I thought I could control it, that stopping now is harder than I expected. Damien always seemed untouchable anyway, inherently on a different plane than Jessa and me, that I never thought our interactions would ever go past what they were, seeing him at her house, or closeting my grin when he’d look at me in the hallways of our school because he knew who I was.

  Now I just wish he would forget.

  Damien opens the passenger’s side door and beckons me forward with two fingers. “Hurry it up, why don’t you?”

  I frown at him as I come forward. “I’ve been waiting out here for twenty minutes.”

  “That’s why you’d better step it up,” he tells me simply before slamming the car door in my face before I can respond.

  I let out a breath, relishing one last solitary moment of peace before he gets in beside me, but even that is interrupted as my eyes track him coming around the front of the car. I still can’t stop staring at him, even when my gaze is clouded with trepidation the way it is now.

  He slides into the driver’s seat, and I instinctively jump as the car starts up with a ferocious sounding roar even though I just saw him turn the key. He doesn’t seem to notice, paying me no mind even as I feel him begin to lean in closer to me.

  But he’s only checking his reflection in the rearview mirror, delving into his hair with long fingers that move around languidly like he’s sculpting art. I clench impatient fists into my lap and press myself into my seat.

  Without underwear, every bare part of me is now dangerously close to pressing into whatever surface I sit on without some serious skirt maneuvering on my part, and it’s only now that I’m beginning to realize just how annoying this is going to make sitting in class today, let alone doing anything else that might require some form of movement beyond walking or standing.

  I can only guess that’s exactly what he wanted, to make me uncomfortable in every possible way, to remind me that I’m exposed, at least when it comes to him and what he already knows.

  “Can we go already?” I find myself sputtering impatiently before I realize what I’m saying. The way I shrink down in my seat after I say it tells me I’m already expecting him to lash out at me, to put me in my place the way he’s done ever since he came back.

  But he only shifts the car into reverse and rolls down the driveway. I let out a silent sigh of relief, that is, until he starts talking.

  “You’re really concerned about being late, aren’t you?”

  Fuck.

  I know my impatience has dug my own grave, especially when he pauses at the stop sign leaving our neighborhood and pulls the car out in the exact opposite way he should be going.

  “Where are you going?” I say, my heart hammering in my chest. “I can’t miss school today, I have a test.”

  “Really?” Damien asks, cocking an eyebrow in my direction. “That wasn’t just some lie you concocted to get away from last night’s dinner as soon as humanly possible?”

  “No,” I mutter defensively, crossing my arms across my chest. When I do this, the wind from Damien’s open window creeps under my skirt, causing me to slam my hands back down over the dancing hem.

  It’s going to be a long day.

  “Well don’t worry, I’m just taking the long way,” he tells me. “I’ll still get you there.”

  “Late.”

  “Better than never,” he counters, the sharpness in his words making me bite my tongue. “Besides, you know you can be late, right? The world won’t end if your ass isn’t in your seat by the time the bell rings.”

  “You’ve obviously been away from Diablo Beach Prep long enough to forget that after the bell is when the wolves come out to toy with their food before they tear it apart.”

  “Yeah, that shit doesn’t exactly apply to me,” Damien scoffs. “I am the wolf now.”

  In retrospect, he always has been. While he may have just gotten vicious, he’s always been allowed to exist within the folds of the ruffians in Diablo Beach. It may have been because of his ties to the Valentinos, or his reputation as Sheriff Black’s son, but it was still somehow a place Jessa was excluded from. She was too kind, too gentle, too much like me.

  “Must be nice,” I murmur bitterly.

  Damien turns his head to look at me as we roll up to the last stoplight before the highway begins to undulate along the coastline for the next few miles. “No use acting like you won’t benefit from it now.”

  Despite my own better judgment, I meet eyes with him across the car, for once not shying away from his darkened stare. “What are you talking about?”

  “You really think pe
ople are going to fuck with you now that you’re mine?” he asks.

  I swallow, a nervous gulp I can’t keep from happening as I wait for a green light to give me a reprieve from his eyes. “You mean part of the Snake Eyes?”

  “No, I mean mine,” he responds, gaze sliding away from mine a split second before the car continues rumbling down the road. “You’re not a part of the gang, remember?”

  I lean as far away from him as possible, my elbow pressing against the pane of glass to my right as I stare out the window. “Oh right, no girls allowed. Unless you have dirty work for us, of course. Remind me again, who’s childish?”

  I cringe as a city bus floats by on the other side of the highway. Talk about ironic timing.

  But it’s not my fault the Snake Eyes ideals are stuck in the past. Medical schools in the nineteenth century had a better female acceptance rate.

  I suppose if all-girl gangs like the Black Roses can unapologetically uphold their standards, so can everyone else.

  Still, it’s slightly irritating that the Snake Eyes use girls the way they do, giving them just enough room at the table to exploit them. I had never felt worse about myself than when Damien forced me to do their bidding, his bidding, hunting down a member of the Black Roses for the sole purpose of cruelty and getting under the skin of his rivals.

  Maybe that had been the first time I had realized he had truly changed. Maybe I had always known if he ever came back, he wouldn’t be the same.

  I haven’t been the same, either.

  “What are you so pissed off about over there?” I hear him ask me. “Upset you’re gonna be tardy for what, homeroom?”

  I shift my gaze in his direction, suspicious that he knows what my first period of the day is, but not surprised. I know he’s had various entities watching me since the get go, just the way he’s had them watching everyone else. Once he came to reign over the Snake Eyes, he got to work shockingly fast.

  “That reminds me, get me a copy of your class schedule,” he continues. “I’m sick of asking about you. I want to be able to pinpoint exactly where you are, every minute of every day.”

  I roll my eyes, knowing full well I’m going to do exactly what he says. I can’t risk taking any false steps, at least not while he’s still dead set on making me suffer.

  “Can’t I just tell you?” I say anyway, purposefully ribbing him against my own best interests. “Since you never forget anything and all?”

  To my surprise, his expression stays unaffected, and he gives a nod. “Okay. Give it to me then. Tell me all about your day.”

  I grimace, deciding if he really wants the info, I’ll give it to him at a rapid fire pace. “Well, first period is homeroom, room 208. Second period is English Lit, room 450. Third period, Chemistry. Room 29,” I shoot off quickly. “After lunch, I have World History in room 3B. Then fifth period, Trig, room 603. Sixth period, room 708, World Politics.”

  I closet a grin when I’m done. Have fun remembering all those numbers.

  Damien gives a slow nod. “Okay. So, 208, 450, 29, 3B, 603, and Seven…zero…eight. Got it.” He shoots a self-satisfied smirk in my direction.

  I sink down in my seat and stay quiet on the rest of our journey, one that eventually leaves the coastal highway and loops back around towards school. By the time Diablo Beach Prep comes into view, I’ve never been more glad to see it’s looming gray façade than I am now.

  To my surprise, even though we’re at least fifteen minutes late, there’s still plenty of students hanging around various spots around campus, populating the halls and stairways and darkened alcoves like groups of lost spirits.

  So this is what it’s like after the bell rings, I muse, getting out of the car and following Damien through the parking lot towards school grounds. Most people pretend to pay us no mind, but I still catch curious stares out of the corner of my eye as they wonder what someone like me is doing with someone like him.

  I’m a prisoner, I feel like screaming. Fucking HELP ME!

  But I know it would do no good. I would be screaming into the void, as helpless as a non-virgin in a slasher movie.

  No one is going to risk getting fucked up by Damien or the rest of the volatile presence that makes up the Snake Eyes these days, especially over someone like me. I’m a nobody, and I thought I liked it that way, until he made it so I didn’t.

  I trail him up the first set of stairs towards the main entrance, averting my eyes as we head towards a trio of Snake Eyes members and the girls who hang off them like moss on cypress trees.

  Damien lifts the honeybun I gave him from the confines of the binder he’s carrying, tossing it towards a girl leaned against the railing of the stairs before sidling up next to her. “Got you something,” he says sweetly as she clutches it in her spindly pink-tipped fingers. She doesn’t look like she would even consider eating something like that for the life of her, her tight skirt clinging to the curves of a slender, near perfect body, but for Damien, she’s willing to make an exception.

  “Aww!” I hear her whinny as Damien shoots me one last look before turning his attention back to the girl who’s acting like it’s Christmas morning.

  Whatever.

  Damien has always been popular, and if he wants to use me as a catalyst to come onto other girls, so be it. I’m not jealous, I’m elated. Especially if it means he leaves me alone.

  But I have a feeling that’s so far from the truth it’s not even worth thinking about twice, and the notion floats away just as quickly as it arrived, leaving me hopeless again.

  6

  My eyes stray out over the parking lot, focusing on the black Cadillac belonging to Sylas Andreas, the leader of the Club of Daggers. The car had been a blast to drive, but even more fun to steal. Watching the Daggers get their collective panties in a twist over its absence had been the perfect segway from my life as military school grunt to newly coronated leader of the Snake Eyes.

  When the Valentinos had called me back to Diablo Beach after my cousin Rey’s arrest, I knew everything was about to change. For the longest time I had tried convincing myself that I wouldn’t return, that there was nothing here for me. But it was like they knew I couldn’t deny my ingrained need for revenge.

  First, there was the call to avenge Rey for getting framed by the Daggers and thrown in the clink.

  Then, there was my own personal vendetta against my father, one I guarantee they knew I couldn’t resist.

  Despite being the Sheriff’s son, I had always been the bad seed, the one closer to the Valentinos, my mother’s side, than I was a Black. It was like my father knew that, and that was why he sent me away. To keep me from falling totally for my predilection for the dark side, especially in the face of tragedy. Only his plan had backfired, and now we’ve found ourselves here, at the cusp of a madness that sucks me in further day by day.

  It’s why he’s still keeping me at arm’s length, why he won’t let me back in the house. He knows he fucked up, but I’m not sure he knows just to what extent. Still, if he wants me gone now, locking me away at some prison academy half a state away is no longer an option. This time, he’s going to actually have to have me arrested if he wants me put away.

  And that can’t happen.

  Not when the other vendetta I have going, the one against Windy, has only just started to come to fruition.

  “Hell-oooo, Damien?” the girl I gave the honeybun to, Krystal, forces my attention towards her as she cuts off my vision with the wave of her hand. “Are you even listening?”

  She gives a subtle giggle like it’s meant to be a joke, either that or she’s just now realizing by the look in my eyes that yanking on my mental leash was a big fucking mistake.

  “What?” I ask, still distracted but wanting to leave no stone unturned, even if I know there’s a ninety-nine percent chance she’s offering nothing of value. Still, I can’t resist my inclination to be thorough in everything I do.

  “I was asking about tha
t girl you showed up with.”

  “Windy,” I respond, not sure why I’m so willing to answer her line of questioning. It must just be the path of least resistance, because my attention is already straying away again.

  This time it’s caught by Ace Zacarias, formerly Rey’s righthand man with the Snake Eyes, but now mine. I hadn’t been sure about Ace in the beginning, considering his loyalty could have started and ended with Rey, but he’s wound of earning my confidence, and fast.

  Surfing is Ace’s thing, one of a hundred different things the golden boy is good at, and it used to be mine. Along with his twin brother, Fabian, we’ve bonded over the water a few times since I’ve been back.

  But most of all, Ace is a dick, a monster narcissist with no self-filter, and that’s exactly the force I need to keep me on track. He’s also a key player on the DB Prep football team, which is just the kind of goody two-shoes vibe the Snake Eyes need to keep administrators off our ass and out of our business.

  He strolls up to us, his uniform blazer tossed in an iconic drape over one of his broad shoulders, ones that are always bare from the rotating wardrobe of T-shirts that are either sleeveless or butchered to be sleeveless. “Whatcha guys talking about?” he asks, giving my company, one I’m now regretting targeting at random to make Windy jealous, an appraising look.

  “Nothing,” I answer, trying to end the conversation before it goes any further.

  “‘Windy’,” Krystal continues, hooking two of her fingers into air quotes. “Who is she, your little sister or something?”

  I feel myself bristle, even though I’m pretty sure this girl hasn’t been around long enough to know any of my history. There’s new transplants into Diablo Beach all the time, and she’s no exception, but the question still annoys me.