Chapter 23
Life with Mitchellwas pure hell, there was no sugarcoating it.
With Reg, I could keep him at arm’s length, even in the same house. He would dash in and bite at me every once in a while like a yappy little dog, but he would grow bored with it. Or maybe he was still scared of me. I liked to think that’s the reason he kept his distance and never took things very far.
Rick even stayed away from us after that night I came home with Kingston. The night Kingston and I both confronted him and let him know how absolutely disgusting and vile his actions had been. If only there was a way to make him pay for it, but the police only worked for the ones who were paying them.
Penny was a comfort to have back with me and I was so grateful she didn’t hate me for everything that had happened. She was always supportive and when I was too overwhelmed by the bizarre shit storm that was my life, she would regale me with funny stories of classes at Oakville High. The life that I craved, boring and normal with the occasional cute guy thrown in.
She was recovering from her ordeal with the same plucky spirit that kept her going through everything. I liked to think I was able to help her too, now that I wasn’t a medicated zombie barely surviving daily existence, that was. I loved being able to unravel her problems and offer solutions, the same way she did with me.
And then there were my guys. The Kings were supportive and amazing, as much as they could be. With us being under so much scrutiny from Mitchell it happened in the form of stolen moments between classes or midnight meet ups with Kingston in my backyard where we would hold hands and whisper to each other.
Ryker was in constant contact, too, but only via text. He did manage to sneak up to Oakville to see me one day after school, but we didn’t have the chance to spend any time alone. We sat on the steps in front of my house and talked about our lives and how strange they’d become now that we’d been dragged into the world of the wealthy elite. Kingston saved me when Reg asked about Ryker, he claimed that Ryker was there to see him to spar. Reg was okay with that, but it felt too close for Ryker to come up again. I didn’t want him being punished by the Organization just for a few minutes with me.
At school it was strange. I’d gone from being on top of the social ladder for a couple weeks, back to being ignored. I wasn’t down at the bottom again, but I found myself off in the dark corner of school culture, a place where nobody noticed me. It was like the Organization had infiltrated Covington student life, but I didn’t know how. Sofia even laid off a little. She played it cool around me and she had been spending a lot of time with Max, so her attention was focused elsewhere.
Mitchell, though. That was the absolute hell I had to suffer. He was a terrible human being and reveled in his own disgusting abuses.
He was everywhere I looked, too, and he knew how to press all my buttons. He knew just what it took to break a girl like me, and even though I tried to let it slide off my back, he really got to me. My Kings did their best to buffer me from his abuses, but ultimately, they couldn’t keep him away completely.
Mitchell had the full approval of the Organization behind him, that was a big part of it, but he also had the entire football team and half the town’s teenage boys egging him on.
Mitchell Miller threw epic parties and invited kids from Oakville High, Covington, and neighboring towns to have bangers of colossal proportions.
Nobody was going to cross a guy like him, and they were all going to fall into order when he told them to. Getting into Mitchell’s inner circle was like teenage boy catnip, something they all craved and aspired to achieve.
He’d been the one who had set up Penny. I found that out during one of his mental torture sessions over a lunch hour in late November. I was sitting in the cafeteria by myself. My Kings were at football practice, and as usual, people were walking past me like I was a pariah. An outcast. It was like I had an invisible sign over my head that screamed, “LOSER,” even though I was wearing all the right clothes and was still technically under the protection of the school’s most popular group, the Kings.
Mitchell found me alone and morose, wonder if I was every going to escape the Organization and have my happy ever after or if it was even worth it to dream about.
“Hey, trashy whore,” he said as he sat down, swinging one long leg over the bench attached to the table so he could straddle it. “I see I just discovered the answer to that age old question.”
I didn’t respond, I kept sipping my tea and letting the steam curl around my face to relax me and take me into places only my imagination could access.
“You know the one. Can you put lipstick on a pig?” he snorted with derisive laughter. His clear blue eyes were intensely locked on me, but with a mocking control, not with the intensity of desire or anything. “I heard from Sofia that you responded to being called piggy.”
I ignored him, sipped my tea and let my mind take me to the past, where I was alone with scrawny Kingston Taylor, climbing trees and skinning our knees.
“Do you remember what happened to your weird little friend, what was her name, Penny?” he asked, and although I flinched internally, I didn’t give him the satisfaction of responding. “No? You don’t remember? I’ll refresh your memory. She was gang raped and your Kings took the phone of the one boy who was recording the whole thing. They used that to blackmail you. Sound familiar?”
I looked up, not for long, but long enough for him to give me a sly grin and keep going. “Yeah, you do know what I’m talking about. The Organization set it all up with my help. I brought them there, and I gave them the idea to use the phone. We set you up, and we got you trapped in our little scheme. I was part of this all along, so you could start sucking my cock any day now.”
Again, I ignored him, choosing instead to stay in my head, somewhere in the depths of a sunny summer day with Kingston, playing his fantasy card game and explaining the rules to me.
“I see you’re doing this whole hard to get act, as if it’s going to work,” he said, sighing out of irritated boredom. He swung his other leg over the bench and sat facing me then. He crossed his arms and leaned closer. “You know, I was ordered to get you sucking dick. But it’s not really up to me. None of this is. The Organization asked me to submit a report on your sexual training and skills, but how am I supposed to tell them anything when I haven’t had a chance with you?”
In my imagination, Kingston, Archer, Valen and even Ryker were beating Mitchell as he lay curled upon the ground in pain. I could almost envision my guys kicking him as he cried out for mercy.
“I could find out one thing right here,” Mitchell said, and I felt his foot prod my thighs, press into them and push them open despite me fighting against him. His legs were long and muscled, and his foot determined. “I could find out if you’re wearing panties, Everly Hayes.”
He kicked forward and made contact with my vagina, hitting me hard and making me wince in pain. Tears sprung to my eyes, and I hissed, “What the fuck is wrong with you?” as I shoved his foot away under the table.
He laughed and sat up straight. “At least I know you’re wearing panties and you aren’t deaf. You’re just being an ice cold cunt to me, and I don’t appreciate it. Uppity Tributes never last, you know. You’ll be sold faster than you can beg me to fuck your pussy and buy you at auction.”
My face darkened at the thought of Mitchell owning me, at the thought of anyone owning me. It angered me, filled me with simmering rage to think of anyone owning another human being.
“Fuck you, loser,” I said. “Stop with these empty threats and Organization bullshit. I know you guys can’t make that many girls disappear every year.”