“Does one of them have silver eyes?” I asked, realizing I still had no idea what these people looked like.
Audrey stared at me as if I’d grown a second head. “I’ve shown you their pictures on Facebook like nine hundred times.”
“Guess I wasn’t as committed to cyber stalking as you.”
“Not the point,” she retorted evenly. “If you asked anyone else what they looked like they’d think something was wrong with you for not knowing.”
“I think I love you even more for that.”
“And?” I urged, because I’d heard it hanging silently at the end.
“Judas has freakishly colored silver eyes. Like two brand new shiny quarters.”
I nodded to myself more than her. He was the one who’d followed us down the stairs. The one who’d given that weird as hell warning. And the one who’d practically threatened my now missing boyfriend.
But what did any of that mean?
And where was Dax?
Judas fucking Barron.
His name alone made him sound like an over-privileged asshole.
I was still thoroughly confused as to why he’d carried me into Audrey’s house or brought me there in the first place.
The last thing I could recall from the party was sitting in Audrey’s car and waiting for her to come out. Then, I was waking up in her guest bedroom, wearing nothing but a bra and thin, lacey thong.
There wasn’t a remedy to rid the memory of his hands on my body. It was such an odd and screwed up thing to fixate on, but I wasn’t entirely solid up top. I tried to reason that I’d imagined the whole thing. I mean, the twisted asshole drugged me, after all.
I think…
I didn’t have proof it was him, but who the hell else would do something like that? Regardless, I was having a hard time thinking of him as a pervert instead of a boundary crossing dickhead.
He hadn’t done anything but remove my clothes. While a major violation of privacy, I didn’t have a memory of him doing much else.
That’s not to say I wasn’t absolutely livid about how things went down. After having time to stew, I was ready to go at some necks. Occasionally, though, I had common sense. No rushing in half-cocked would occur this time around. Going all Jennifer’s Body on the most prominent males in town wouldn’t do me or my friends any good.
It’d probably land me in cuffs with a charge on my squeaky-clean record and my parents’ feet up my ass. Only when I thought about Dax did the idea of immediate retaliation seem worth it. I couldn’t stop the anger, and, if I was being honest, the hurt, from festering. He hadn’t answered any of my calls in two fucking days.
He sent one text last night saying everything was cool.
What did that even mean? From my end things certainly weren’t ‘cool.’
I wanted to know what the hell he’d gotten Audrey and me involved in.
If Dax told me someone did this to him, I’d be demanding every sordid detail so that I could kick their teeth in.
Instead, he was ignoring me.
My calls.
My Facebook IMs.
And my Snaps.
My phone began to play my latest ringtone, and I nearly broke my knees trying to get to it. Leaving the shower running, I scrambled out, snatching my towel up to dry my hands. I unlocked the screen, trying not to scream in frustration when I saw Audrey’s smiling contact photo.
“Hello?”
“Still nothing?” she asked, knowing all my problems since she insisted on sharing the burdens of them with me.
“Nope. Just the one from last night. He was active online two hours ago, Auds. I don’t get it. Why is he ignoring me?”
She cleared her throat, and something clinked in the background. “Not to dig his grave any deeper, but he was last active twenty-eight minutes ago. A picture was posted.”
“What the fuck?” my voice boomed in the enclosed bathroom.
“You okay, hun?” Mom yelled from somewhere in the house. I lifted the phone away from my mouth and called out that I was fine.
“A picture of what?” I asked Audrey, much quieter.
“The Manatee.”
“The Manatee? Where the boats are docked?”
“Yeah. There’s a party there tonight.”
Oh, hell no! My rage spiked for a minute, just to simmer the next second. This was all majorly messed up, but Dax was basically showing his true colors.
In a way it was a good thing this was happening now rather than later. Our relationship had never been ‘it’ for me. I knew I would never marry him or go off and have his babies.
We were two young people doing the dating thing because that’s what we were supposed to do. This wasn’t how I saw it ending, though: unresolved and weighed down by bitterness.
“Okay, Auds. Thanks,” I sighed.
“Wait. That’s it? We aren’t storming the area?”
I laughed lightly. “I don’t want to be at a party or on a boat. Screw him.” And the last six months! the angry, hurt girl inside me screamed silently.