Rage simmers in my veins.
Fuck Baron Dolce. Just because he gave me a scholarship, that doesn’t mean he gets away with murder. He may not have done anything as Mr. D, but he sure as fuck manipulated that situation to get what he wanted in the end. He got rid of me, got Royal to dump me when his little trick in the basement didn’t work, and then he told Royal how they could punish me. And now he’s threatening and traumatizing poor little freshmen. Even if I didn’t already feel an unexplained kinship with Magnolia, I’d be pissed. This town will never heal as long as he’s in it, wreaking havoc on the future generations.
At last, Magnolia sits up and wipes her eyes. One set of her lashes comes off entirely, and she gives a shaky laugh and peels off the other side. “Did you get my phone?”
I shake my head. “I didn’t see it. It was a mess out there.”
“Do you think we’ll be in trouble?”
“Maybe,” I admit. “But I don’t think they’ll suspend us. There were too many football players involved. They need them for the Faulkner game tonight, and they can’t suspend the rest of us and let them off. Not to mention all the cheer and dance girls involved.”
Magnolia nods and stands to splash water on her face. “What about me?” she asks. “Will I get in trouble for having my phone out?”
I give her a funny look. “Everyone has their phones at lunch.”
“I was filming, though,” she says. “On school property.”
“You won’t get in trouble,” I assure her. “But they’ll probably make you erase it, especially if Duke’s dick is in it. They won’t want it getting out that those kinds of things happen here.”
“I can’t erase it,” she says, gulping and turning big, guilty eyes my way. “I was livestreaming on theOnlyPicsapp.”
four
Harper Apple
“So, the good news is that no one paid to see the video she was streaming,” Dixie says from the back seat of Gloria’s Mustang. We’re on our way to the game, and I just filled them in on what happened with the freshman after lunch.
“Can you erase it?” I ask, twisting around in the passenger seat. I passed along the login information that Magnolia gave me, since I’ve never used that app. Dixie and Lo both seem to know their way around it, though.
“There’s no video to erase,” Gloria explains, glancing at me with a funny look on her face. “It doesn’t save the livestreams to watch later like some other platforms.”
“What?” I ask, noticing her guarded expression.
“Nothing.”
“Don’t fuck with me,” I say. “Didn’t you learn your lesson at lunch?”
“My stomach is still bruised, so yes,” she says. “Anyway, I just… Well, this summer, someone was sending Royal videos, like, porn clips. Of you. I watched Baron try to figure out who it was, so… That’s how I know you can’t rewatch the lives.”
“Fuck,” I say, laying my head back on the seat. Preston took dozens of shots of us fucking, and I pretty much knew what he was doing, but I didn’t care enough to stop him. I also didn’t think anyone else would have seen them. “So Baron watched them, too?”
“Yes,” she admits. “And Duke. But that’s it. Oh, and my brother.”
I swallow hard, trying not to be sick. I imagine all those guys standing around watching a porno of me getting fucked with a pillow over my face. Not like they hadn’t already fucked me themselves, but… I wish Gloria hadn’t seen it, too. And I really, really wish she hadn’t said anything in front of the school gossip columnist.
“You have anOnlyPicsaccount?” Dixie squeaks behind us. “You were doing porn?”
“Um, no,” I say. “And you should probably be more concerned that your fourteen-year-old future cousin-in-law has an account than me. I’m eighteen.”
“I’m going to need details about your porn clips,” she says. “Or I’ll put it on the rumor mill.”
“You’re the devil,” I say. “Tell me about Magnolia’s video. It’s gone? There’s no views?”
“Unfortunately, she did activate the optional fifteen-second preview clip,” she says. “That’s the only part of the video that was saved and posted, and it’s still up. That’s the bad news.”
“Has anyone viewed it?”
“Over a thousand people,” she says. “And it has a pretty clear shot of Duke’s dick.”