by Rina Kent
So I do the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. I kiss him.
Briar shoves a hand up my skirt, and scrapes his knuckles over my pussy. My body responds on instinct, arching off the cushions as I let out a long groan.
“Fuck.” Briar sounds so pissed off, a shiver of fear races through me. He grazes the side of my neck, my throat, my collarbone. All hard enough to sting.
Indi, get your fucking head straight! You can’t give him what he wants. Not yet.
Quid pro quo, you dirty slut.
“Briar, no.” I shove at him, wriggle furiously, and sway as I drag myself to my feet.
He lays there like the king of this fucking golf estate, propped on an elbow like yesterday in the woods, and watches me as I start gesticulating wildly.
“This is crazy. We have to get to school. I can’t do this. Not now. Sometime, maybe, but not—” I clamp my lips shut, but it’s too late.
“Sometime?” Briar drawls as he slowly rises.
God, has he always been this tall? This fucking hot?
“Yeah,” I whisper. “Maybe.”
He moves to touch me, but I step back in case my entire body revolts against me.
“So why’d you want me alone, huh?” Briar tilts his head. “Do you have any fucking idea what it does to me, to have you so close, and then you just fuck off?”
His voice drops so low, it’s as if I’m feeling the vibrations of each word instead of hearing him speak.
I step back, lifting my hands. “I wanted to say sorry.”
He stops, frowns. “What?”
“For yesterday.” And then the words just pour out of me. The weed greased the wheels, but honestly, this shit was one of the reasons I couldn’t fucking sleep last night.
“I didn’t mean to tell you all that shit yesterday. You don’t need to know that stuff. No one does.”
The edges of Briar’s mouth curve up, his lips parting. “Your mother?” he asks quietly, stepping closer.
I should move away, but his eyes narrow and focus on me like blue lasers. I’m pinned in place as effectively as if his hands were on my shoulders, keeping me in place.
“I went too far. I just wanted to…shock you.”
He grabs my shoulders. If he pulled me close, I would have fought him, but instead he just dips his head so our eyes are level. “I told you to tell me. I wanted to know.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Jesus, fuck, I feel tears coming. I blink furiously, willing them back. I thought I was done with this shit already.
Mom’s dead.
Case closed — literally. There’s no bringing her back. There will never be justice for the man who fucked and sodomized her with a soda bottle.
No justice for Mom.
No justice for Jess.
No.
Wait.
I can do something about Jess. But only if I keep my motherfucking head on straight.
And God, that seems easy as finding unicorn poop right now.
“Indi.”
I must have zoned out — Briar’s right against me again and I didn’t even see him moving.
“I meant what I said,” he murmurs. “Give your pain to me, and I’ll take it. Every bit of it.”
I stare up at him, transfixed by the play of light in his cerulean eyes. Does he even know how beautiful he is, when he’s not scowling or being a massive fucking prick?
“How?” I put my hands on his chest and lean in. “Why?”
“I have experience,” he says. His eyes dart all over my face. This time, it doesn’t feel like he’s scanning me. Instead, it’s as if he’s searching for something.
“With what? Pain?” The words come out before I can stop them; hot and bitter to boot.
But he doesn’t even flinch, he just nods his head. When his eyes lock with mine, something ephemeral flows through me.
Understanding.
Compassion.
Maybe even sympathy.
“My mother died in a car accident when I was thirteen.”
My lips part. I want to say I’m sorry, but I know it would be hollow words. I shake my head. “That must have been…”
“Not even close to someone murdering her.”
I’m dimly aware that there’s no space between us. That his breath washes over my face every time he speaks. That his hip bones, his fading erection, are digging into my belly.
But I can’t move.
I’m frozen.
He’s right. A car accident — random chance.
Murder? Brutal torture and rape? Nothing random about it.
“Now…Is there something you want to ask me?”
My eyes fly back to Briar. My stomach twists, shooting sour bile up my throat.
Of course I do. More than anything. I swallow. It takes everything I have, but I eventually gather enough courage to ask.
“Did you…” I haul in a breath, but Briar waits, patient as the motherfucking grave.
“Did you rape Jessica?”
The world undulates around me as I wait for him to answer. My body responds, pulsing and throbbing as if I’m connected on some cosmic level.
Holy shit, that weed was strong.
No, it’s not that. It can’t be.
It’s Briar.
It’s this unfathomable connection we have.
I don’t understand it one bit — and I don’t consider myself a stupid person — but somehow, we’re the same.
I should have asked him if he killed her. That’s the greater sin here, right? But it doesn’t seem important right now. I can’t explain it any more than I can explain the fact that I’m still here, allowing him to touch me, allowing him to be part of my world when I should be miles away.
“I…” Briar’s throat moves. He looks away, but I grab his jaw and force him to look at me. My heart pounds, and I feel his jaw bunch under my fingertips, but I don’t release my grip.
And he doesn’t pull away, although it would be the easiest thing in the fucking world for him.
“Did. You. Rape. Her?”
His eyelids droop. His shoulders sag. A soft sigh washes over my face as he briefly squeezes closed his eyes before flaring them wide open.
“I don’t know, Indi.” When he looks up, his eyes are the softest I’ve ever seen him. Inside those blue irises, a maelstrom of confusion and frustration swirls.
“I can’t remember a fucking thing.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Briar
We drive back to school in silence while my heart pounds along to some sullen beat. I don’t know what happened back there, and I don’t like it one bit.
It felt like someone — something — else was steering me. Even when Indi pushed me away, the urge to claw her back, tear off her clothes, and claim her was so strong I almost couldn’t fight it.
But I did.
It took more than I thought I ever had in me, but I fought it.
And then I told her the truth.
Something I never thought could feel that good. But it should, right? Why the fuck haven’t I been doing it since day one?
Did you have sexual intercourse with Jessica Hamilton?
I don’t know, officer. I don’t fucking know.
But it’s not the truth, is it? It’s a thinly veiled attempt at a lie.
I know what I saw that morning when I woke up beside Jess. There’s no denying that I took her virginity. And if she didn’t consent then it’s rape.
But is it still a crime if I don’t remember doing anything? What if I slipped into some kind of a fugue state or something? Veroza would back me up on this — that shit’s real. When your brain chemistry gets unbalanced enough, shit goes down. Shit you wouldn’t remember, even under hypnosis.
But it doesn’t add up. I wasn’t mentally unbalanced. I was happy as fuck.
Fuck it, I was in love with Jessica. I used to wake feeling like the sun had risen solely to bake me in its beatific rays.
So why would I have fucked out like that? Could it have been th
e drugs? I’d only done coke once before, and I was on my sixth line when Marcus and I took Jess upstairs to go lie down.
My intentions had been pure, too. I wasn’t even thinking about sex. All I wanted was to get Jess somewhere quiet.
Because I was worried about her.
Why was I worried about her? She’d gotten trashed before. We both had. But something was wrong that night. Something—
“You don’t want your face to get stuck like that.”
I glance at Indi, and for a moment I have no idea what to say because my thoughts scatter away like marbles on a mirrored floor.
Her eyebrows draw together. “You okay?”
I hurriedly look back at the road. I had too many tokes on that joint — I feel woozy and lazy and fucking crazy.
And I’m rhyming. That can’t be a good sign.
I eventually get out a far from reassuring, “Sure.”
Don’t look at her. Those hypnotic eyes. That expressive mouth. Keep your eyes on the goddamn road.
“You really don’t remember anything?”
Just like Addy, with the constant questions, the nagging, non-fucking-stop. I’ve told her more than I’ve told anyone except Marcus, and she still wants more?
“Drop it,” I snap.
I catch her flinching from the corner of my eye, but I bite back the apology brimming on my lips. I’ve done months’s worth of thinking and theorizing on this shit. I’m not gonna keep giving myself grief over it.
It’s over.
Whatever happened, happened.
If there’s still some karmic debt for me to pay, then I’ll pay when the universe is good and ready for me.
Indi licks her lips, and I narrow my eyes as if that will somehow diminish my peripheral vision. It doesn’t. If anything, it intensifies it. She sits back in her seat, and I can clearly see her breasts pushing against her shirt.
God, I can so vividly recall every curve of her body gleaming with water. How her back arched and the sound she made when she rubbed herself out on the rim of the bath.
I shift, tugging at my slacks as my dick starts hardening.
I should just have fucked her back there in Addy’s yard. Would have been done with all these thoughts, done with her filling every inch of my mind, done with losing control.
My hands tighten on the steering wheel.
Thoughts blur through my mind.
There’s a camping spot a few miles ahead, if I take the next turn off. I can strip Indi naked, shove her in the backseat of my car, and fuck her till I’m done and finished with her.
Till she’s begging me to stop.
Did Jessica beg for me to stop? Did she scream?
I should remember something like that, right? How could I not remember that?
My hand dips down to the indicator, but before I can signal to turn, my phone vibrates in my console. One glance is enough to see the short message on my lock screen.
$250,000.
My heart stops for a second, and then slams against my ribs like a wild animal trying to get out.
Marcus was right.
She’s desperate for money.
“That’s a lot of dough,” Indi says, her voice light. “You buying a new car or something?”
My jaw bunches. I put both hands back on the steering wheel and keep heading for Lavish Prep.
“When did you last speak to her?”
“Addy?” Indi shrugs. “Yesterday afternoon.”
“She say anything about me?”
Indi pauses for the longest time. “She always says stuff about you.”
I grind my teeth. “Anything specific?”
Indi shakes her head. “No.”
She’s lying, but I’m not surprised. She’s always been on Addison’s side. Maybe she even knows about the messages.
Was that what this was? Was she trying to find out if I was going to bend over so Addison can fuck me up the ass? She was reluctant to go to Addy’s house, but it could have been part of the act. She probably already knew Addison wasn’t there, or wouldn’t answer.
Are they both setting me up?
I should pull over and kick her out of my fucking car. She can walk back to Lavish, and get extra detention days tacked onto her sentence.
Or…
I reach across and lay my hand on her leg. She twitches, but doesn’t move her leg away.
No girl in their right mind would let me touch them. Not unless they had some kind of ulterior motive. My mind scrambles, the weed helping fuck all. But by the time we pull into Lavish Prep’s parking lot, something akin to a plan is swilling around in my head.
“This was fun,” I say as I pull into my parking spot.
“Yeah,” Indi says, not skipping a beat. She turns to me, and there’s a moment where her face is blank before she smiles at me. She moves forward a quarter of an inch, and her lips part.
I could call her out on this ruse of hers, let her know I have her all figured out. Or I can play along, and toy with her until I’m done.
Leaning in, I stop just close enough that my breath whispers over her mouth. “Addison’s gonna be pissed off if she sees us together.”
“I don’t give a fuck.”
She’s a good actress, my little virgin. I almost want to believe her. I touch my lips to hers.
One tender kiss, so soft my lips are left tingling sulkily when I draw back.
Indi’s eyes flutter open, her pupils narrowing like she’s coming down from E. She licks her lips and hurriedly sits back in her seat.
“But—” Indi pauses, clears her throat, “we should probably not let her find out. You know. Manners and shit.”
Yeah, manners and shit.
I smirk at her and tip an invisible hat. “See you around, my little virgin.”
Indi’s already pink cheeks darken, and she drops her gaze. Her mouth opens, but she slides out of my car without saying another word.
My eyes drop to my phone. I unlock it and stare at Addison’s message.
$250,000.
I let out a low laugh, pressing my eyes closed with my fingertips. I didn’t even have to negotiate with her. Maybe if I let her stew longer, she’ll end up settling for a few bucks and a goddamn confession.
Indi
My head feels like the teacup ride at an amusement park.
I don’t fucking know.
Yeah, right, you fucking psychopath.
It’s so easy for them to turn off emotion — because they’re only pretending at it. I got to see the real Briar today. It was a spectacular revelation, and he played his part to perfection.
I don’t fucking know.
I let out a bitter laugh as I push open the school door. First bell must have just rung, because there are only a handful of students hurrying down the hall.
Except one.
He’s not hurrying.
Marcus ambles over to me like he has all the time in the world.
Instead of speeding up, my body slows like I’m trudging through a snowdrift.
He stops walking.
And so do I.
We’re only a few feet away from each other, still his hatred washes over me like an icy wave.
He knows I know.
He saw me last night.
He’s going to—
Marcus stares straight at me until I hear the door whoosh open again behind me, then his eyes dart past me. “There you are,” he says, before his eyes are on me again.
“Here I am,” Briar says. He walks right past me, even knocking my arm with his as if he’s suddenly gone blind in one eye.
Marcus’s gaze dashes back to me, but then Briar has his arm around his shoulder, swiveling him around.
“You’re stoned,” Marcus says, frowning at Briar.
They could have been brothers with their long legs and narrow waists.
Blood brothers.
Goosebumps break out on my arms, I turn and hurry the other way. If I’m fast enough, I can make it to homeroom before Briar and avoid s
eeing Marcus again. Avoid his aura of penetrating evil from touching me.
I’m still reeling when I arrive at Ms. Parson’s class. I slip into my seat by the door and draw out a notebook, flipping it to a random page. I put my head down and start doodling like my life depends on it, desperate to untangle the spaghetti-mess of thoughts clumped in my head.
I don’t get very far.
My phone starts vibrating with an incoming call. When I see the name on the screen, my fingertips start tingling.
Addy.
I could take it in the hallway — there are still a few minutes before the second bell — but that might mean bumping into Briar on his way in. Possibly seeing Marcus again too, depending on where his homeroom is.
Instead, I take a quick look around, turn in my chair, and put my phone to my ear.
“Hey, you okay?” I say.
“I guess,” Addy replies in a thick voice, like she’s been crying.
“What’s wrong?”
“Just…family stuff.” Fabric rustles against the speaker. “Listen, I’m not coming to school today, but Maxine told me Dylan’s throwing a party.”
A party? The fuck do I care?
“Addy, do you have something on Briar?”
But she ignores the question and keeps on talking right over me.
“You should try to get in. I know I said I didn’t like your plan but…I think it’s the only one that’ll work. I’ll see if I can work something out but—”
“Addy. Addy, listen—”
“—I might be gone for a few days, so I don’t know if—”
“Indi?” At the sound of Ms. Parson’s attempt at a stern voice, my stomach drops.
Dammit.
I end the call and slip my phone into my pocket. When I turn around, Ms. Parsons is a few feet from my desk, arms crossed and her rosebud mouth puckered tight.
“No phones in my class,” she says, enunciating every word with utter precision. “Understand me?”
Holy crap, I’m obviously not in her good books anymore, am I?
“Sorry, Ms. Parsons.”
She lifts her chin, shakes her head, and mutters, “I’m so disappointed in you,” as she walks away.
I glare at her. She was the one who suggested the fucking horse rides. What the fuck did she think would happen? Naive little—