12. Everly
12
Everly
The crisp night air bit at my skin as I made my way down the sidewalk, the faint glow of the bus stop flickering in the distance. I shifted my bag on my shoulder and tightened my scarf, groaning lightly. My mind was still running crazy circles around last week’s events.
The memory of my encounter with Rhett burned constantly in my thoughts, no matter how hard I tried to shove it aside. His intensity, his touch, his voice issuing dark commands, those damn piercings… all of it lingered like a tattoo on my brain.
Still, I was committed to doing the right thing, so I’d studiously avoided him since then. He hadn’t made any attempts to contact me either. That admittedly stung a little, but at the end of the day, I knew it was for the best.
That whole night was a mistake. Letting him kiss me was a mistake, and sinking to my knees in front of him was definitely a mistake. The sex was the biggest mistake, of course. And the best orgasms of my life were…
“A mistake,” I muttered to myself through gritted teeth, hating that my mind kept slipping back to wanting more from Rhett.
I inhaled deeply, lifted my chin, and forced my mind to focus on something else. Did I have any assignments due soon? Some class readings I needed to go over?
Yes.
I let out another weary groan, wishing I’d skipped tonight’s lecture. It’d turned out to be a total rehash of last week’s class, since the professor was off sick and left it in the hands of his TA, who was wildly out of his depth.
If I’d known how pointless it would be, I would’ve headed to the library to study for two hours instead. Maybe even let off some steam with the girls at one of the college bars afterwards.
Thankfully, I was no longer an unwelcome presence anywhere on campus. The bigot rumors had died down ever since Holler issued the retraction about me, and now I was only known as ‘that girl whose dorm got broken into twice’.
Not exactly the most positive reputation to have, but certainly far from the worst.
Speaking of the dorm break-ins… I hadn’t seen or heard from Jake since he called me from that private number, trying to worm his way back into my life. That was a relief, though it came with its own kind of unease.
I had to wonder what he was planning next, and how terrible it would be. Then that made me circle back around to Rhett, wondering if he would finally listen to me and believe me after it inevitably happened.
But then what? We’d magically forget we hated each other and ride off into the sunset together?
Hell no.
Rhett didn’t strike me as a relationship guy. He seemed more like the type of guy who’d fuck his way through an entire sorority in the space of a week, leaving total chaos in his wake before moving on to the next one.
Maybe I was being a little judgmental—especially for a girl who’d allowed herself to be totally dick-matized by him in the space of a few minutes—but realistically, guys with multiple cock piercings weren’t usually known for being sweet, white-picket-fence types, were they?
As I neared the bus stop, a prickling sensation crept up the back of my neck. I whirled around, half-expecting to see Rhett in that skull mask of his, watching me from the shadows.
Instead, I spotted two girls with a leashed dog making their way along the path that ran off the sidewalk into the nearby forest. They weren’t even looking in my direction, let alone staring at me.
I was just being paranoid. But who could blame me for that after everything that had happened recently?
Breathing a sigh of relief, I started walking again. My phone vibrated in my coat pocket a moment later, and I checked it to see an Instagram notification. Tessa has sent you a message.
I swiped down to see the preview text. Listen to these now please! Important!!
“What the hell?” I muttered, opening the whole conversation. Tessa had preceded the text with several voice notes. I scrolled up and clicked on the first one.
“Hey, babe. Sorry if it’s weird to send you a voice note, but this is kind of a long story, so I figured it would be easier than texting!” she began. She briefly coughed and went on. “So, I was just in the library with my econ study group. We had an all-nighter study sesh planned because we have a really hard exam coming up. So anyway, we were all sitting there talking, and then I saw your ex walking past. I glared at him and tried to give major ‘fuck off’ vibes, because what else would I do, right? But then—ah, shit. Sorry, I forgot about the time limit. One sec.”
I clicked on the second voice note.
“Sorry, I forgot we can only talk for one minute on these things. Ugh. Anyway, I noticed he was walking really slowly as he passed our table. Like, it was obviously on purpose, as if he was trying to intimidate us. He was also smiling creepily at the girl next to me. She kind of just… froze. Like, she looked terrified. So once he was gone, I took her aside and asked her what the deal was. She didn’t want to say anything at first, but I told her that I know the guy has a really bad rep, and I just wanted to help out if she needed someone to talk to. Don’t worry, I didn’t mention you or anything like that. I kept it vague. But anyway, she ended up breaking down and admitting that he did some really fucked-up stuff to her at a party. Hold on. Time limit again.”
Heart pounding, I played the third and final message.
“So, you can probably guess what he did to her. She was too scared to turn him in because of his rich family,” Tessa went on. “But look…. I am just so done with guys like this. We have to do something about this fucker. He’s running around campus doing whatever the hell he wants, hurting women, and he’s obviously not going to stop. So I was thinking. You, this girl Jane, Sloane, Bree, and me… we need to get together and brainstorm ways to take him down for good. I mean, five heads are better than one, right? So why wait? Let’s come up with something right now, before he gets the chance to attack someone else! Can you come meet us at the library?”
I sent back a voice note of my own. “Sure, I can come. Where exactly are you?”
She replied a minute later. “We’re on the ground floor on the east part, right near that side door that leads out to the courtyard,” she said. “I was thinking—when you, Sloane, and Bree get here, we can all go out there to talk. That way no one can hear us coming up with our plan. I know it sounds paranoid, but I really don’t want anything to get back to him. I want us to strike without that prick having any idea what’s coming.”
“Okay,” I replied, pulse pounding with anticipation. “Be there soon.”
I turned around and strode away from the bus stop, wishing I’d brought my car to campus instead so I could speed things up. Ten minutes later, the library loomed ahead, its towering windows glowing faintly from the dim light inside.
At this hour, the campus was much quieter, and my footsteps echoed loudly on the pavement as I approached the entrance, the faint chill in the air wrapping around me like a second skin.
Pushing through the heavy glass doors, I stepped into the quiet space. The main floor was practically deserted, save for the night staff at the front desk, who barely glanced up as I passed.
The east wing was even quieter. My sneakers squeaked against the tiled floor as I rounded a corner, heading toward the side door Tessa had mentioned. Rows of empty study tables stretched out ahead, the few reading lamps left on casting pools of warm light over the wood.
I scanned the space quickly. No one was there.
My pulse quickened slightly. “Tessa?” I said, my voice carrying further than I intended in the stillness.
Nothing.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and opened our conversation again. I’m here, I typed. Where are you? You said the east side, right?
I stood there for a moment, staring down at my phone and waiting for the typing bubble to appear. Nothing showed up.
Shoving my phone back in my pocket, I glanced toward the side door. The idea of going into the courtyard alone made me hesitate, but I took a deep breath, opened the door, and tentatively stuck my head out anyway.
“Tessa? Are you out here?” I called out.
A few seconds later, her voice drifted faintly over the chilly breeze. “Hey, girl! Sorry, Jane wanted a smoke!” she said. “Did you see Bree or Sloane yet?”
I breathed a sigh of relief and stepped all the way outside, glad that she was close.
“No, I didn’t see them yet,” I said, casting my eyes around. “I guess they’re still on their way.”
The courtyard was a wide, open space bordered by the shadowy outlines of towering trees and the gothic arches of the library's outer walls. In the center stood a circular stone fountain, its surface reflecting the faint light of the lampposts scattered around.
I walked slowly toward the fountain, my shoes crunching lightly on the gravel path. “Um… Tessa?” I called out. “Where are you, exactly?”
Her voice came again, faint but unmistakable. “Over here!” she said. “Can’t you see us? We’re literally waving at you. Hello!”
I took another step forward, but I still couldn’t see the two girls anywhere. My pulse quickened, and I tightened my arms around myself, the instinct to retreat back into the safety of the library overwhelming.
“Fuck it,” I muttered, pulling out my phone again.
I called Tessa, and she answered on the sixth ring, her voice thick with what sounded like exhaustion. “Hello?”
“Hi. Where are you? I can hear you, but I can’t see you.”
“Huh?”
“Where are you?” I repeated.
“In bed.” She let out a brief yawn. “I was asleep.”
My heart began to pound as confusion swirled in my mind. “But you asked me to come to the library, didn’t you? I literally just heard your voice.”
“Babe, I’ve been in bed for like, two hours. I know it’s really early for me, but I have to get up at five to study for this stupid quiz tomorrow, or else I’ll totally fail.”
I blinked, wondering if I’d lost my damn mind. “So you didn’t send me a bunch of voice notes about Jake?”
“No.” She let out a groan and went on. “Oh my god. Someone’s totally trying to scam you. You’ve heard about that stuff, right?”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Apparently scammers are using deepfake tech to copy real people’s voices. That way they can call their friends or family and ask for money. People fall for it all the time.”
“They didn’t ask for any money,” I muttered, switching the call to speakerphone so I could look at the messages. “And it came from your account.”
“It wasn’t me. Seriously. It must be some kind of scammer rip-off thing. They probably got my voice from all the reels I post and made a fake account. Just tell them to fuck off.”
I clicked into the profile that had contacted me. It had Tessa’s current profile picture and identical bio details… but we had zero mutual friends, and there were no photos or reels posted.
“Oh my god. You’re right,” I said, voice barely above a whisper. “It’s fake.”
“See? Tell them to fuck off.”
I didn’t reply right away. My mind was spinning too much, telling me I needed to get the hell out of this courtyard right now.
Clearly, this whole thing was a setup. The fact that the ‘deepfake scammer’ had pretended to be Tessa saying she wanted to come up with a big master plan to take down Jake… that meant it had to be Jake himself.
He knew exactly how to lure me into a trap—by cunningly preying on my desire to destroy him—and he’d correctly assumed that I’d told my friends about the things he’d done in order to craft a narrative that would draw me to the exact location he wanted me in.
Fuck.
I sprinted toward the side door of the library, praying I’d reach the safety of the building in time. As I ran, Tessa’s voice echoed faintly from the phone. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I really need to get back to sleep,” she was saying. “Talk tomorrow?”
“Tessa, call the pol—”
A big hand clamped over my mouth, cutting off my words. My phone slipped from my fingers, clattering to the ground as I thrashed, desperate to break free from the grip of the person wrapping themselves around me.
“Shh,” a masculine voice murmured behind me, low and calm, as if soothing a frightened animal.
My heart slammed against my ribs as the sharp sting of a needle pierced the side of my neck. Panic flared, white-hot and wild, but it was short-lived. Whatever was in the syringe worked fast, spreading like fire through my veins, making my limbs heavy and useless.
I tried to fight, to wrench myself free, but my body wouldn’t obey. The edges of my vision blurred as my knees buckled, and I felt myself being lowered to the ground as darkness rushed in to claim me.
The last thing I registered was the sound of Tessa’s voice on my phone, a distant murmur in the dark before everything went silent and black.