by Nicole Fox
I change course and meet her outside.
“Hey.” The word feels like a well-deserved exhale. “I’ve been looking for you.”
Penny’s green eyes narrow in surprise. “Are you drunk?”
“Oh my God. Would everyone stop asking me that? I can be pleasant.”
She laughs so hard she almost snorts. “No, you really can’t.”
God, her laugh. Her.
Everyone is inside waiting for J.C.’s announcement, so we’re alone on the deck, and I decide to make good use of it.
I haven’t seen her for a week. I’ve had six long days to consider how I want to rectify my feelings for her now with my plot for revenge, and it was an easy choice.
One made even simpler by the sight of her standing in front of me.
Grab Penny and kiss her or make her miserable?
There’s no competition.
I wrap an arm around Penny’s back, my hand sliding under the loose material of her sweater and over her warm skin, and dip her back in a kiss.
She’s surprised, gasping against my lips, but collects herself quickly.
She’s more intoxicating than the alcohol in my veins. In just a matter of seconds, I feel myself losing control.
I don’t know how to pull away from her.
I don’t know how to hit the brakes.
Penny, however, does. She presses her palms to my chest and backs away, gently disentangling from the kiss.
“We have to talk, Noah.”
I sigh. “I know, I know. I fucked things up.”
“No,” she says, waving her hands. “It’s not that. There’s something I need to tell you.”
“You’ve said enough,” I assure her. “You confessed a lot to me, and I needed time to process it all. I’m not the best at dealing with my emotions, as you may have noticed. Instead of dealing with my shit, I blamed you for it. I was convinced you stole my dad away from me because… because yours was dead.”
She grabs my hand. “I never would have done that to you, Noah. Never.”
I run my thumb over her knuckles. “I know. Saying it out loud makes it sound even more ridiculous. Of course, you didn’t.”
“Well, now that we have that sorted, I do have to tell you—”
“No, please. I’m a little drunk right now, so I think it’s a good time to get this all out.” I wince. “I know that sounds bad, like I can only be vulnerable when I’m drunk, but you know what I mean.”
Penny smiles at me, her glossy pink lips pinched at the corners, tiny dimples visible in her cheeks.
It gives me the confidence to keep going. I feel like a blathering idiot, but if she’s smiling, something must be going right.
“Penny, the deal is, I’m—”
A roar erupts from inside, loud enough the deck shakes beneath our feet.
“What the—?” Penny opens the back door to try and figure out what’s going on and immediately, a guy just inside the door points at her and shouts.
“Here she is! I found her!”
Just like that, Penny is pulled through the back door into the party.
I scramble after her, trying to figure out what is going on.
When I get inside, she has disappeared into the crowd, but a group of guys are pushing and shoving into a line near the bar where J.C. is standing, a piece of paper held in his hands.
“Thank you, one and all, for your applications. It was very difficult to make the decision, though I had a wonderful time pouring over your messages, photos, and very enlightening videos.” He winks at a buxom brunette in the front of the crowd. “But in the end, there was no competition.”
Penny is pushed into an opening on the floor in front of J.C., her eyes wide and confused. I see her lips mouthing words, but I can’t hear her.
No one else seems to, either, because they don’t answer her.
Instead, they lift her up so she’s standing on the bar next to J.C.
J.C. grabs her arm and lifts it into the air like she’s just won a heavyweight title. “Introducing, The Sacrifice!”
At the same moment the words come out of his mouth, I finally look at the paper in his hands.
It’s a picture.
The picture.
The one Penny texted me that day from the bathroom.
J.C. has placed some tasteful emojis over her nipples, but he has also photoshopped her face from another picture she sent onto the topless one, making it all too clear who it is in the photo.
I have no idea how he got ahold of the pictures or how exactly I’m going to remove his head from his body for doing this.
But I can’t think about any of that right now.
All I can think about is how pale Penny looks standing up there on the bar, a wave of guys yelling and cheering and calling “dibs” on her like she’s an amusement ride rather than a person.
Then, she looks at me.
And my heart breaks.
Her green eyes go glassy with tears, her cheeks flame red, and she grabs the picture from J.C.
J.C. looks startled, and I know why.
In his mind, Penny volunteered.
That’s what I told him, after all, that day in pre-calc. I told him the picture was Penny’s application.
For the Spring Fling,” I told him. For The Sacrifice. It’s an audition. An application.
He has no idea she didn’t actually want this.
No one knows.
They all think Penny signed up to be passed around like a cheap blunt.
She rips the picture in half, dropping the pieces like confetti over the crowd, and then jumps down and sprints from the room.
A few guys try to stop her, blocking her path and grabbing at her, too drunk to realize she wants to leave.
But she makes it through.
By the time I make it to the front door, all I see is a white blur disappearing into the tree line on the edge of the property.
I lower my head and run full-speed after her.
I have to fix this.
36
Penny
Humiliation fills me, heavy and shameful. It weighs me down, making it hard to keep moving, but I do.
I have to get away.
Far away.
For days, I’ve wanted to see Noah. I’ve wanted to talk to him, figure out what’s going on between us.
To know how he feels.
To tell him how I feel.
Now, I don’t ever want to see him again. I can’t.
How could he?
How the fuck could he?
I knew it was coming—the moment when he would make me regret everything.
I just didn’t realize it would be so public. So degrading.
I didn’t realize he was planning to pass me around to every guy in our grade.
Just the thought of what those drunken horny idiots wanted to do to me makes my stomach turn.
Actually, I feel like I might be sick.
I stop running and grab a tree for balance, bending over. My breath is coming too quickly. I can’t seem to get enough air into my lungs.
The harder I try, the worse it gets.
My pained wheezes are so loud, I don’t hear Noah coming up behind me until his hand lands on my back.
“Penny.”
I spin away from him, tripping over a tree root and catching myself hard on the trunk of another tree.
It knocks the wind from me, but that actually seems to help.
I gasp, filling my lungs with air, and then make the conscience decision to exhale and inhale slowly, calming my body down even while my mind races on.
“Penny, I didn’t—”
“You sure made great use of that picture,” I say, cutting him off. I don’t have the energy to hear whatever bullshit excuse he’s going to make.
I’m not even sure why he’s still trying to make excuses. Wasn’t this his grand finale? I hope so. If it wasn’t, I can’t imagine what else he could have planned.
“Very creative.”
“That wasn�
�t me!”
“Enough, Noah, okay? You’ve made no secret that you planned to ruin my life. I’m not an idiot. I sent that picture to you. How would anyone else have gotten it?”
“I don’t know.” He runs both his hands through his hair, tugging on it. “J.C. must have taken it off my phone and—”
“If J.C. did that, it would have been because you told him it was okay! I know how things work in your group. He wouldn’t have done anything to me unless you told him he could.”
“I didn’t mean to!” Noah moves towards me, his steps clumsy because of the uneven ground and how much he’s had to drink. “J.C. has been pestering me for weeks about Spring Fling, and I’ve been ignoring him, telling him to take care of everything. He probably brought it up, but I was too distracted to pay any attention. I know this looks bad, but I didn’t mean for it to happen, and J.C. didn’t know. I’m still going to kill him for it. But he didn’t know.”
I don’t want to trust him. I’ve been burned too many times before, and I don’t want to be caught off guard again.
But Noah seems sincere.
I can’t understand why he would be going to such great lengths to explain away this prank unless… it wasn’t a prank.
Maybe it was a misunderstanding.
I take a deep breath and shake my head. “I just… I don’t know if I can trust you.”
He takes another step towards me, and I don’t retreat this time, but I wrap my arms tightly around myself.
Noah’s arms fall to his sides. “That’s what I was trying to tell you before.”
“You mean, before the entire school saw me topless?”
He clenches his fists. “Yes. Before that. I was trying to tell you that I’m sorry for taking out my anger on you. It wasn’t fair. I haven’t been fair to you.”
I stare at him, trying to decide if this is really happening or if, when I fell, I hit my head.
The latter would certainly make more sense.
“What?”
“I’m sorry,” he repeats, moving closer, his dark eyes sorrowful. “My family was fucked up, and I didn’t realize it. Rather than admit my dad abandoned me and my mom, I blamed you. It was easier to think you caused it. It was easier for me to believe that no one can be trusted and everyone is out to get me than to think that my own dad didn’t love my family enough to stay. I know that doesn’t make sense, but—”
I shake my head. “No, I get it.”
“You do?”
I wish like hell I didn’t, but isn’t that what I’ve done with my mom?
She treats me like shit. Rather than blame her and admit she doesn’t love me, I blame myself.
I’ve spent years morphing myself into the kind of person she wants me to be—the kind of person everyone expects me to be—rather than being myself.
“It’s easier to blame your problems on something you can control. You could blame me and choose to end our relationship, and I can blame myself and choose to believe my mom might one day care about me.”
His mouth turns down in a sympathetic frown. “Exactly.”
I look down at the ground and kick a tree root with the tow of my shoe. “You didn’t sign me up to be The Sacrifice?”
Suddenly, Noah’s hands are on my arms, and he’s pulling me against him, cradling my head against his chest.
“God, no, Penny. No. I didn’t. I’m…I’m so fucking sorry.”
Tears fill my eyes once again. I try to blink them back, but they come anyway.
Noah feels me shaking and holds me at arm’s length, worried eyes scanning my face.
“What is it?”
I give him a soggy laugh and wipe my nose with my sleeve. “We’ve really done some damage to each other.”
He bites his lower lip and nods. “Yeah, we have.”
“I think this relationship might qualify as toxic.”
He nods and then freezes, one dark brow lifting. “Relationship. You said relationship.”
Maybe it would be smart to be done with Noah.
To start over and try to forget any of this happened.
But when I picture my life, I can’t seem to imagine one without Noah in it.
When I try, there’s a yawning blank space where he should be, a Noah-sized black hole that eats away at everything else until there’s nothing left.
I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to have a life without him.
“That’s what I’m saying,” I say. “Or, that’s what I want, at least. Is that what you—”
Before I can get the question out, Noah crushes me against him in a kiss. Underneath the alcohol, he still tastes like cinnamon.
He runs his hands under my sweater and up my waist, squeezing like he’s afraid I might slip away.
I curl my arms around his neck, fingering the curly waves at the back of his head, and pressing every part of me against him, trying to get rid of any blank space between us.
“I’m sorry,” he gasps between kisses, “about the picture. I’ll make J.C. delete it.”
“There were copies. I’m sure someone else has one by now, too.”
“I’ll make them delete it, too,” he growls. “And after that, I’ll delete it from their minds. With my fists.”
Surprisingly, I laugh.
It feels too soon to think anything relating to this day is funny, but I can’t help it. It is.
“Honestly, I don’t even know if I’m that mad about the picture.”
Noah stops kissing my neck to look down at me like I’ve gone mad. “Excuse me?”
“I mean, I don’t want anyone to have it, except for you, but my mom will hate that it got out. I kinda like that idea.”
“Are you going to start rebelling against your mom by doing things she’ll hate?” he asks. “Because I think that is destructive behavior, but depending on what you have in mind, I’d be more than happy to participate.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Definitely,” he says, cupping my ass in his hands and pulling me against him. “For instance, sex in the woods? I’d be down to help you with that. Also, a sex tape. It would be for my own private consumption, of course, but we could make sure your mom knew it existed.”
I laugh and lightly slap his chest. “You’re gross.”
“And you’re incredible,” he whispers, growing suddenly serious. “I mean it, Penny. Whatever you want from me, you got it.”
The crunch of footsteps behind me makes me jump.
I spin around, my back against Noah’s chest.
But when I see the leather-clad group moving through the trees, my heart stops.
Tank steps into the small clearing and grins at me. “I told you to lure him into the woods, not make him fall in love with you. But A+ for going the extra mile.”
My heart sinks as I realize what I’ve done. What I forgot to do.
I stayed away from Noah for a week because I couldn’t look him in the eyes knowing what I was going to do. Tank kept texting me, warning me to stay quiet and go through the plan or else Delanie would be hurt, and I was torn.
Until this morning. I woke up with the realization that I couldn’t do this. I’d call the police and tell them about the Hell Prince’s threats, I’d tell Noah the truth, and I’d get myself out of this whole mess.
That’s what I was trying to tell Noah when J.C. announce me as the pick for The Sacrifice. Then, everything just…happened.
When I ran out of the house and into the trees, I wasn’t thinking.
I had nothing in my mind except getting away
I didn’t know Noah would follow me. I figured he’d stay back at the cabin and rejoice in his victory over me.
But he didn’t.
He followed me right into the trap I’d set for him.
I spin around and grab his shirt. “Noah, I—”
“Stop.” His voice is ice cold, and he tears my hands away, backing up. The look on his face breaks my heart. It’s utter and complete betrayal.
“But Noah. Please—”
“Really, Angel,” Tank says, gently brushing past me. “You’ve done more than enough. Go ahead and skedaddle. Unless you want to stay and see what just desserts looks like.”
Then, before I can do anything to stop it, Tank and two of the Hell Princes grab Noah and pull him further into the woods.
37
Penny
The run back to the cabin seems to take three times as long as the first time.
I’m panicked, crashing through branches and stumbling over roots and rocks in my hurry to get back to the cabin.
To find help.
From someone. Anyone.
I have no idea what Tank has planned for Noah. I don’t know if they’re going to keep him in the woods or drive him somewhere else.
If they do leave with him, what chance do I even have of finding him again?
I push the thought away and keep running.
The cabin comes into view. The windows are steamed over from how many people are inside.
No one sees me running through the grass.
And the music drowns out my screams.
I save my breath and run even faster.
Inside the cabin, the air is thick and warm. In the short time since I’ve left, the party has devolved into a sex club.
Couples are grinding against each other on the makeshift dance floor, other people are making out on the couch and heavy petting on the floor to a ridiculously loud soundtrack of bass-heavy hip hop.
I scan the room, looking for J.C., but I don’t see him. His blow horn is sitting on the bar unattended.
I move out of the main room and go up the stairs.
The cabin is massive, way bigger than it looks from the outside. There’s a basement with a few bedrooms, a main floor with a hallway of bedrooms, and the second floor which wraps around the back of the house and hangs over a large patio that looks out on the lake.
In the tangle of bodies and people, it could take me twenty minutes to find him.
Noah doesn’t have that long.
I open one door and shout J.C.’s name. The people inside, all in various stages of nakedness on a bed, yell for me to get out.
None of them are J.C.
I do the same thing in a second room and then a third.
Finally, as I’m about to open the fourth door, it opens…