“You asked for it,” he croons, his voice low but edged with cruelty. “It’s okay to admit you wanted us. Royal’s not here anymore, Stalker Girl. He’ll never know. But we both know the truth, don’t we?”
His nickname brings back the night on the balcony when I watched him and Duke double-teaming some girl. It did turn me on. I got hot watching with Royal. Does Baron know about that?
“Royal always told you that when he was done, he’d pass you on to us,” Baron says, moving into my space, so close I can feel him even though he’s only laid one finger on me. I stiffen, but I don’t open my eyes. I will endure this, and it will be over. I can feel myself moving away, as if it’s that night, somewhere after the fifth or tenth guy, when I just hung there, and I knew I was beaten. I stopped fighting. I stopped living.
I don’t fight it now. I sink into it, embrace it, pull it into myself. My brokenness is not my weakness. It’s my strength, my shield. He cannot break me more. He cannot hurt me more. I am not in the hallway at Willow Heights, with my attacker breathing his cherry-sucker scent against my lips. I’m in an air-conditioned loft, where nothing can touch me, even when he does. I don’t feel it. I don’t feel anything in this cool void of weightlessness, a limbo of suspended animation.
“And you made sure he was done with you, didn’t you?” Baron purrs into my ear. “You knew exactly what would happen then. You wanted it, just like she did. What was your favorite part? Was it at the end of the night, when we were both inside you at once? That’s every girl’s fantasy when she sees twins, right? I’ll let you in on a little secret. That was my favorite part, too. Your pussy was loose after we’d fucked you all night, but your ass was still so tight.”
I can’t swallow. I can’t breathe. I am frozen, caught in the teeth of the nightmare that gripped me all summer.
“We could do it again, you know,” Baron says, moving his finger back and forth against the skin just inside my waistband. His lips brush my ear, warm and soft and inviting. “You can even pretend you don’t want it if that’s what gets you off. I won’t put a gag on you this time. I’ll let you scream.”
His words are like ice water down my spine, and I suck in a loud, ugly breath. Before he steps back, I bring my knee up with all my strength, slamming it into his crotch. Baron’s eyes go round, and his sucker drops to the floor when his mouth falls open. He can’t even breathe, let alone speak. Before he can recover, I punch him right in the sternum with my rings. He reels back, and I slam my locker and turn to Duke.
He steps back, his gaze flying from me to Baron and back, looking like he’s about to say fuck it and ditch this whole shit show.
“Maybe you should show up at my fights,” I say. “Make a T-shirt with my name on it, and wear a necklace with an apple on it, just in case anyone forgets who your balls belong to.”
I step around Baron and walk off, ignoring the chatter and stares. I sit in class, staring out the window at the dark sky that’s still spitting rain. And I fucking fume.
I fume because Baron is psychotic and I can’t change that, no matter how much I try to appease him and keep the peace, to see him as a human being and not just a monster. He still thinks he can talk to me like I’m scum. How many times will I have to crush his balls to make him stop? And what if he doesn’t? I put myself in his path, and now our truce may be over before it really began. I know violence, so I used violence. I don’t know what else to do. I’ve already tried compromise and understanding. What else is there?
I could go to the police. There’s zero chance Preston disposed of any evidence. He has the blanket he wrapped me in that night, and it must be covered in their DNA. He has pictures. He has a doctor who came to examine me.
But he doesn’t have power. He can’t win against the Dolces.
I thought this shit was over, that I didn’t have to fight them anymore. I already know I won’t win. No one can beat the Dolces. No one has more power at this school than Baron, no matter how much I insist I’m his equal, how many places I insert myself. Baron is king.
But one person has more power than Baron.
Royal.
But no. I can’t ask him for help now, can’t bring him back into my life when I just got free of him. Besides, his status isn’t the same at this school as it once was. It fades every day. He’s an icon, a football god, but he’s no longer involved in the day-to-day. Going behind Baron’s back to rat him out to his brother won’t help me. It will only make me look weak, prove that I can’t do it on my own. Royal won’t be there to fight my battles for me every time.
But other people can fightwithme.
I don’t have to do it on my own. That was my mistake last time. Those boys already proved that I can’t do it alone.
Why should I have to, though?
Needing friends doesn’t make me weak, exactly. It makes me fallible and a little bit vulnerable and human, all the things I need to be to connect with other humans. I’m not better. I’m not the queen who needs to lord her status over them. I’m one of them. I’m a basic bitch, no one special. I don’t even have money.
Which makes it even more important to have friends.
thirty-eight
Harper Apple
At lunch, I grab Colt, since it’s raining outside, and he can’t go hide under the bleachers. “Come on,” I say. “You’re eating in the café today.”
“I am?” he asks, giving me a skeptical look.
“Yep,” I say, waving to Dixie. I join her and Quinn. “You ready?”
“For what?” she asks.
“We’re taking the table.”