by Bella King
“So, once you’ve found her, make sure you have the right girl. Just listen in on her and you’ll hear somebody use her name,” Andrew continued, turning off the water, “And Daniel will give you the supplies so that you can burn her bed to ashes. Is everything clear?”
I nodded, mimicking him by turning off my own shower.
“Good,” he said with a wicked smile. “I’ll see you later then.”
I watched him, still dripping wet from the shower, as he sauntered over to his towel and wrapped it around his waist. He turned to me and winked before walking out of the showers.
I couldn’t believe what had just happened, but it was too real to second guess. Andrew had some serious balls on him, and I wasn’t just talking about the one dangling between his thick thighs. The man was daring, charming, and evil. It was a recipe for disaster.
Chapter 8
Natasha’s warning stuck in my head as I went through the rest of my classes that day. She seemed to think that Andrew was the literal spawn of Satan, hellbent on running through women until his dick fell off.
I, personally, rejected this notion, but only because I was hopelessly charmed by his sinister ways. His whole gang was delicious, but I had to keep a proper head on my shoulders. I was getting wrapped up in serious business, and if they saw me as just another cheap fuck, then I wouldn’t last long in their ranks. Women who got on their knees too quickly for guys like that always ended up as throwaway pussy. Perhaps that’s what had happened to Natasha as well.
I didn’t dare tell Eden how deep I was getting involved with Andrew and his gang, but it wouldn’t be long until she figured it all out. She asked a lot of questions, and I knew she didn’t approve of what I was doing. She didn’t know the whole story, though, so I couldn’t blame her. For now, I wanted to keep it under wraps.
That was the initial plan, anyway. Laying low got blown out of the water the moment I spotted Troy and Martin sitting together in the lunch hall. I couldn’t help myself; I took my tray over to them and sat down across from them.
“What’s up, boys?” I asked, taking a sip of my chocolate milk through a thin, bent straw.
They looked surprised to see me.
“Hey, Rose. Had Andrew talked to you yet?” Martin asked, leaning in as though he was saying something secret.
I nodded. “Oh yes, and he was butt-ass-naked too.”
The men chuckled, and Troy shook his head. “That fucker is always looking for a chance to take his clothes off. I’ve seen him naked more times than Natasha has at this point.”
Martin threw a hard elbow into Troy’s ribs at the mention of Natasha.
Troy winced at the pain but shut his mouth after that.
“I already know about Natasha. She and Andrew were dating, right?” I said, taking another sip of my chocolate milk.
“We’re not supposed to talk about that,” Martin said.
“Why not?” I asked, leaning in.
“It’s just one of those things, but I am sad they’re not together anymore,” Troy chimed in.
Martin laughed. “Yeah, that pussy was the bomb.”
“Huh?” I said, confused. What sort of strange thing was going on between all of them?
Troy shrugged, picking up his drink and taking a sip. “We like the share.”
“Don’t tell her that, man,” Martin said.
“You basically already did,” Troy argued.
“Okay, I’m not an idiot. I get it,” I said, shaking my head. “You guys like to gang up on women. My ex-boyfriend tried to get me into that one time, but I wasn’t going to let a bunch of strangers hit it,” I said.
Troy held up a hand. “Woah now, it’s not like that. Andrew may have been sharing, but we weren’t just ganging up on her.”
“Yeah,” Martin added, almost looking offended. “It was a nice sort of thing.”
I was still confused about how guys as rough and territorial as these men were could share a woman in a nice way. They looked more like they would pump and dump her in the school halls after dark, like they almost did to me last night. I wasn’t sure I bought their story all the way.
“Is that your plan for me?” I asked bluntly.
Martin laughed. “You’re not part of the gang yet, Rose. You don’t get that kind of treatment.”
“Oh really? What is it, like a special treat?” I asked jokingly.
“Kind of, yeah,” Troy admitted with a shrug. “Natasha seemed to think so.”
Martin threw another elbow into Troy’s ribcage, shutting him up. I felt relieved by that, because I was beginning to grow weary of this talk about Natasha. She was a bitch to me, and plus, I felt a little bit jealous about her involvement with Andrew and his boys. I didn’t want to feel that way, but it came naturally.
I dug into my food, trying to hide my expression of disgust at the repeated mention of Natasha. I already had more favor among this group than she did, but that didn’t stop me feeling like I had to earn more from them. It was fucked up that I was seeking their approval, but what else could I do? At this point, they had already sucked me too far into their gang for me to even dream of getting out. Besides, I was starting to like them, even if they were a little rough around the edges. That’s what made it fun.
Martin and Troy went back to eating too, digging into their heavily piled plates of food. They must have to consume an egregious number of calories to keep up with all that muscle mass. They were both at least twice my size and could probably lift five of me without breaking a sweat. Andrew had definitely chosen some hefty guys to roll with. Kudos to him.
“Hey,” I said, looking up at them. “Do you know Laney?”
Martin scoffed, shoveling more food into his mouth with a plastic fork.
“She stole a whole carton of cigarettes from us. Not to mention all the times she ratted us out to the administration,” Troy explained.
I rubbed my chin. “So, I’m supposed to find her bed, but there are like a zillion girls at this school.”
“Red hair,” Troy said.
“I know that, but that still leaves a lot of faces,” I replied.
“She’s right there,” Martin said casually, pointing a finger behind me.
I turned around and scanned the throngs of students walking to and from tables, eating, and shooting the breeze with their friends. I didn’t spot her until I heard a burst of haughty laughter that could only come from a girl who had rich parents. That was definitely her.
“Damn, I guess my job is going to be easy then,” I said, watching her as he laughed and joked with her friends at the table.
“Burn that bitch to the ground,” Troy muttered, shaking his head.
I looked back at him. “I can handle this. She’s tight with Natasha, right?”
Both men nodded.
“Okay, so Natasha already confronted me about Andrew this morning. What’s to stop her from retaliating and taking me out after I burn Laney’s bed?”
“She wouldn’t know it was you,” Martin said.
“She totally would. Do you have any other women in your gang?” I questioned, already seeing holes in his logic.
“No,” he replied.
“So, who else would be in the women’s dormitory burning beds? It’s pretty obvious. Even my friend Eden is concerned because she sleeps right beside me. Natasha will retaliate,” I explained.
“She’s not going to fuck with you because you’re with us. If she does, then there will be greater consequences for her,” Martin said.
I didn’t know how much Natasha feared Andrew’s gang, but if it was anything close to what I hoped, it would be enough to keep her away from me. They were feuding, but gangs usually kept their distance from each other unless they were in an all-out war with one another. I didn’t think that was the case here… yet.
“I’ll do what I have to do, but I need protection is Natasha starts sending her goons after me,” I said.
Troy smacked a fist against his open palm menacingly. “We got you co
vered.”
I laughed. “In the women’s dormitory? I need another woman.”
Troy scrunched up his nose. “We don’t usually accept women into the crew. It has to be someone special.”
“Am I special?” I asked.
Troy laughed. “You’re about as special as a number 2 pencil, darling. You’re only with us because you know too much.”
I felt a bit offended that they didn’t think I was special, but I knew why they had me join them. It was that, or get rid of me, and it had been my choice to go with the former option. I may not have been special to them yet, but I was a resilient woman and I could prove my worth if I wanted to. Right now, though, the only thing I wanted to do was pass through initiation without getting killed.
“Now I have to stalk this bitch,” I said, springing up from my seat as Laney left her table. I didn’t want to lose sight of her now that I had found her. It would be worth it to hang around and skip a class or two in order to find out where her bed was.
Troy waved goodbye and Martin gave me a nod as I left the lunchroom, leaving my tray at the table so that I could follow Laney out. She walked so damn fast that I lost sight of her in the lunchroom among all the bustling students. Once I got out into the hallway, however, I caught sight of her again and quickened my pace to match hers.
Laney moved around a corner, disappearing from my view again. Damn, this woman was fast. She walked as though she were trying to get away from me, but I didn’t think she had seen me, much less knew who I was.
I came around the corner quickly, paying little attention to the students moving down the hall in the opposite direction. I bumped shoulders with another girl but moved around her too quickly to apologize. I wasn’t usually so rude, but I was on a mission and I felt like my life depended on it.
Laney took long steps on her short legs. I was amazed at how fast she could move with such a small body. She looked almost like a bug scuttling across the stone floor, looking for a dark hiding spot to stay until nightfall.
She rounded another corner into a less used hallway, which began to make me suspicious. Where was she going at this hour? Class was starting in ten minutes and she was heading far away from the classrooms. The school was so large that I didn’t know most of it, so I couldn’t say where she was heading.
I rounded the corner, peeking around it this time because there were no other students to protect me from being seen. I couldn’t risk being seen now. The minute she disappeared down another hallway, I sprung into the hall that she was previously walking down. Now, I had to follow her from a greater distance, which meant there was more chance of me losing her.
I poked my head around into the hallways that she went into, but I didn’t see anything. The hall was far too long for her to have gone down the entire thing. I had been afraid of losing her, but that looked like what had happened.
“Shit,” I muttered under my breath, looking at all the doorways and arches that she could have passed through. She could be anywhere now.
I walked up to the first one, listening for footsteps, but I heard nothing at all. Perhaps she had stopped walking and was in a classroom here. The only issue was, this didn’t look like the kind of place where there would be any usable classrooms. Most of the tall wooden doors were shut tight, probably bolted shut, and the doorways that were open led to more hallways. This place was a maze.
I continued walking down the hall toward the next open doorway, noting the musty smell that this area had. It was dank, like water had been dripping from the ceiling and hadn’t been moped up in ages. I wondered if anyone even came through this area. Perhaps Laney was attending a secret meeting.
I passed through a doorway and felt a small hand cover my mouth and the dull jolt of my head bludgeoned by a blunt object. Then, everything went black.
Chapter 9
I came to in a small room with a single yellow bulb hanging from the ceiling. I was tied to a chair with thick, scratchy ropes, and I could barely move my body. My mouth was covered in a handkerchief gag, but that didn’t stop me from letting out a yelp when I awoke.
“Shut the fuck up,” Laney said in a shrill voice, circling around to the front of me.
My eyes were still adjusting to reality, seeing two Laneys instead of one. I felt confused and unsure of what was going on, like someone had turned my brain down a few notches. I probably had a concussion.
“I don’t know who you are, or why you’re following me, but you better start talking now before I slit your throat,” Laney said, brandishing a long curved blade from the waistband of her skirt.
She took a step toward me, pressing the cold metal of the blade against my cheek. Adrenaline flowed through my body at the sensation of the blade, giving me a surge of brainpower so that I could think straight and waking me up in an instant.
Laney kept the blade on my cheek as she yanked down the handkerchief that made it impossible for me to speak, then she stepped back and held the blade with the tip to my throat. “Talk.”
My mind was racing, looking for a way out of this without revealing my affiliation with Andrew’s gang. There was, of course, no easy way out, but there had to be something. I wasn’t going to let some rich girl boss me around like this.
“My name is April,” I lied, looking around the room. It appeared as though we were in a closet. The door would have been directly behind me in this case. I couldn’t see if it was locked or not, but that could be assumed.
“Go on,” Laney said, pressing the point against my throat so hard that I was afraid she might kill me before I had the chance to explain myself.
“I wasn’t following you.” The moment the words left my lips, I knew that they weren’t believable. I was failing miserably at getting out of this in one piece.
Laney shook her head with her eyelids half-closed. “You’re so full of shit, April. I’m not buying it. Why are you following me? Are you with Andrew?” She asked, leaning in a bit as she said his name.
“I don’t know who that is,” I said, testing how much she would believe.
She chuckled. “April, you’re a terrible liar. So, Andrew was the one who sent you after me. I find it amusing that he found another woman to replace Natasha so quickly.”
I shrugged as much as I could under the strain of the ropes. “I don’t know anything about that. I was honestly trying to get to class,” I claimed, sticking to my story.
Wrong move. A spark of fury lit up in Laney’s green eyes. “Don’t fucking lie to me,” she shrieked, swiping the cold blade against my neck.
I felt a sting, then the slow trickle of blood from my neck. My heart pumped frighteningly fast in response, not knowing how large of a gash she had left in my neck. I could bleed out in a closet at a boarding school, and that would be the end of it.
Laney leaned down to examine her work on my neck and grinned. “I should make that a little bigger, don’t you think?”
I shook my head. “Please, I’m not involved with any of this,” I said, continuing my ruse.
She rolled her eyes. “You’re begging to have your little throat slit, aren’t you?” She placed the blade against the cut on my neck, letting the blood run over the silver blade before holding it up for me to see. “That’s your life, right there, and it’s slowly oozing out of you. Would you like me to speed this up, or are you going to talk now?”
I was frozen in fear, but I still didn’t want to talk. If only I could get a leg free from these ropes, I could break this bitch’s kneecaps before she had a chance to do more damage. The only problem was that she had tied the ropes so tight that my legs barely had feeling in them.
“Have you ever seen how they butcher cows?” Laney asked, coking her head to the side and pouting her thin lips.
I didn’t answer.
“I’ll tell you how. They hang them upside down, and they slit their throats with a long blade, not unlike the one I have here. The cows bleed out in seconds,” she said her eyes dancing with twisted amusement.
&n
bsp; “I’m not a cow,” I said dryly.
“No, you’re not. That’s right,” she said, a smile spreading across her face. “You don’t deserve a quick death. You deserve a much slower one.”
My heart skipped a beat at her words. She probably intended to torture the information out of me. There was no telling what she was capable of. This school was full of fucked up people. I had yet to meet anyone who didn’t give of psychopathic vibes, aside from Eden. Even she had a dark side to her.
“Would you like to see how I diced up the last girl who fucked with me?” She asked, an insane smile stretching her lips even thinner than they usually were.
I shook my head. “I have no problem with you, Laney,” I said.
She frowned, and I knew I had misspoken. “How do you know my name?” She asked, bringing the blade back up to my face. “Tell me!”
I stiffened up as the blade came closer to one of my eyes. This wasn’t the time to play games. Laney meant business and cutting my eyes out didn’t seem like the worst that she could do. I was genuinely afraid now, having mostly regaining my brainpower.
I cleared my throat, which had suddenly become quite dry. “Andrew sent me,” I said, my words no more than a whisper. I knew that ratting out Andrew would have future consequences, but I wasn’t about to die for that man. In truth, he had done nothing for me, and I owed him nothing.
“Aha, now we’re getting somewhere,” Laney said, bringing the knife down an inch. “What does he want you to do?”
I shrugged. “He wanted me to watch you.”
She chuckled. “You’re a foolish girl, following his command. You’d be much better on Natasha’s side, but she doesn’t like rats in her ranks. ”
I felt a pang of guilt for admitting that Andrew was the one who had put me up to this, but at the same time, I could use it to my advantage. I doubted that she would just let me go unless I gave her a very good reason. It was more likely that she would leave her mark with that evil blade, giving me a permanent reminder not to cross her again.