Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“ W ake up and open your presents, snow bunny.”
I jolt awake at the sound of Boone’s voice in my ear, only to find I’m no longer in my bed. It seems I’m curled up on the sofa, in the dark, with only the glow of the multicolored Christmas lights illuminating the room.
“What…” Sitting up is a struggle when I’m still so asleep, and I blink rapidly, trying to remember how in the world I got from my bed to the couch. Or rather, how they got me here without waking me up.
“You’ve always been so quick to drop when someone puts Benadryl in your drink.” Fletcher’s voice sounds from somewhere close by, and I feel his fingers cup the back of my neck. “Easy now, darling girl. I’m sure you’re drowsy?—”
“You drugged me ?!” I can’t help the indignation, and I don’t try to. Instead I reach back, gripping Fletcher’s hand to yank it off of me. “You actually, for the love of God, drugged me ?!”
“Poor thing.” I see movement on the floor in front of me, and belatedly realize there’s a fire going in the fireplace that serves as a backlight to Boone. He leans up on his knees, running his hands up my bare calves. “I told you she’d be pissed.”
“And yet you were the one to come up with the idea,” Fletcher replies smoothly. It’s creepy how easily they talk around me, like I’m not here or my opinion isn’t worth asking for.
“Fuck you both.” Reaching out, I dig my nails into Boone’s wrist, aiming to hurt him.
But I don’t get much of a chance. He surges upward, pinning me down on the sofa with little effort. But I’m too pissed and a little too disoriented to let him do it without a fight. A shriek leaves me and I kick at him, using my free hand to pull back in an attempt to punch him in the face again.
“Ah, ah…” His hands find mine and he grips my wrists in one hand, slamming them down to the cushion over my head. “We can play later, snow bunny.” He sounds much more dangerous than usual, and a shiver goes up my spine as Boone readjusts to straddle my waist, trapping me on the sofa.
“You’ve got her?” Fletcher gets to his feet in the dark, and I see him pass in front of the fireplace, though I can’t see much else.
“I’ve got our girl.” Our girl sends a strange, electric feeling through me, though I don’t think I can process it right now. Not with my heart twisting and racing in my chest, and my entire body tense for my attempts to get free.
“What are you doing?” My question goes unanswered and I snarl up at Boone. “Boone, tell me what the hell you’re doing! And get off—” He suddenly wraps his free hand around my jaw, covering my mouth and preventing me from doing more than making muffled, pissed off noises.
“Don’t be so ungrateful. You were in such a rush to open your presents before, remember? We’re giving them to you now, so be a good girl and pay attention.” Teasingly he grinds his hips against me, pulling a yelp from my throat at the feeling.
Fear is quickly following the anger, and it’s hard to stop my hands from shaking as a shiver rolls through my body. I’d thought…well I certainly didn’t expect to wake up like this, still shaking off the sleepiness of the Benadryl with Boone pinning me onto the couch.
It makes me wonder, though I keep trying to avoid the thought.
Are they going to kill me?
Desperately I whimper under his hand, wishing I could find his eyes in the darkness of the living room. It has to be around five am, given that the sun isn’t even starting to rise. The mountains make the sun rise a little later here, but I’ve always been good at telling what time it is based on basically no information.
Not that it matters.
Not now, when we’re alone in the mountains with no one around to help me. My whimper becomes a desperate, terrified whine, and I flinch when the television suddenly comes on. Boone lets me turn my head, and I watch, confused, as Fletcher uses the remote to navigate through the apps on the smart TV until he gets to YouTube.
Am…am I going to have to watch a video of the murders from last year? I don’t know if I can, or how I’ll react, when I know they took their time. When I know they?—
Fletcher’s profile comes up and he goes to his private videos, though there’s only one there. And even from the thumbnail, I know exactly what it is.
I’ve been sent this video enough times, seen it on enough screens, to know exactly what it is. This time the sound that leaves me is of desperate resignation, and I shake my head fervently.
I can’t watch this again.
“Shh, shh .” I don’t realize I’m still making soft, pleading noises in my throat until Boone calls attention to it, and my gaze goes from the brightness of the screen to his face, begging him with my eyes not to make me watch this. “You’re okay,” Boone promises kindly. “You’re okay, I promise.”
But I’m not okay. Especially once I hear the telltale giggle at the start of the video. My eyes close and I groan, but I don’t need to actually watch the video to know what’s happening.
“ There’s no way she thinks this is real. ” Joanna’s snicker is a whisper from close to the phone, and in response, Olivia scoffs.
“ She will, though. Haven’t you seen the way she looks at him? You know how desperate she is. ”
Amuffled voice comes next, and I hunch my shoulders as if I can hide from everything. I don’t know why they’re making me watch this. I lived it . Why do I have to do this again?
“There’s a reason for this,” Fletcher promises, leaning over the couch with the remote in his hand. “I promise, okay? We’re not trying to hurt you. We just…want you to appreciate things. But also we need you to know you don’t get to hide things from us.” In the brightness from the screen I see him tilt his head down to look at me, eyes dark. “Anything.”
If I wasn’t about to enter severe-emotional-distress mode, that would sound worse than it does and definitely get a reaction out of me.
“If I take my hand off, will you stay quiet?” Boone murmurs, leaning down until he’s close to my ear. I hesitate, unsure, before giving him a quick nod that has him sliding his hand down to press comfortingly against my stomach.
“Please don’t make me watch this,” I whisper, closing my eyes. “Please, I can’t?—”
“Hiding from it doesn’t make it less real, princess. Open your eyes.” Fletcher’s tone is a warning, and I force myself to open my eyes and look at the screen again, at the video taken from Joanna’s phone while Olivia hid in the closet with her.
The door to Theo’s bedroom opens and I watch as he pulls me inside, a smile on my face illuminated by the soft lamp on his bedside table. My heart sinks as he leads me to the bed, wrapping his arms around my shoulders and pulling me against him.
“ Are you sure we should let this go ?” Joanna asks softly. “ What if she ? —”
“ Actions have consequences and she shouldn’t have been flirting with him, ” Olivia cuts her off flatly. “ If she wants to act like a slut, then everyone gets to see. ”
A shudder goes through me and I cringe, barely able to watch as Theo coaxes me into removing my shirt and leggings. I remember this night, how tipsy I’d been, how happy I’d been that Theo told me he liked me and how he and Olivia were amicably over.
He assured me there wasn’t an issue, that no one was upset and we were all still friends.
Over my shoulder in the video, Theo glances toward the closet and grins, rolling his eyes and mouthing something I can’t hear. I couldn’t hear it then, either, as his fingers came up to tug off my bra, even though I’d murmured my nervousness and hesitation.
Only for him to shush me and tell me it was fine.
I don’t realize I’m crying until Boone wipes tears off of my cheeks, leaning down to press a kiss to my jaw. “I’ve got you,” he murmurs. “We won’t let anything happen, okay?”
But it is happening. It hits me that yesterday Boone knew I was lying when I said I didn’t have any trauma to confess. That was why he acted weird about it. Why Fletcher shushed him.
“I…I’ve seen this before,” I whisper, eyes glued to the screen. The familiar sting of embarrassment worms its way through my insides, and I cringe away from the soft, enthusiastic sounds I’m making in the video. “I also lived it. I don’t need to?—”
“ You promise she won’t be mad?” The me in the video is younger, more naive, and way too trusting of her ‘friends.’ “ I don’t want to upset her. You promise she knows?”
“ Yeah, of course,” Theo assures me. “ Everything is fine, okay? Would I lie to you ?” He would. He did. All because I’d been drunk with them at a party, at their urging, and admitted to having a crush on Olivia’s boyfriend, Theo, and the only guy of our friend group. Looking back, I’m not sure I really had that much of a crush on him, but what do I know? My memories of SIU are pretty tainted now, and I try not to think about any of it.
“ You like this, right?” I can hear my own breathing, and the undertone of malice in Theo’s voice I hadn’t heard then. He’d known, of course, that Joanna and Olivia were in the closet, filming me. He knew and had tailored everything to be more dramatic, more entertaining.
More humiliating.
It’s so hard to watch as he kisses me, as he teases me over my underwear, and when he finally pushes me back on the bed. The only bright side is that it’s almost over now, but the worst part is still coming and I feel like I’m going to throw up.
“ Say you’ll be a little whore for me, Conor ,” Theo purrs and I flinch away from the words under Boone. “ Say you’re such a whore. ”
I never would’ve agreed, and I know the people who got to see this video didn’t know I wasn’t sober. I was stupid and all of my friends knew how easily I got blackout drunk. That night, Theo had been the one to push more and more alcohol on me, not letting me deny him until I was drunk enough to follow him around like a little lost puppy.
“ I’m…” Even though I know how this goes, some part of me pleads for past-me not to say it. Not to say the thing that’ll haunt me for the rest of my life.
“ I’m such a whore ,” I said at his urging, and I whine, head tilting back against the couch. I can’t do this anymore. Remembering that night, remembering how horrified I’d been when?—
In the video, the closet door bangs open and Olivia laughs as Joanna comes up to the bed with the phone camera in my face.
“ Say hi to everyone else at SIU with a Facebook page ,” Oliva sneers, the camera on my dazed, confused features. “ This is a public service announcement, class of ‘23. Conor Maxwell, is ? —”
Mercifully, when a sob leaves my throat, Fletcher stops the video. But I’m already crying, already pushed past my limit as I try to bury my face in the back of the couch.
“Wh-why are you doing this?” I gasp, writhing under Boone. I don’t know where I want to go, or how I’ll get away from this. Not when I’ve worked so hard to get the memory out of my head. “Because I didn’t tell you? Why are you so mean ?—”
Fletcher’s fingers tangle in my hair and he drags my face carefully out of the couch. “I’m so sorry, baby,” he tells me softly. “But we needed you to watch it. We need you to remember how awful they were. What they did to you. They’re the reason you took those pills. The reason you were in that rehab. You did nothing wrong , princess.”
“But—” My head spins, and I want more than anything to ask them how they know any of this. “Why?—”
“And then just to get the video taken down and a slap on the wrist? No suspension, no real consequences?” Boone’s voice is an angry, irritated snarl against my shoulder. “The world’s not fair, Conor.”
“But neither are we.” Fletcher presses a few more buttons on the remote, but I don’t look at the screen. I don’t know if he’s rewinding the video, or doing something else?—
“ I’m sorry!” The sobbing voice is immediately familiar and my eyes fly open, head jerking sideways so I can see the screen. This, too, was filmed on a phone, though I can see that Fletcher is streaming it right now from his connected iPhone.
“What…” Olivia’s face fills the screen, bloody and bruised. She rocks back and forth, her hands tied behind her as the camera pulls back, showing her, Theo, and Joanna in the snow.
At the overlook on the trail.
“What did you…” I don’t get to finish. Boone appears on screen, hate in his eyes and a cruel grin on his face. He drags Olivia to her feet as she cries, sobbing, begging for him not to hurt her. Boone croons in her ear, promising he won’t. Promising all she has to do is everything he says.
“Tell my brother you’re a whore.” The words onscreen make me jerk in surprise, and I look at Boone above me, his eyes glittering with satisfaction and excitement. “ Tell him, or I’ll slit your throat.”
“ I’m a whore! ” Olivia doesn’t even hesitate. Boone makes her repeat it, over and over, running his knife along her throat but not cutting her. The words blend together in my ears, until all I can hear is her sobbing and begging, her words mixed with Joanna’s and Theo’s pleas.
And then Boone starts cutting.
This I can’t watch, not after Olivia starts screaming, and I turn to bury my face in Boone’s chest, shuddering against him on the couch. I can’t close my eyes, but all I see is the darkness of his shirt. “I—Turn it off. Turn it off, please!” I feel like I’m going to be sick.
This time, Fletcher listens to me. He pauses the video, cuts off Olivia’s screams and the begging from Joanna in the snow.
Leaving us in the silent living room of the winter house.
“You killed them.” Everything falls into place. Why they didn’t want me to see all the pictures. Why they were careful not to let me talk to anyone from school yesterday. There’s no way for me to have known the three of them died last year. I’d so thoroughly cut ties with all my contacts from school. “You tortured them. Why?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Boone sounds bemused, and he releases my wrists gently, instead pressing his hands to my hips. “We did it for you, Conor.”
“But you…” Fuck, I can barely think. It’s hard enough not to hyperventilate. Not to panic when all I can think of are the words Boone made Olivia say before he butchered her.
The same words Theo made me say that haunted me all the way to swallowing a bottle of pills.
“Poor darling girl.” Fletcher moves around the couch, forcing me to sit up so he can slot himself behind me. Once he’s there Boone pushes me back, both of us cradled between Fletcher’s knees. They’re like living bars around me, a warm, terrifying cage that never wants to let me go.
“Don’t you get it, Conor?” With Boone cradling my face in his hands, Fletcher wraps his arms around my waist from behind, putting his head on my shoulder. “Don’t you see yet?”
“See…what?” I’m running every possibility through my head, trying to decide if this is petty revenge, or fun, or?—
“We did this because we love you.”
Out of everything I could consider, I never would’ve come up with that.
“You…love me?” I repeat, my words stilted and unsure. “You love me?” No matter how I say it, the words sound unnatural on my tongue. “You killed them because you love me ?”
“We killed them because they hurt you. We almost lost you, thanks to them.” Fletcher sounds so sweet, so affectionate as he murmurs the words against my throat. Boone’s gaze wanders my face, and I shudder in their hold.
I have no idea what to say, though if I’m honest with myself, it’s hard to feel pity for my three ex-friends. They did everything in their power to hurt me. And they were never remorseful even after my attempt to end my own life.
Which I got to hear all about, once I was back at school. Olivia, in particular, had made it known she was only sorry I hadn’t succeeded, which nearly sent me spiraling all over again.
So why should I care that they’re dead?
“We fucked up when we were younger. We didn’t understand,” Fletcher admits. “It was so hard to let you go, to not follow you and drag you home where you belong.”
“We should’ve kept you,” Boone adds. “See what happened to you when we let you go? See what could’ve happened?” He moves so he’s between my thighs, my legs over his hips. I shudder at his touch, at their closeness, and almost miss Fletcher’s next words.
“But we’ll never make that mistake again.”