Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Junior Year – Fall
N o one hated me more than I hated myself. I’d been walking around this godforsaken planet for the last twenty years feeling like an absolute fucking lie. At the end of the day, the person who went to bed at night was different from the person who woke up in the morning.
I wore a shield for everyone every single day because I hated the person I was on the outside. Last year, there was one person who knew I was a fake and not the bubbly person I portrayed to everyone. I was not a bimbo who only partied and fucked guys on the weekend.
Well, no. That person emerged not out of low self-confidence, but to uphold a carefully crafted image. The desire to be liked, to be part of a group of girlfriends, and to be loved drove those actions. Being underestimated was the goal, as beneath the surface lay a cold and conniving nature.
Until my old roommate's boyfriend, Walsh Solis, I had lived well in the lie I’d portrayed all these years. It wasn’t until the little fucker came into my life and I had to see him for almost a full year while he dated my roommate that I knew I was screwed.
I was never a cheater. My grandmother told me there’s a way to manipulate your way to the top. If you cheated yourself there, it wasn’t really making it in her eyes, but with Walsh, I was willing to bend those rules.
Last year at the stupid-ass bonfire I couldn’t stay to help Cagen. It was the one selfish decision I’d made in years. The crackling of the fire mixed with the warmth emitting from the bonfire the boys were crowded around sent me into an emotional spiral. I’d had to leave my roommate, who was uncontrollable in her pursuit in trying to somehow fix Walsh.
I had an inkling that something was wrong, and when Walsh told me she disappeared, I knew she was dead. I blamed myself for leaving her there, and I blamed Walsh for spending an entire year fucking with my head. He’d called me his, then fucked my roommate all night in the next room loud enough for me to hear. I didn’t know what his deal was, but I also knew he’d been messing with my head. I was over it. In those moments, I knew he couldn’t protect me from my own demons, from the trauma caused by my parents.
I’d told Cagen not to stay at that house, yet somehow blamed myself for not staying there with her. She thought she could cure him from whatever darkness lived inside of him, but he was unfixable.
So, in some twisted way, I found myself responsible for her missing, and I hated it. I would hurt him in a way that he’d hurt me. If he wanted a crazy-ass bitch, then I would be one.
I paced around the little apartment waiting for my new roommate to come by. Although my initial plan was to live alone, the moment I saw her advertisement on the school’s website looking for a roommate, I knew this would be perfect.
The front door chimed, alerting me it opened.
I cracked my neck, looking at my outfit, knowing I was about to put on my innocent act for the world.
"Come on, Madison," I whispered, pressing my T-shirt down.
"Is anyone here?" a deep voice called out.
"Coming," I replied, taking one last look in the mirror. If there was one thing I knew, it was that Walsh Solis would try to take me down when he found out I was his sister's roommate.
I grabbed the handle of the front door and opened it to?—
"Hi, I’m Walsh, Ember’s brother—" This wasn’t on my bingo card for what was going to happen. I expected I’d have to convince Ember to take me to her brother’s fraternity house a few times before I actually laid eyes on him.
That’s not to say I wasn’t happy, though. The quicker he saw me with his sister, the more he knew this was because of him—because of his actions last year with Cagen.
He paused, and there wasn’t an ounce of surprise sketched into his face when he saw me. I peeked over his shoulder to see if Ember was coming up the stairs.
"Where is she?" I asked.
"Fuck," he hissed under his breath before pushing past me and into the living room.
"I thought for a moment I was in the wrong apartment. You couldn’t have been so reckless as to answer an ad for my fucking sister, Madison." Walsh grabbed my wrist.
"My name is Maddy," I said coolly, playing into the fact I didn’t know him. I shook his hand, and the moment our skin touched, the electricity I remembered feeling last year was right there. He wanted someone who could play the same game as him. Well, here I was.
I didn’t expect him to be here moving her in. Although, I somewhat hoped he would be. He wouldn’t have recognized the building I was in since I decided on an apartment on the other side of Isles.
Walsh looked down at me after making sure his sister wasn’t behind him, then whispered, "Show me the closet."
I nodded as we walked past Ember’s bedroom to a small closet.
He threw the box inside before grabbing my arm and shoving me in there with him. There was no light when he slid the door shut. Because of the size of the closet, there was no escaping him, and the only way we could stand was smashed chest-to-chest.
"What the fuck did you do?" he growled, grabbing my throat and forcing my chin to look up to his eyes.
Do. Not. Falter. He was trying to intimidate me, but he would never hurt me.
"I didn’t do anything. I saw an ad that your sister was looking for a roommate." I tried to play it off cool, but he saw right through me.
" Tsk tsk , Muse." His mouth hovered over my lips.
His gaze scanned mine as his free hand grabbed a small lock of hair in his hand and pulled. "You fucked with the wrong person, because I will always be one step ahead of you."
"Just like you threw me out like trash? You fucked with me first." I glared at him. It had not even been six months since Cagen’s death.
He huffed off a little laugh before whispering, "You surprised me."
Walsh cocked his head to the side as he lifted my arms, displaying the one thing I hated the most. The crack of the door let the light stream in enough for him to see.
"Where did you get these?" he asked.
I shook my head. "Tell me where they are from?" His fingers traced the scars. I would never tell him, otherwise I’d have to peel back the tightly wound wall I kept around my heart, so I shook my head again. He grabbed my arm right above where the scar ended.
My burn scars were a part of my story, one I would not tell him—not yet.
"This isn't a war you are going to win, Madison. Every. Single. Move. I calculate. I will fucking destroy you where it hurts the most."
I mumbled through his hand, "Where?"
"Your heart."
Little did he know, my heart was full of ice.
He took the hair he’d plucked and shoved it in the back pocket of his jeans. "But what you don’t seem to know is that if there is one thing in this world that I love more than anything, it is my family. They are everything to me. So, I will be keeping an eye on you, and if you put my sister in harm’s way, then you are dead to me."
He paused before letting me go and opening the accordion doors to the dark closet. "And you’ll meet the same fate that Cagen did last spring."
"I’ll go missing?"
"If you think because you’re my muse that you’re safe from the devil, then you are so, so wrong."
I started to respond, but his hand came up to mine. "I am going downstairs to help my sister. When I walked up here, I never saw you. Do you understand?"
All I could do was nod as his fingers tightened around my chin. He let me go, then walked out of the closet, grabbed the boxes, and placed them by the front door. I sank down against the wall and took a deep breath, trying to relive everything that just happened. I couldn’t believe I actually stood up to him. For a moment, I thought maybe being Ember’s roommate was wrong.
"This is dope," Walsh exclaimed from the other room. They were back, and for my safety, I needed to pretend like everything was okay, because I believed Walsh. I would become like Cagen. I’d taken this too far, but was in too deep now, so I had to live in my lie. Tell Ember she was simply missing when I believed what happened was so much more. I went out into the living room and three figures were rounding the hall toward the open door.
"This isn’t bad, Dad," Walsh said.
"I just hate that my baby is growing up. The house is going to be so quiet without the two of you running around," Ember’s dad said.
"Don’t start with that again," Ember joked. Her and her dad continued to talk for a moment while I stared at my new roommate.
Ember was a curvy, raven-haired girl who looked exactly like Walsh, but in female form. Her hair hung low on her body. She was wearing an oversized sweatshirt and was clutching a box.
"Hi," I squealed. "You must be my roommate."
Walsh and I stared for a moment before I tried to continue with my charade. "Don’t be silly."
I went in for a big hug, pushing my red hair back and looking at her dad behind her.
Ember was beautiful. Her brown eyes were so big and lit the entire room with a warmth I wasn’t expecting.
"We will work on that." I laughed, trying to cut the tension.
"My name is Madison, but my besties call me Maddy," I said, turning to Mr. Solis. I went in to give him a hug.
Ember looked around at the living room before turning back toward me. I needed to fill the silence.
"I can’t believe you were able to score this apartment as a freshie!" I exclaimed, not daring to look at Walsh brooding in the doorway as if we didn’t have a serious conversation in my closet.
"Thanks for setting everything up for me. That was really nice of you." Ember offered a tight smile, and I burst into the kitchen, threw on the light, and grabbed a beer from the fridge.
"Want one?" I asked her before offering her dad one. I even looked at Walsh and twisted the corners of my lips up.
"You know she's—" her dad started to say.
"I am good, thanks," Ember cut him off, glaring at him.
"Anyway, we gotta get going, but Maddy, you and Ember are always welcome to come over to the Alphas at any time. I’ll make sure to put your name on the list," Walsh said, and my eyes went wide. I tried so hard to make sure it was more like an excited surprise, but Walsh would see through that.
Why would he invite me there? Was this the game we were playing?
I had to play my role, too. "You a-are part of the Alphas?"
"Yeah." Walsh fucking smiled, but his lips were pulled tightly.
"That is so fucking cool and an invitation that I absolutely will be taking you up on…so will Ember." I gave him a shit-eating grin; I wanted him to eat his own words.
"Mm-hm. See you guys soon, then." Walsh gave Ember a quick pat on the shoulder, then walked out the front door.
Opening a seltzer after finishing my beer, I listened to Ember and her dad talk amongst themselves. I would make sure to go over to the Alpha house. He needed to know I would not cower away from him.