by Nicole Fox
Because if I stop, it’s all over.
The life-and-death stakes of all of it crashes over me, and before I can stop my mind from taking the path, I’m back in the park this summer.
In my mind’s eye, I’m back on the trail, walking into the opening where Nico Barber is having his dick sucked by a girl spread out on a table.
And I see Finn. Watching it all go down.
A sob wrenches out of me, bringing me back to the present moment, and I choke down the sound.
Now isn’t the time.
Not for a flashback.
Not for dwelling in the past.
Not now.
“Come on, Lily!” Nico yells, his voice far too close and echoing off the trees. “Your boyfriend is getting the shit kicked out of him, but if you hand yourself over, it will all stop.”
I cut right, hoping to lose his trail. Maybe he’ll go deeper into the woods, and I can circle back to the house.
But as soon as I turn, I see movement from the corner of my vision.
I don’t even have time to turn and see fully what it is before I’m slammed into the ground, pinned down by a heavy weight.
Nico weighs a ton. “You’re fast,” he breathes, nostrils flared.
I scream and try to roll out from under him, but he presses my arms down into the dirt and pins my legs down with his shins.
“Screaming doesn’t help,” he growls. “It’s why I hit you that night at the park. Because you wouldn’t shut up.”
I scream again, hoping for anyone to hear me and come help, but the sound is cut off when the back of Nico’s hand slams across my face. My head whips to the side and the copper taste of blood fills my mouth.
“Enough,” he growls. “Haven’t you realize you are all alone out here? No one is coming to help. It’s just you and me. Finally.”
He gathers both of my arms in one of his hands and uses the other to reach down for my shorts. I know where he is headed, what he is trying to do, and I wriggle my hips to try and get away from him.
“You ruined my life, you know that?”
He is still smiling, but the edges are frayed. He looks more deranged than anything as he struggles with the waistband of my shorts.
“I didn’t even do anything wrong. That girl wanted what we were doing to her, but you showed up and started screaming. Then you wouldn’t stop. I just wanted you to stop screaming.”
As he talks, the memory comes back to me, full and clear.
Nico on top of me just like this. His fist lifting into the air before coming down again against the side of my skull in a blinding burst of pain.
His hand slides into my pants. I scream again, twisting my body out of his reach.
“Hold still,” he growls. “It’s going to happen, so you might as well enjoy—”
The sound of Nico being hit in the face is loud and sudden. His weight falls away.
I scramble to my feet, too desperate to escape to question how it is I’m able to escape.
Then, I stand up and fall immediately into Finn’s arms.
“Are you okay?”
His eye is swollen and there is a deep gash across his cheekbone, but he is alive and breathing and standing. And here.
Thank God, he’s here.
I open my mouth to answer, but a hand clamps around my calf, and I scream.
Finn grabs my arm and yanks me forward before Nico can pull me down. He kicks out at Nico’s head, but he dodges the blow by rolling into the foliage and then jumping to his feet.
Finn pushes me behind him, but I can tell by the hunch of his shoulders and his labored breathing that he is tired and hurt.
He has already been through a fight, whereas Nico is still mostly fresh.
“How did you get away?” Nico asks. His smile is gone now, replaced by an obviously annoyed grimace.
Finn spits blood on the forest floor. “The guys woke up when the fighting started. Unfortunately for you, the Hell Princesses aren’t as tough as they look.”
“And here you are,” Nico says, throwing his arms wide to gesture to Finn. “Abandoning your friends, yet again, for some pussy.”
“No one abandoned you, Nico. You made your choices.”
“We were all there that night,” he growls.
“Yeah, we were, but you were the only one who put an innocent person in the ICU.”
Nico turns to me, one eyebrow raised. “Does your girlfriend buy that story? Does she think you’re as innocent as you seem to think you are?”
Finn steps forward and winces, drawing his leg back. He’s hurt, and it doesn’t escape Nico’s notice.
In the blink of an eye, Nico swipes out with his right leg and knocks Finn’s feet out from under him.
I lunge for Finn instinctively, trying to keep him upright, but my feet slip on the layer of dead leaves on the ground.
Finn and I both slide down a small embankment.
Nico charges down after us.
I try to scramble to my feet, but before I can, he rears back and punches me. Hard. Stars appear in my vision, and I fall back, my spine slamming against a tree trunk.
There is a ringing in my ears, and even though I want to stand up, I can’t seem to find the ground.
I hear the sound of more fighting, but it takes me a few seconds to get my wind back. I roll onto my hands and knees and blink at the rolling bodies in front of me.
Nico is on top of Finn, and then they roll and Finn lands a punch square in Nico’s face. Then, they roll again and Nico drives a knee up and into Finn’s stomach.
They grunt and roll and fight, neither one able to get the upper hand just yet. I hear blood splatter and both boys groan.
I have to do something. I have to.
I’m still on my hands and knees, watching them, trying to make the world around me stop spinning when I feel a weight at my center pulling downward.
I realize what it is and fumble for the hoodie pocket, grabbing the kitchen knife. The fact that it didn’t fall out when Nico tackled me is a miracle, and I make a note to thank the heavens for that later.
But for now, I grab the knife in my right hand and shakily get to my feet.
My head is fuzzy from Nico’s punch, and it doesn’t help that the guys are rolling around the ground, fighting for the upper hand.
But even in the dark, it’s easy to tell which one is Finn. He is in shorts and bare feet, blood oozing down his legs from running into the woods after me.
Nico rolls over Finn, pinning him to the ground in the same way he did me, though he drives his knee into Finn’s injured one.
Finn cries out in pain, and Nico uses the distraction to reach for his throat. His hands clamp around Finn’s throat. Finn starts to gasp and splutter.
I take slow, deliberate steps behind him.
I’ll only get one shot at this.
I don’t want to waste it.
A strangled sound forces itself from Finn’s lungs, and I know I don’t have much time left. I’m only a few feet behind Nico.
It’s now or never.
After a quick countdown from three in my head, I lunge forward, knife first, and drive it into the left side of Nico’s back.
The feeling of bone scraping against the blade sends shivers through me, but I grit my teeth, drag the blade out, and plunge it in again.
Finally, in a delayed reaction, Nico bellows.
The sound is wet and garbled, and he crumples forward, landing on Finn. With a groan, Finn pushes him off, and Nico rolls sideways, clutching at his chest.
He opens his mouth, but it just hangs there, yawning open and silent.
Then, a steady stream of blood pours from between his lips.
I don’t see Finn stand up, but he is behind me now, pulling me towards him, away from Nico. He is saying something, but I can’t hear it. I can’t hear anything except the frantic thrum of my heart.
I just killed someone.
He deserved it. I know that. I know he did. But I did it. With my own hands.
Panic squeezes my chest, making it hard to breathe. Then, Finn is in front of me.
His blue eyes are the only bright thing in the world, and they are looking at me, wide and concerned.
His pouty lips are moving, saying something I can’t hear.
When he presses his forehead to mine, I inhale. The frosty scent of him is still there, but it’s layered in blood and dirt and the rich scent of turned earth.
His hands smooth down my arms. I breathe to the rhythm of his touch until my heartrate is normal, and I can function again.
“Lily?” he asks gently. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”
“Fine,” I croak. “I’m fine.”
He nods and then looks towards where I know Nico is lying, but I don’t follow his gaze. I don’t want to see. “We have to go. We can’t stay here.”
He grabs my arm and pulls me after him, and then my brain seems to turn on.
All of the realizations I’ve had over the last hour but couldn’t process flood back, and I jerk my arm away. “You—”
I don’t know how to finish that sentence. Everything Finn has done is just … too much. Too big to consider.
He was there.
He saw what happened to me.
He allowed it.
“Lily, wait!” he says.
But in that moment, my life depends on getting away from him. On getting out of the woods and far enough away from Finn that I can think.
So, I shove past him, lower my head, and take off into the trees at a dead sprint.
I don’t plan on ever coming back.
42
Finn
I should have told her.
I waited and waited and waited, thinking there would be time in the future to explain everything to Lily.
Once my dad was pacified, certain Lily wouldn’t tell our secrets, I’d explain everything to her. She would understand.
I was harsh with her, yes, but not criminal.
I didn’t hurt her.
But I was there that night, and now she knows. She’ll never forgive me.
Still, I run after her through the trees towards the house.
When Caleb came out of the house, fists raised, and Viktor trailed after him with a baseball bat, half of the bikers took off immediately. Most of them had had enough run-ins with Caleb in the past to know this fight wouldn’t bend in their favor.
The rest of them stayed and fought.
But as I get closer to the house, I don’t hear anything still happening.
I could take a left and go to check on the progress, but if I do, I could miss Lily. And if I miss her, I’m not sure she’ll ever be alone with me again.
So, I turn right.
There’s enough light coming from the security lights around the house that I can see her dark silhouette moving through the trees.
I follow behind her. My leg is throbbing with every step where one of the bikers kicked me with his steel-toed boots, but I push through the pain. I can’t stop now.
Lily is just about out of the trees when suddenly, she slams to a stop. Her arm wraps around a tree to slow down her progress, and I follow her eyeline to the yard.
One of the Hell Princes is walking across the grass. He is moving strangely, like he is drunk or stoned or both, and Lily doesn’t want him to see her.
Knowing this is the only opportunity I may have to catch up to her, I keep moving, picking my way across the uneven ground. My bare feet are so cut up that I’m almost used to the searing pain. Almost.
Finally, I’m close enough for her to hear my footsteps, and she spins around, fist raised like she might have to fight me off.
“Lily,” I say softly, quietly, so the biker won’t hear us. Though, when I look over her shoulder, I see he is now lying face-down in the grass. “Please. Let me explain.”
She is leaning against a tree, her chest heaving with exertion, tear tracks down her cheeks. “You lied to me about … about everything.”
“I didn’t lie. I just didn’t tell you.”
She lets out a bitter laugh. “That’s the same thing, Finn. You were there that night. You told Nico to hurt me.”
“No.” I shake my head firmly and move towards her. When she takes a step back, I stop, not wanting to scare her off. “I didn’t, Lily. You found us on that trail and it was obvious how freaked out you were. You screamed and—”
“You were hurting that girl!” She drags a hand across her cheek, wiping the tears away. “I saw you all around her.”
I shake my head. “She was a friend of Nico’s. She was up for a good time, and some of the guys … partook. But it was consensual.”
“And you?” she asks.
“What?”
“Did you partake?”
The question nearly makes me smile because, on some level, Lily cares. She wouldn’t ask unless the answer to that question mattered to her. She wouldn’t have asked if there was no chance of me ever being redeemed in her eyes.
But she is still trying to make up her mind.
So I vow to tell her the truth no matter what.
“No.” I take a slow step towards her.
We are only five feet apart now, and I can see a bruise welling up on her cheek. “I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of, but I swear to you—I didn’t touch that girl that night.”
She turns away from me, eyes wary. “But you told them to go after me.”
“To explain.” I run a hand through my sweaty hair and sigh. “I thought they would stop you, explain, and then intimidate you a bit to stay quiet. But when I followed, Nico was on top of you and—”
The memory makes my vision go red.
Caleb is the fighter, but Nico is a loose cannon. He always has been. That night, he took things too far with no warning at all.
If I could have, I never would have sent them after her.
Because he pummeled her unconscious.
The memory makes me shiver.
Lily was tiny beneath him, her arms thrown over her face to protect herself. But Nico beat her until she stopped screaming.
He beat her even when her body had gone still.
Caleb and Viktor had to pull him off her and then hold him to keep him from going back for more.
“I never asked him to do that, Lily. And I would never. I’m the one who called the ambulance for you.”
She wraps her arms around herself and shivers, the chill night air finally beginning to have an effect.
“Why did you pick me?” she asks, turning towards me, eyebrows pulled low. “You could have left me alone. I wanted to be left alone. I didn’t want to bother anyone, but you picked me out even though you knew who I was. Why?”
Shame coils my stomach into a tight knot, but I vowed to be honest. “My father wanted me to.”
She frowns.
“Even though no charges were brought against Nico, people were angry. His parents had to send him away until the heat could die down because some parents wanted to get him kicked out of school. My father was worried what would happen if you suddenly remembered more. He was afraid you would get your memories back, implicate me, and ruin our family’s reputation.”
“So, what, you planned to fuck the memories out of me?” Lily snaps.
“In a way,” I admit with a shrug. “I was supposed to discredit your opinion. If we dated and then your memory suddenly ‘came back,’ no one would believe you. You’d look like a scorned lover, and our family name would be unscathed. But my dad hoped you would drop out and move before any of that happened.”
She is still glaring at me, but the red in her face is draining out, leaving her pale in the filtered moonlight.
I can see the implications of what I’ve just said settling in.
I rush forward to try and stop her from going too far down the path. I grab her hands, and she pulls away, but I still close the space between us.
I smooth my fingers down her face, over the swollen bruise on her cheek.
“That i
s how it all started, Lily, but that’s not how it ended. That’s not how it’s going to end.”
Her cheeks are wet with tears as she shakes her head. “Stop.”
“No. You wanted to hear the whole story, and this is the whole story.” I grab her hand and squeeze when she tries to pull away. Not hard enough to force her to stay, but hard enough to make her think twice about it.
Giving up, she leaves her hand in mine with a sigh.
“I tried not to care about you. I tried so hard, and I couldn’t do it. God, I—” I laugh and smooth my other hand down my face. “I have barely admitted most of this to myself, and now I’m telling you. When I saw you walk outside tonight, when Nico grabbed you … I thought my heart was going to explode. I’ve never wanted to protect someone in my entire life. And that is when I realized that all of the fighting I’ve done with myself has been in vain. I am so fucking in love with you, Lily DeVry.”
Her lashes flutter closed. I grab her chin and bring her face to mine, hoping that if she looks in my eyes, she’ll see the sincerity in my words.
“I love you, Lily. I have for so long now. I didn’t think I was capable of it. Not after my father—” I take a shuddering breath and dive fully into the deep end of honesty. “He killed my mom and sister. My mom was going to leave him and take my sister to live with her, and he staged the fire. I don’t have proof, but I know it.”
Her face twists in sympathy, and her fingers curl harder around mine.
“See?” I say, holding up our hands. “You’re good, Lily. I’ve lied and betrayed you, but you hold my hand when I’m upset and want to make me feel better. You are such a good person, and I know I don’t deserve you, but I want you so much. So much it hurts. You told me last night not to push you away because I was scared, and that is what I’ve been doing for weeks. I’ve been pushing you away, trying to scare you into leaving so that I wouldn’t have to face what it would feel like when you found out the truth about me and left on your own. I thought it would be easier if I carried out the plan and then graduated and left this town and my dad. And it would be easier. But now I know I would be miserable because I wouldn’t have you.”
Now, I don’t have to force her face up to mine. She is looking into my eyes, and I can see the warmth coming back into her features.