Revenge at Raleigh High

by Hart, Callie

  The time for restrain is over. Now that we’re here and Jacob’s asleep in his bed less than a hundred meters away, I am officially antsy as fuck. Whatever Cameron has to say can wait.

  I head toward the house.

  Cam gets out of the Impala, hissing under his breath as he ducks down, hurrying after me along the perimeter of the gravel driveway. “What the fuck are you doing?” I hiss.

  “Don’t walk. If you’re deadset on doing this, then the least you can do is fucking run.”

  He sets off, sprinting like his life depends on it, Monty’s black bag, which I asked him to bring with him tonight, bouncing against his back as he darts over a small section of lawn, hitting the boundary line of the property, sticking to the shadows cast off by the forest. If someone just so happens to be looking out of a window right now, then fair enough. It’ll probably be really fucking difficult to see him. He’s just made his route around the side of the house three times longer, though. I duck and run straight for the ugly pink pile of bricks and wood, snarling with every step that brings me closer to Jacob.

  I’ve considered every way this thing could possibly play out. There’s a very real chance we’re going to get caught, and if that happens then I am definitely, one hundred percent, absolutely fucked. I’ll make sure that son of bitch gets what’s coming to him before I’m carted off in handcuffs, though. I’m gonna make that motherfucker bleed.

  Predictably, the security lights come on when I’m halfway around the house. Columns of brilliant white light explode into the night, cutting through the darkness like the search lights depicted in about a thousand prison break movies.

  Sshhhunk. Sshhhunk. Sshhhunk.

  I pause, back pressed to the wall, heart hammering in my ears, while I wait for the sound of a door or a window opening. No sound comes. Across the way, Cam’s stabbing a finger in the direction of the pool house, mouthing something furiously at me. It’s too dark over there in the shadows to see shit let alone read his fucking lips.

  Goddamn it, Cameron.

  I take off, shoving away from the wall, sprinting along the perimeter of the house, hoping like hell that no one catches sight of the dark blur racing over the grass.

  Once I’m around the rear of the property, I duck down behind the poolside Tiki bar—fucking poolside Tiki bar, FUCK these assholes—and I wait for Silver’s dad. He’s seconds behind me. Cam’s blowing hard as he sinks down into a crouch, leaning his head back against the bamboo framework of the bar, closing his eyes. The guy has no common sense. He looks relieved, which means he hasn’t given any thought to the next part of our plan; the part where we bust into the pool house and beat Jacob Weaving’s teeth right out of his head with a couple of wrenches.

  “That was close,” he pants.

  He was so amped up the night we made pizza. So full of fire and brimstone. The steel in his eyes had impressed the shit out of me; I’d thought he would be able to handle this. Now, I’m not so sure. I don’t want him getting caught. I don’t want to this to go south, and for him to wind up in prison. “Seriously, man. Go back to the car. Plausible deniability’s a thing. If you don’t get seen here—”

  “Fuck you,” he growls. “We’ve been through this already. We do not have time to relive the I-nearly-abandoned-Silver-on-the-day-she-was-born story. So shut…the fuck...up.”

  I respect Cam. I respect the shit out of him because he gave Silver life, and I owe him a lifetime’s happiness because of that. However, with every passing second, I’m beginning to see him as less of an authority figure and more of an annoying friend I want to throat punch. I don’t like being told to shut the fuck up by him, that’s for sure. I growl unhappily, suppressing the urge to curl my lip and show teeth.

  Has he ever found himself thrown into a holding cell that reeks of piss? Does he know what it’s like to be trapped in a tiny ten-by-ten windowless room with three other men, wondering who’s going to hit you first? I doubt it. He’s not going to accept the out I’m offering to him, though. I can see it in his eyes. He’s determined to follow this plan through, irrespective of whatever it might cost him; he loves Silver just as much as I do.

  “All right. Fine. Have it your way. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.” I get to my feet, hurrying across the patio to the rear of the house, skirting around the pool. From there, it’s a straight shot to the large single-story pool house to the left-hand side of yard. The building is twice the size of my trailer, bigger than most standard sized homes. The huge bay windows are darkened, curtains drawn within. The lights are off inside, too, no warm glow escaping through cracks in the heavy fabric.

  When we reach the door of the pool house, Cam sticks a hand into Monty’s mysterious black bag and pulls out a wrench; he raises the tool and pulls it back, fingers closed around it in a fist, like he’s about to use it to punch a hole through the double-glazed glass.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa! What the fuck are you doing?” I hiss. “You’ll wake up the entire neighborhood!”

  Cam looks disappointed. The guy’s been ramping himself up for the past seventy-two hours. He probably hasn’t been able to sleep for thinking about the lengths he might have to go to tonight. He’s played out the moment when we confront Jake in his head a thousand times. He’s become accustomed to the idea that he’s going to have to break, smash, cut, and hurt tonight in order to accomplish his goal, and now here I am, preventing him from following through and he doesn’t like it one bit.

  “Try the door first,” I tell him, jerking my chin at the sleek, narrow length of brushed metal in front of him.

  “It’ll be locked.”

  I say nothing. I stand and wait for him to try the fucking door handle.

  Cam places a gloved hand on the handle, huffing as he checks to see if the door’s already open. He gives me a smug I-told-you-so look when it doesn’t budge. “Should I smash it now?”

  “No! Fuck. Haven’t you heard of the element of surprise? Get out of the way.”

  Cam glares at me, but he steps to one side, giving me access to the door. I pull a hairpin and a slim, hooked pick from my wallet, sliding both into the door’s lock, feeling around for the moment when I hit the catch. Two seconds later, I find the point of resistance inside the barrel of the lock and I work my magic, popping it open with a deft twist of my wrist.

  “I should be worried by that,” Cam mutters under his breath. “The sad truth is that I’m just impressed.”

  That’s nothing. He’d be seriously fucking impressed if he saw me break into a Tesla in under five seconds flat. I keep that to myself, though.

  The door to the pool house swings silently open and I creep inside first, eyes sharp, squinting into the darkness. We’ve walked straight into the living area. A huge sectional couch monopolizes most of the space, arranged around the biggest flat screen T.V. I’ve ever fucking seen. It’s obscenely big, really. Cam arches a derisive eyebrow in the television’s direction as he follows behind me, silent, taking note of his surroundings. It’s great that he’s on the look-out, but he won’t be looking for the same things I’m looking for. Cam’s looking for people. Jake, to be precise. I’m scanning the bookcases and the shelves. The ceilings at the corners of the room. The Weavings are bound to have a camera system set up inside the main house, but inside the pool house? That’s a tricky one. This is Jake’s domain. He’s unlikely to want Big Brother spying on him in his private sanctuary. The shit he gets up to in here would probably even turn his father’s stomach.

  My instincts prove to be correct. I see no blinking red lights as I cast my eyes around. I hear no faint electronic whirring that would spell disaster for us and our mission.

  There are two rooms leading off from the main living space of the pool house. I head toward the door on the left first since it’s closer. The blinds are drawn inside the room, but a faint blue glow from the lit pool outside works its way between the gaps, casting enough light to illuminate our surroundings. Not a bedroom, it would seem. Mirrors line the far wall. In t
he very center of the room, a bench press takes up most of the space, the bar still loaded with weight. By the window, a treadmill and an exercise bike loom out of the shadows. Obviously, Jake uses this as his private home gym, though God knows why he would ever need to use it. Coach Quentin drills the football team to breaking point every single day after school. Those training sessions are fucking exhausting. Jake’s definitely taking steroids if he comes home and hits this place up after taking such a beating for the Roughnecks.

  I'm backing out of the room when Cameron turns, catching sight of himself in the mirror next to us. Fuck knows how he didn't notice the mirrored wall before. He jumps when he sees the dark shape moving next to him and immediately thinks he's under attack. The wrench he tried to smash the front door with almost goes flying as he lashes out with it.

  I catch him by the wrist in the nick of time. A split second later and he would have sent the tool crashing into the glass. “Jesus fucking Christ,” I hiss. “Give that to me.” I rip the wrench out of his hand, confiscating it in a swift move that should honestly have taken place before we even entered the pool house. “You are a fucking liability, Parisi,” I tell him under my breath. “Just be cool man. Take a deep breath. Get your shit together. Chill. Don't you dare get another weapon out of that bag until I tell you to. Stay behind me and don't move a muscle until I tell you to.”

  Cam’s expression says it all: like me, he doesn’t appreciate being told what to do, but he's gonna land us in hot fucking water if I don't rein him in once and for all.

  My pulse should be racing. My adrenaline’s high, pumping urgently around my body, making me hum with energy, but my heart rate is a slow, steady thump in my chest. I've always been like this in dangerous, high-stakes situations that would leave others anxious, bouncing on the balls of their feet, ready to explode into action. I’m galvanized, sharper, focused, my synapses firing so rapidly that I jump from one thought to the next in a flurry of mental activity. Shame Cameron wasn't wired the same way. This would be going a lot smoother if he was.

  We cross the living room, heading for the other door, and once we reach it, I open it without hesitation. We've already wasted too much time. Also, we’ve made enough fucking noise since we walked into the pool house, and the last thing I want to do is give Jake an opportunity to bail out of a window and disappear off into the night before we’ve had a chance to spend any quality time with him.

  This time, we hit pay dirt.

  The door swings open, and voila. Definitely a bedroom. There are clothes strewn all over the floor, along with discarded shoes, books, plates, cutlery, and empty fast food wrappers. Unlike the rest of the pool house, this room is a fucking dump. It looks like a bunch of vagrants have been squatting in here for weeks. It's a miracle we didn't smell the damn bedroom the moment I picked the lock and we entered the pool house,

  Gross doesn't even cover it. The place is a health and safety hazard. I don't know if Cam's up to date on his shots but I, for one, am glad that I had a tetanus booster last year.

  In the corner, the king-sized bed shoved up against the wall contains a body. A hand pokes out from underneath the welter of blankets. A foot. Tufts of dark hair are visible against white, fluffy pillows. A loud, juddering sound splinters the silence. The motherfucker is snoring like a goddamn chainsaw. Doesn't look like Jake knows we've broken into his home and are planning on causing him serious harm. From the sounds of things, the bastard could sleep through an air raid and be none the fucking wiser.

  Ahh, Jake. Jake, Jake, Jake. Our individual codes of ethics are diametrically opposed. Our hearts and our consciences pull us in different directions, but we both have strong personalities. We both inspire strong feelings in others, that sometimes result in them contemplating murder. We are both the kind of guy who shouldn’t let his guard down, even when he’s sleeping. Except you’ve dropped the motherfucking ball, haven’t you, son? You have let your guard down. Here you are, sleeping like you’re already fucking dead…

  I motion down the duffel bag, giving him the go-ahead to take out another weapon. The moment he and I have both been waiting for has finally arrived. Jake should never have been allowed to go this long unpunished for what he did to Silver, although there is something bittersweet about the fact that so much time has passed since that party at Leon Wickman's house. The first couple of weeks after Jake raped Silver, he was probably on edge. Antsy. Wondering if a pair of handcuffs were going to be slapped on his wrists and he was going to be carted off to jail. He probably held his breath a lot. Every time his father's phone rang, he probably suffered at the hands of his own paranoia, but as the days and weeks continued to roll on without consequence, Jake must have become more and more complacent.

  Darhower shut Silver down when she tried to report to him what had happened. She didn't tell her parents. Her friends were actively shunning and bullying her in the corridors of Raleigh High. She had no one by her side. No one was listening to her. No one believed her, which essentially meant that Jacob was in the clear.

  Now, after months of rote Raleigh High routine, showing up at school, intimidating Silver in the classrooms and the canteen, making life as miserable as possible for her at every available turn and absolutely nothing happening about it, Jacob must think he's gotten away with his crimes scot-free. Well, tonight, here in his pool house, with none of his dumb, knuckle-dragging Neanderthal football cronies to back him up, Jacob is about to find out just how wrong he was.

  Cam’s nerves have dissipated since we entered Jacob's bedroom. They’ve gone. Evaporated. The bumbling, panicking guy, tripping over his own feet and shaking with uncertainty is gone, and the Cameron from pizza night has finally made an appearance. His down-turned mouth is locked in an unhappy grimace, firm but set. He's made up his mind. He's accepted what he's about to do, and he's made his peace with it. The change in him is miraculous.

  When I glance over and see the weapon he’s chosen to draw out of the black duffle bag, a cold chill skates up my spine. There are plenty of implements Cameron could have selected to hurt Jacob, plenty of things that could cause him immense pain, and drag out this whole experience for a very long time indeed. Cameron's choice of weapon is endgame, though. It's the most final option he could've chosen. It’s the desert eagle.

  Aiutami, Passerotto. Aiutami…a premere il...grilletto.

  The cool, silver metal in Silver's father's hands gleams.

  My heartrate slows.

  Time slows.

  What the fuck am I supposed to do here? It's one thing terrorizing a vile asshole who hurt someone you love. It's one thing doling out much-needed justice. It's another thing entirely staring down the barrel of a murder charge and preparing to pull the trigger. If I allow Cameron to do this, I’m more than complicit. I'm an accessory. Even if we aren't caught for the crime, this kind of violence leaves a stain on the soul that can’t be undone. How far am I willing to go here? How much am I willing to lose? Am I willing to pay the ultimate price? Am I willing to lose Silver? Really lose her, for good?

  Cameron raises the gun, determination sparking in eyes that have hardened to flint. There's nothing soft about him now. Nothing comedic or unsure. His finger hovers over the trigger, a millimeter above the steel. If I’m going to stop this, I have to do it now. The moment presses down on me, weighing in from all sides. I am underwater. I’m drowning in the depths. The pressure of a billion tons of water crushing my lungs. Cameron's eyes narrow. His hand’s steady, arm outstretched. The moment hangs heavy as poison in the air, and I—

  Jacob's loud snoring abruptly cuts off, and the boy in the bed jerks awake. Cam's lips peel back, his teeth bared. He takes a half step forward, ready of fire, but then the covers on the bed move and Jacob is sitting up, suddenly alert and awake, scrambling back against his pillows.

  Fuck!

  Shock washes through me. This is really happening. This is really happening. I'm about to watch Cameron Parisi put a bullet in the evil piece of shit who raped his daughter.
But…

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa! The fuck you playing at, Moretti? I know you're still mad but having me murdered in the middle of the night seems a little excessive, don’t you think?”

  Holy fucking shit!

  Now, my heart kicks into overdrive.

  Now, I can feel my pulse racing at my temples and thumping in my ears…

  …because the guy Cameron Parisi nearly put down in his sleep like a dog isn't Jacob Weaving after all.

  It's Zander fucking Hawkins.

  25

  SILVER

  I shower and get ready for bed, taking time to give myself a face mask. My phone dings while I’m rinsing my face, but I’m still covered in gunk, so I don’t read the message right away. I’m in no hurry. It’s probably Dad. Given how weird he was acting earlier, I’m almost one hundred percent certain he was going to meet a woman. He can deny it until he’s blue in the face but that bag he was carrying around with him could only have been an overnight bag. And I know him; if he’s planning on sleeping over at someone’s house then it has to be fairly serious. He doesn’t mess around with people’s feelings. He must like whoever he’s been seeing for it to have gotten this far, which is confusing.

  When has he has time to meet and date someone? And who the hell could it be? He goes to the office for a couple of hours every day, but other than that the man seems to have decided not to leave the house come hell or high water.

  It’s past midnight now. He knows I’ll be heading to sleep soon so he’s probably just checking in with me, making sure everything’s okay before I pass out for the night. I pat my face dry, wiping remnants of the thick cream from the edges of my face with a towel, and then I head back into my bedroom, picking up my phone from the end of my bed.