I hurried down the dark street on wobbly legs, letting the wind drown out the sound of my heaving sobs. I didn’t have far to go. Erin’s parents were expecting me to sleep over tonight, so I knew they’d let me in even if Erin wasn’t with me.
“Kinsey! Wait!”
Jax’s deep voice cut through the chilly night air, followed by the sound of his shoes pounding the pavement behind me. I ignored him and kept running.
He caught up to me a few seconds later and lay a heavy hand on my shoulder. “Kinsey, stop,” he said, pulling me around to face him. “Just wait a second.”
“What the hell do you want?” I snapped, swatting his hand off my arm.
He gestured across the street toward his car. “I’ll take you home.”
“Oh, sonowyou’re willing to be in a car with me?” I said, wiping the messy, mascara-laden tears from my cheeks with one hand. I hated that Jax was seeing me like this. Hated that I’d allowed him and his nasty CPA friends to have so much power over me.
He sighed and scrubbed a hand over his jaw. His knuckles were bleeding. “Don’t be childish, Kinsey. Just get in the car.”
“I’m not being childish. I just don’t want to be around you!” I said, jabbing him in the chest. My own chest was heaving like mad. “Seriously, why the hell would I want to be anywhere near you right now? You’re one ofthem!”
His breath was hot on my neck as he leaned in toward me. “At least I stopped you before you fucked Nate,” he said. “If you think about it, I actually helped you back there.”
I drew in a sharp breath, hating that he was right yet again. “Whydidyou do that, anyway?” I asked, voice thickening with emotion. “You could’ve just let me fall for all his bullshit and sleep with him. You know things would’ve been so much worse for me if I did. Imagine all the things people would say.”
“Yeah,” he muttered. “I know.”
I tilted my chin up and looked right into his russet eyes. “So why did you help me? Why did you tell me about the prize pool before anyone managed to win it?” I asked. “I mean, isn’t that what you want—for me to be humiliated as much as possible? Why would you stop that from happening?”
Jax opened his mouth like he was about to reply, but no words came out. Instead he stared down at me, breathing hard, lips almost touching mine. I didn’t move. Just stood there and waited. For what, I wasn’t sure.
“Get in the car, Kinsey,” Jax finally said in a low voice.
“No. I don’t need you.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Get. In. The. Car,” he said, squeezing the words out through gritted teeth. “Now.”
“No. I’m going to Erin’s house.”
Before he could respond, I spun around and slipped away, teetering down the pavement as fast as I could in my high heels.
Jax caught up to me again and slid his arms around my waist, capturing me in his vise-like grip. I shrieked and tried to struggle out of his unwelcome grasp, but my efforts were futile. He turned me around, picked me up, and threw me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
“What the hell are you doing?” I shouted, pounding on his back with my fists as he carried me across the street.
“Taking you home,” he said calmly.
“I told you, I’m going to Erin’s house!”
“No, you’re not. You’re drunk and hysterical, so I’m not leaving you to walk alone. Especially at night.”
“So to keep me safe from predators, you’re abducting me and forcing me into your car?” I said, voice rising to a fever pitch. “You don’t see the irony there?”
Jax ignored my ranting and opened the passenger door. He carefully placed me down on the seat and strapped me in like I was a child. Then he slammed the door and went around to his own side of the car.
I didn’t say a single word to him on the drive home, and he seemed happy to return the favor. As we headed down the winding coastal road, I stared out the window, tears streaming down my flushed cheeks. The awful events of the evening kept playing over and over in my already-spinning mind, like a horror movie with no end.
How could I face everyone at school on Monday now that I knew how much they despised me? How could I survive the rest of the year?
A small, insidious voice whispered in the back of my mind, telling me it was partly my fault. After all, I was the one who let my vicious Crown Point peers lull me into a false sense of security. I barely questioned it when they did a complete one-eighty and started being friendly to me after that horrible first day at school. I also made the decision to slam down four giant cocktails at my first Crown Point party before jumping into bed with a guy I barely knew.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.The word played on repeat in my mind until I felt like it was embedded in my soul.