Chapter 40
40
Jack
T he next night, I’d become a full on liar.
And I was okay with it.
I hadn’t meant it when I’d said “together.” We’d go to the cops together. Show the world what Coach—Joshua Jensen—had done together. But in order for me to take him down, I needed to go to his house, and I refused to bring Aviva with me. Something told me it wasn’t safe, and I trusted my instincts. I wasn’t risking her safety, even if she got pissed at me over it.
She was pissed at me. She sat on her bed and glared at me with those big brown eyes.
“Do you know how beautiful you are when you’re angry?” I asked her, a little entranced.
“You can’t sweet talk your way out of this, Jack Feldman,” she said. “What happened to burning down the world together ?”
I shrugged. “We can do that after. For now, you’re going to stay here and Lucy and Leslie are going to keep you company.”
“What if it’s not safe? I don’t want you to go alone.”
Her worry for me warmed me to my very soul. “I’ll be fine. Coach—Joshua—trusts me.”
A sliver of guilt slid inside me at the thought of betraying Joshua’s trust, but I forced myself to ignore it. I’d spent years looking up to the man, of course it was going to be hard to let go of it. But exposing the truth—and giving Aviva what she wanted—mattered more.
“Jack, I swear to god, I will not?—”
I shut her up with a hard, brutal, claiming kiss. I owned her mouth with mine, demanding entry, not giving a fuck that my friends were watching. She moaned and let me in, and I tasted her, got lost in her.
Remembered that I had justice to carry out for her.
Reluctantly, I pulled away, satisfied by the dazed look in her eyes.
“I love you princess. Be a good girl for me.”
She threw a pillow at me but I ignored it. She was going to have to get used to me making the decisions and imposing my will on her. That was how it was going to work, even if she hated it. Because she loved me.
Coach—Joshua Jensen, that was, because I couldn’t think of him as Coach anymore—lived in a large colonial about five blocks from Reina’s campus, in a gated community with a code. Fortunately, I knew the code and had keys to his house. I parked about a block away from the gated community so I couldn’t be placed at the scene of the crime, just in case. I’d walk through the gate instead of driving through it.
As I parked, I noticed the souped-up SUV behind me. Isaac had followed me here.
We both got out of our cars, staring at each other..
“Feldman.”
“Silver.”
He flinched. I was one of the few people who knew his real last name.
“Why did you follow me?”
He shrugged, walking toward me. Under the streetlamps, I could see the healing scab on his lip from where I’d hit him. “You’ve been acting erratic, so I followed you to Aviva’s, and then followed you here. If you’re about to do something stupid, I’m not going to let you do it alone.”
“So I have my own stalker,” I joked. Relief poured through me. I lifted my own chin in acknowledgement.
He chuckled. “Hey, you give it, you should be able to take it.” Then he sobered. “So what stupid shit are we doing?”
I sighed. “Breaking into Coach’s house.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
“Because he groomed and sexually abused Asher Gold, and I need to find the video he took of it to prove it,” I said succinctly.
In the dark, Isaac blanched. “I thought that was a lie.”
“No. I caught Coach in a lie, though.”
“Fuck man, I’m sorry. For you and for Asher. Where do you think the video is?”
I explained what had happened at Coach’s office in Hallister Hall, and seeing the empty folder marked Asher. “The videos must exist somewhere,” I finished. “I figure he would’ve saved them on his home computer or personal laptop instead.”
Isaac nodded. “How are we getting in?”
I pulled the small metal object out of my pocket. “I have a key.”
Isaac followed me up the stairs to the porch, waiting as I unlocked the door. “You know Aviva’s a Gold, right? A distant cousin, but…”
“Yeah,” I said. “Small world.”
“The smallest.”
I tried the key in the lock, relieved when it worked. “Quiet, we have to make sure he’s not home.”
I entered the silent house, noting the photos on the plain white walls—me and other teammates, a lot of Coach himself.
“Coach?” I called.
Silence.
Good, he was out like I’d thought.
Isaac followed me up the carpeted stairs, past the guest bedroom I’d crashed in before my freshman year started. Something stabbed me in the gut—I was doing the right thing, but it hurt, knowing that in a way, I was betraying the only father I’d ever known.
And then I imagined Aviva’s face when I’d told her I believed her and was going to help her, and kept going. She was more important than any false father figure.
Outside Coach’s office, Isaac stopped me. “Are you positive you want to do this, Jack? Once you know, you can’t unknow.”
I nodded. “I need to. For her.”
I turned the knob and entered the office—an almost exact replica of the one in Hallister Hall.
Coach’s personal laptop was nowhere in sight .
“Fuck,” I muttered. I’d really thought I’d get the evidence this way.
My phone buzzed in my back pocket. I pulled it out.
Levi calling , it said.
I answered. “Everything okay?”
“No Jack, it isn’t. Judah and I went to check on your girlfriend and her friends, bring them food. Apparently, your girlfriend snuck out the window. She’s gone.”
“What?!” I exploded.
Isaac eyed me, concerned.
“What is it?”
I put my hand up.
Visions of her falling, breaking her ankle, her fucking neck , paraded in front of my eyes. I shook my head to clear it. “And she’s gone?”
“Yup.” Judah must have grabbed the phone. “No idea where she went.”
Without another word, I hung up on him, sliding open the tracker app.
And there were Aviva’s two dots—from her phone and her neck—heading across the quad toward Hallister Hall.
Where Coach probably was.
“Fuck!”
“What’s going on?” Isaac asked again.
“We need to get back to campus. Aviva’s about to get her ass into trouble, and we need to be there before anything bad happens.”
I texted Judah and Levi to meet us at Hallister, telling myself it would be fine.
But as we raced out of the house, down the street, and hopped into my car, my gut churned. I was lying to myself. It wasn’t going to be fine. Not if I didn’t get there fast enough. I needed her, needed her safe—from everything .
I sped down the streets, running every single red light on the way to campus.
It didn’t matter.
We were still too late.
Because when we arrived at Hallister Hall, there was smoke pouring out of the windows of the building.
And according to the tracker app, my little fury was inside.