8

Isa

Three days later

I tossed back the rest of the bottle of water left in Mom's car, shoving open the door and making my way across the street. Cars covered it, and I'd been lucky to find a spot where I didn't have to walk a mile just to get to the house and drag Odina's drunk ass back when she stumbled in the heels I knew she'd probably stashed in the backyard before sneaking out.

It was beyond my comprehension why I continued to cover for her when she didn't care about getting caught. I could only argue that she was my sister, and sisters were meant to look after one another. Even when one insisted on being a complete pain in the ass.

Kids from school stood around the yard mingling, with some making out on the grass. Wayne's party was supposed to be the "party of the year" according to the people I knew who had been invited. It was safe to say Wayne hadn't invited me. He hadn't so much as spoken to me since his fight with Hugo on Monday.

That was just fine with me.

I made my way inside as nausea churned in my gut. I did not have time to be sick, and if I threw up on Wayne's carpet, I'd make Odina clean it up.

Ugh.

The front door was wide open as I stepped through it, the pounding of music blasting over cheap speakers assaulting me as soon as I walked in. Glancing around the room for a glimpse of Odina, I cursed the fact that we'd been born on the shorter side. At 5'4", finding her in a sea of people taller than us proved impossible. Shoving my way through the party, I searched every person I passed.

"Have you seen Odina?" I asked a girl I knew sometimes hung out with her. She shook her head and pursed her lips in disgust, shrugging off my need to find my sister as just typical party-pooper Isa. With a sigh, I made my way to the dining room, where I finally spotted her sitting on the table with another one of her friends standing between her spread legs. They were clothed, thankfully, though it wouldn't have been the first time I walked in on her having sex. Both girls were giving flirty glances to one of the football players who watched Odina grab a handful of Megan's ass and squeeze.

He reached down, adjusting the erection that pressed against the front of his pants while I fought down the bile creeping up my throat.

Gross.

I moved over to them, tapping Megan on the shoulder. She smirked, eyeing me before walking away. "Can't beat twins," she said, shrugging playfully as she waved to Ben, the football player who moved closer.

"Fuck yeah! I always wanted to fuck both the twins," Ben said, stepping up to my space.

"Keep dreaming," I said with a saccharine smile. "From what I've heard, you don't have nearly enough dick for one girl, let alone two."

Odina snorted, spraying beer all over him as she burst into laughter. "Isa brought her claws tonight, I see," she murmured. Reaching up a hand, she stroked the hair back from my face in a rare moment of affection. I might have thought she was putting on a show for Ben, but her brow furrowed when she found the sweat slicking my face. "Are you feeling alright? You're burning up."

"I'm fine," I said, closing my eyes briefly as dizziness made me stumble slightly. "Let's go. I just want to go home."

"Aw, we can't leave just yet!" she protested, grabbing my hand and trying to drag me to the dance floor as I tripped over my own two feet. "You just got here. Come dance with me, Isabel."

"We have to get you home before Mom and Dad notice we've been gone," I argued, pulling back on her hand to tug her to the door. My grip slipped, sending me stumbling back into the table. Liquor bottles rattled around on the surface behind me as I steadied myself, looking up into Odina's face as she came closer. The furrow to her brow was gone, lost to an arrogant grin that widened as I watched, and replicas of my sister appeared in my peripheral vision.

"You're like a fish at night. I knew you'd drink that water," Odina said with a cruel smirk. "I amsosick of being the bad sister. I think, deep down, you want to be just like me. You're just too afraid to let yourself. I want my twin back from the goodie-goodie who took her away from me." Odina pouted, taking a sip from her red solo cup as I swayed on my feet.

"What the fuck did you do?" I hissed, reaching to grab the dining room table to support my weight as my legs turned to jelly beneath me.

"Relax," she groaned, rolling her eyes. "It's just something to take the edge off. Losing your virginity hurts like a bitch. You'll thank me in the morning. I wish someone had roofied me my first time."

"You fucking—" I paused, swallowing around my tongue as the words didn't want to form, and I clenched my eyes closed to shut out the spinning room. "Roofied me."

"Technically,I did," a male said, stepping up behind me and wrapping his arms around my waist. I shoved him off, falling forward, and it was only his grip that stopped me from crashing to the floor. "Easy, baby."

"Off," I protested, turning to face Wayne when he didn't take his hands off my waist. He used his grip to guide me to the dance floor, his hips swaying side to side as he moved to the beat of the music that made my brain pound against my skull with every pulse.

A vaguely familiar voice protested, calling my name from the haze that I couldn't quite grasp. "Let's get you home," Hugo said as his face filled my vision out of nowhere, but my weight sagged, my body feeling a hundred pounds heavier as the drugs hit my system and I lost all sense of who I was.

Of who I'd be when I woke up in the morning.

"Isa doesn't want to go home. Do you, baby? We're having fun dancing," Wayne said. The side of my face hit his shirt, breathing in the scent of sweat and teenage boy that I never wanted to smell again.

"Shit, what the fuck did you give her?" Hugo asked as his hands touched my face and he pried my eyes open to look at him. As my eyes drifted closed once again, I heard nothing else as a few moments passed. Only the soft sway of my body as Wayne moved us to the music lulled me to sleep.

"I didn't give her anything she didn't take all on her own. She's a big girl. Isa can make her own choices."

Hugo laughed, the sound far more menacing than anything I'd ever heard as his voice filled my ears. "Man, you have no fucking clue the shitstorm you just unleashed on yourself. Bad fucking move."

Vaguely aware of moving, of being spun around and my legs being shuffled forward by force, I flinched back when my sneakers touched the base of the bottom stair and hands wrapped around my thigh to guide me up the step. "Not such a prude now, is she?" someone asked with a dark chuckle that made the hair raise up on my arms.

Someone murmured something in warning, but everything went silent as my vision went dark around the edges.

Until my body wasn't mine anymore.


Tags: Adelaide Forrest Beauty in Lies Romance