I arch an eyebrow. “I’m your friend, not your drill sergeant, man. Far be it from me to order you around.”
“Mature. Really fucking mature.”
Also, I’m cool with carting my friends around, but I’m not Elodie Stillwater’s personal fucking chauffeur. I hope the two of them had to walk.
Chase is nowhere to be seen. On the other side of the room, Elodie sits besides Carina. I catch her grinning at Dash, who’s glowing next to me like some lovestruck moron, and something inside me snaps. I’ve had enough and then some. I snatch up my bag and get to my feet.
“Yes, Mr. Davis. What can I do for you?”
Jarvis looks at me with the same tired what the fuck now expression that all of the other teachers at the academy wear around me. “I’m gonna hurl,” I say flatly. “I’m going home.”
She sighs. “You can’t just go home.”
“And you can’t just keep me here if I don’t feel well.”
“If you’re sick, you know what you have to do. You have to go and see the nurse.”
“Fine. I’ll take a thermometer up the ass if it means I can get the fuck out of here.”
31
PRES
* * *
Happy.
I wake up, and I’m actually happy.
The strangest thing.
I can’t remember the last time I was happy.
It was another lifetime, before that night at the hospital. Before Mara went missing, too? Damn, maybe it really has been that long. And even though I had to spend the weekend at the house, sleeping on the lumpy sofa in the sweltering hot living room, with Dad hovering over me, I was happy the entire time. Because the memory of being with Pax at Riot House, and then that crazy experience with him on the lawn, while Damiana Lozano bitched and moaned about Mercy…it was enough to sustain me. Without a shadow of a doubt, there will be more of that. I know Pax well enough to see how much he enjoyed our extremely public encounter. He wanted more. He wanted me to go over that night, for God’s sake. There’s hope that he’ll want to continue this little arrangement we have until graduation, and that is all I care about. Once I’m away from this godforsaken town, I won’t need such a dangerous distraction from my demons anymore. I’ll leave the nightmares and the hideous memories behind, and I’ll be able to start a whole new life.
Besides. Maybe…
Maybe there’s a chance that Pax might still want to see me after graduation. I don’t let myself dwell on that thought. Wouldn’t be wise. I have to keep this whole thing straight in my head. It’s just sex for him. He’ll go away to college and start fucking girls at Harvard, and I’ll be nothing but a distant memory. And that’s okay. I’ll have to make it okay.
Dad kisses me on the top of the head before I get into the car. He attempts, for the fiftieth time since Friday evening, to get me to move back into the house, but only half-heartedly this time. He knows what my answer will be before I even open my mouth.
I am running seriously late for first class by the time I hit the road that leads up to the academy. I’m still smiling, though, as I blast some music, singing at the top of my lungs when I pull into the long, sweeping driveway. I’m still smiling when I loop around into the parking lot at the rear of the academy. I’m still smiling when I grab my bag and run toward the entrance. And, when I see the familiar figure standing on the steps, my smile still doesn’t falter. Because he’s so out of place, so unexpected, waiting there by the door for me, that I don’t piece it together at first.
It's only when Jonah jogs down the steps and meets me halfway, closing a firm hand around the top of my arm, that reality hits home and I realize that this is real.
He’s here.
Now.
“Hey there, Red. Nice to see you looking so cheerful for once.” His smile is magnetic. The words sound so charming when he says them. “Come on. Come with me. I think we need to have a little chat, don’t you?”
“What the—” My heart stops beating in my chest. “What are you doing here?”
He grins, and my vision begins to narrow. But not before the memories I’ve done such a good job of holding back all come rushing in, crowding me, demanding my attention.
* * *
The ominous presence, crouching, waiting for me in the dark.
* * *
The bed.
* * *
The blood.
* * *
The knife.
32
PRES
* * *
THE NIGHT OF…
* * *
“You should go. If Dad finds you in here—”
“Don’t be fucking stupid, Presley. You saw how much he drank at dinner. He’s already snoring in his bed. And even if he did find me in here, what? He’s gonna think his children are hanging out, spending some time together? Oh no.”
Jonah turns on the tiny lamp on my nightstand, then sits himself down on the bed next to me. He reaches out and winds a lock of my loose hair around his index finger, scowling at it, and a bolt of nausea makes my stomach roil. He never did like my hair. He always said it reminded him of my mother. My mother, who he despises, almost as much as he despises me.
He catches me flinching and laughs under his breath. “Ahh come on, Pres. Don’t act all coy now. You’ve never shied away from my touch before.”
I have. He knows I have. The first time he came into my room when I was thirteen, I kicked and screamed so loud that he shoved a filthy rag into my mouth and pinched my nose until I couldn’t breathe, and I passed out. When I’d woken up an unknown amount of time later, he’d already been inside me. The pain had been a bright sting. He’d grunted as he’d fucked me, grinding away on top of me, leaning his forearm across my throat to make sure I couldn’t scream again.
He’d forced a Plan B pill down my throat the next morning, while Mom and Dad had been arguing in the kitchen. I’d thrown it up an hour later, but it hadn’t mattered. I hadn’t even started my period then. The next time he came to my room, I’d actually been on my period. He hadn’t cared. The two times after that, he’d dragged me down into the basement of the Airbnb we were staying at Palm springs and he’d fucked me in the ass “to avoid any unnecessary complications,” he’d said.
I was sent away to Wolf Hall after that, and he went off to college. I haven’t seen hm for three years…until tonight.
I slap his hand away. “I’m not some skinny kid you can push around anymore, Jonah. Get the fuck out of my room.”
He has the audacity to look hurt. “What is your deal, Presley? We always have fun together, you and me. I don’t get why you’re being so salty.”
My senses are spiraling. I can’t see, hear, think straight. I’m about to explode. “Get out of my room, Jonah. I fucking mean it. I’m not gonna let you touch me again.”
He laughs. “You are something else, little sister. You’re the one who always came onto me, strutting around in your little shorts and those skimpy little t-shirts. You wanted me just as much as I wanted you.”