Sincerely, Your Enemy

Chapter 1

Lacey

I ’m going to kill her.

Scratch that—I’m going to track her down, drag her back home, and then I’m going to kill her.

I’d like to say I’m not half bad at taking care of my siblings, but if the past year and a half has taught me anything, it’s that I have no idea what I’m doing at least ninety-five percent of the time.

In my defense, I didn’t know I was going to become responsible for Oliver and Sierra, my younger brother and sister, not even a week after my high school graduation. Life just has a way of throwing you a curveball when you least expect it.

I tear through my sister’s bedroom, stop near her opened window, and shiver at the night breeze wafting through my pj’s.

She snuck out the window.

She snuck out the fucking window .

That’s the second time she’s done that in the five weeks we’ve lived in this house.

My mistake was taking a bath after I made them dinner. How long has she been gone?

Ten minutes?

Forty-five?

Man, I must be the worst legal guardian the world’s ever seen.

I dial my sister’s number and bring my phone to my ear, cursing beneath my breath as I pace around the room.

It starts ringing.

Pick up, pick up, pick up .

The first call goes to voicemail.

No surprise there. I’m on Sierra’s blacklist these days. She says I ruined her life by pulling her out of her old school so we could move out here.

Our new place is much closer to campus and the café where I work, not to mention much bigger than the two-bedroom dump where we lived before—she even has her own room now instead of having to share with Oli—but that doesn’t matter to her.

She hates my guts for taking her away from her friends and making her transfer school right after Christmas.

I’ve tried to explain to her that this is the only way I can afford to support us while in college, but if there’s one thing you need to know about Sierra Mattson, it’s that she’s as stubborn as she is cynical.

Oh, and she thinks she’s always right.

As most sixteen-year-old girls do.

I hang up and call her right back. My call goes straight to voicemail—no surprise there. I lose my temper the moment the beep rings in my ear.

“Where the hell are you? You better come home right this second, young lady!” I cringe at my responsible parent act. Even I’m not buying it. “Since you had to sneak out instead of asking for permission, I’m going to assume you’re somewhere you have no business being. Come home! Now! Or I swear I’m donating your clothes to the homeless shelter down the street.”

I hang up the phone, racking my brain for a plan of action. I need to get her home before she lands herself in trouble or does something stupid that might result in the court deeming me an unfit guardian.

Losing custody of my siblings is, by far, my biggest fear. It has been since the day I took them in.

I remember getting the call like it was yesterday. Our dad had just unexpectedly passed in a car crash, and they had no one. No distant relative, no family friend, not one soul willing to step up and take care of them.

I knew right away it had to be me.

The alternative was abandoning them to the foster system, and there was no guarantee they wouldn’t get separated. I couldn’t stomach the thought of them losing each other after they’d just lost the only parent in their life, hence my becoming responsible for two kids at the age of eighteen.

Minutes drag by before I come to the conclusion that I can either sit here all night and drive myself mad with worry, or I can go out and look for her. I’m thinking I’ll start at her friends’ houses.

I open Oliver’s bedroom door a crack, and sure enough, he’s fast asleep. I wouldn’t have felt comfortable leaving him alone before, but he’s twelve now. He should be fine on his own for a few hours.

I change out of my pj’s, throwing on a pair of sweats and an oversized Duke University hoodie I got on orientation day as a freshman.

I redial Sierra’s number, put the call on speakerphone, and grab my car keys off the counter before rushing out the door. I round my landlord’s car—he lives on the top floor of the house we’re renting—and make a beeline for mine.

Dread creeps up my spine.

It’s dark out.

I hate driving in the dark.

At least it’s not raining.

I’d rather use hot sauce as lube for the rest of my life than go for a drive in the rain. Not that I’m having lots of sex these days. Things have been extremely slow in that department.

I’ve just backed out of the driveway when Sierra’s outgoing message sounds through the clunker I’ve spent all of my savings on. That one was quicker.

The phone barely rang twice before going to voicemail.

She has to be manually declining my calls now.

I call again.

And again.

And again.

I wait for what feels like my hundredth call to go to voicemail, like the others before it.

Only this one doesn’t go to voicemail.

This time, she picks up .

Shuffling noises and static come through on the other end. I’m seconds away from going off on my sister when a deep, raspy voice steals my breath.

“Dude, I swear to God, you butt-dial me one more time, I’m going up to your room and poking holes in all of your condoms.”

What.

The.

Hell.

I don’t waste a second pulling over to the side of the road.

“I… Where’s Sierra?” is all I can bring myself to say.

A marriage of loud music and chatter can be heard in the background, and I’m quick to understand the mystery man who picked up her phone is at a party.

Of course my sister went to a party.

Be more predictable, Sierra, seriously .

“Who?” the stranger drawls.

“Sierra, the owner of this phone. Where is she? Is she okay?”

If something happened to her, I don’t know what I’m going to do.

There’s no answer at first.

“Hello? I said is she okay? Why did you answer her phone? Is she?—”

“Yeah, okay, lady. I’m not in the mood to play twenty questions with a lunatic, so if you’ll excuse me?—”

Shit, I can’t let him hang up.

“Wait! Please don’t hang up. Please . Just give me a second.”

I double-check the number I’ve dialed to be sure.

“I swear this is my sister’s number. I don’t know why you picked up her phone.”

“This isn’t your sister’s phone. It’s…” He stops abruptly, dead silent for the next few seconds. “ Oh .”

My shoulders release all tension.

“You’re right. Fuck, I must be drunker than I thought,” Mystery Man says to himself.

“Where did you find her phone?”

“It was just sitting there on the couch. My buddy’s been butt-dialing me all night. I thought you were him,” he explains.

Sierra wouldn’t just abandon her phone at a random high school party. She spent all of last summer working as a lifeguard so she could afford the model she wanted. The thing practically cost her an organ.

“TJ, you’re up!” I hear in the background.

My jaw drops.

Did he just say TJ ?

I know a TJ. An arrogant, painfully attractive basketball player with an inflated ego and eyes so dark they pull you in and never let you go.

“The fuck is he talking to?” another guy chimes. “Jacobs! Get your ass over here. We have a score to settle.”

You’ve got to be kidding me.

It’s him.

It’s the same TJ.

Mathias Jacobs, also known as the campus playboy—although he hates his full name and asks that everyone calls him TJ, short for Thias Jacobs.

He just had to be the one to pick up Sierra’s phone, didn’t he?

He and I run in the same circle, and despite my friends’ many attempts to set us up, I’ve never understood the appeal. Guys like him know they’re gorgeous, and it makes them insufferable in my eyes.

Back up.

If TJ found Sierra’s phone at a party, then that means…

My sister’s at a college party.

Oh, she is so dead.

“I’m busy. Ask Theo,” TJ fires back, and the name he used tells me one of the guys at that party is Theodore Cox, our mutual friend.

Theo and I went to high school together. Truth be told, I had the biggest crush on him growing up. We spent most of high school casually hooking up when all I wanted was to be his girlfriend.

He strung me along for a hot minute before I realized he didn’t like me enough to actually commit to me. Then he met a girl—blonde, thin, gorgeous, you get the gist. And apparently, she was girlfriend material.

Did it hurt? Like a bitch. But then my dad died, and I had to grow up, and the next thing I knew, Theo was the last thing on my mind. I made peace with that part of my past. I think, in a way, Theo’s rejection shaped me into who I am today.

Maybe we all need a guy to treat us like crap at least once in our lives. That way, we know what we deserve and what we’ll never tolerate again.

I still hang out with Theo every now and then since we’re friends with the same people. He apologized for leading me on a little after college started, but I don’t need the apology anymore.

Hell, with everything that had happened since high school ended, my obsession with Theo seems like another lifetime ago.

“TJ, is that you?” I ask, even though I know the answer.

“Huh, yeah? How do you know my name?”

“It’s Lacey.”

No response.

“Lacey Mattson? We go to the same school? I’m friends with your roommate?” It occurs to me that the correct term here would be ex -roommate since TJ moved out of the party house where he, Theo, a guy named Everest, and another named Chance lived last semester.

“Sorry,” he says.

“Brown hair, green eyes. We have the same friends?” I continue.

A few seconds elapse before it clicks. “Right, you’re Dia’s friend, the one who’s too cool for parties. How’ve you been, rich girl?”

I cringe at the nickname.

It’s a common misconception that I’m loaded because my family is extremely wealthy. What people don’t know is that my mom cut me off after I decided to “throw my life away to take care of my cheating father’s kids”—her words.

As for the antisocial part, I wish I could deny it, but he’s kind of hit the nail on the head with this one. I was antisocial last year. I barely went out as I tried to adjust to my new reality as a parent.

I’d go to class, go to work, and then come straight home to help Oliver with his homework. I was too busy struggling to keep my head above water to embrace the college experience. I didn’t date, didn’t go to parties, didn’t even have a drink for an entire year.

My close friends, Aveena and Diamond, were aware of my situation and very understanding, but I get why others would think I’m some sort of people-hating hermit.

I’ve made it a point to put myself out there this year. Parties, events, whatever the college life throws at me. The thought of leaving Oli alone at home is a lot less troubling now that he’s older.

I don’t even bother answering TJ’s question. “Where are you exactly?”

“At Theo’s,” TJ says.

That’s good. That’s a ten-minute drive, tops.

“Okay, and do you see my sister anywhere?”

“What’s she look like?”

“She’s short, like, five-two. She has brown hair, and she wears too much eyeliner.”

“Oh, her . Yeah, she and her friends were here earlier, but they left.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Like, twenty minutes?”

Shit .

So close.

“So, it’s been fun and all, but I have to go destroy Theo at beer pong.” He makes it clear he’s done with my interrogation.

“One last thing. Do you remember anything at all? Something that could point me to where they went, maybe?”

He stops to think.

“I think I heard one of them say they were going to a bar.”

I know I’m pushing my luck at this point, but I don’t care. “You wouldn’t happen to know which bar, would you?”

“Chance!” TJ shouts.

Nothing.

“Hey, asshole! Get your tongue out of your girlfriend’s mouth for five seconds. I need you.”

“What?” I hear an annoyed Chance drawl from afar.

“What bar were those girls going to earlier?”

I don’t hear what Chance says next.

“No, not them. The blonde with puke on her shirt. She and her friends were asking you what bar doesn’t card earlier.”

“Oh, yeah. They’re at the Vortex.”

Now we’re talking.

“Thanks, TJ.” I’m about to hang up the phone when I remember to ask, “Could you hold on to her phone for me? Just until I can come pick it up?”

I doubt her phone will still be there if I pull up to the party house tomorrow.

“Maybe. What’s in it for me?”

Typical .

“I’ll owe you one. Whatever you want.”

He hesitates for a moment but eventually agrees. “Fine.” Seconds before I end the call, he adds, “Oh, and, rich girl?”

“Yeah?”

What he says next makes me feel as though I’ve just signed my own death warrant.

“I won’t hesitate to collect.”