Chapter 14
CHAPTER 14
Ivy
The next day
Anonymous: Remember what I said. Eight sharp. Don’t be late, twig.
My grip on my phone tightens.
Silas.
I change his name in my phone to Psycho and tuck it into my pocket, so I can focus on my studies, but his warning still looms over my head. I check the library clock, feeling my heart sink into my shoes the closer the arrow gets to twelve—the time for my supposed punishment by the Skull and Serpent Society boys.
“You okay?” Aspen asks, closing her book. “You’ve been off all day. What’s going on with you?”
I sigh. “I have an appointment with someone at eight.”
She raises her brows. “Ooooh! Something important? Or is it a secret? Is it a date?”
I suck in a breath. I don’t want to alarm her, but if I don’t tell her, she’ll find out anyway. “Silas wants my … help.”
“ Silas ?” She frowns like she can’t believe her ears. “Silas Rivera? As in the guy with the black-and-white hair and the heart tattoo?”
“Yup,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Unfortunately.”
“Why are you hanging out with him of all people? He’s shady as hell,” she says.
“I don’t want to, believe me, but I … owe him,” I respond.
“Ew.” She rolls her eyes.
“Exactly my thoughts.”
“Silas is such a fucking freak. I can’t believe we’re even related at all.”
“What?” My jaw drops because this information came out of the blue.
“Yeah. Didn’t you know?” She makes a face. “He’s my half brother.”
My eyes become even wider. “No, I didn’t. But how? Aren’t your parents still together?”
She nods. “Yep. My mom, Penelope … she has this poly thing going on since forever with my dad Dylan, as well as Felix and Alistair. To me they’re like extra dads, but it feels odd, for sure. Especially for me and my siblings and half siblings.”
“Wow.” I close my book. I’m too invested now.
She rubs her lips together. “Yup. It’s normal for us. We’re not alone, though. Silas and Max are cousins too.”
My jaw drops. “What?!”
“It’s true. I thought you knew that already since you’ve been hanging with Max.” She takes a sip of her water like she’s just given me the greatest tea ever, but it feels fishy.
“Wait, how do you know about that?”
“I saw him approaching you in the grass but then turning around, all sweaty. Why did you think I pulled Xav and River with me to go hang somewhere else?” She nudges me with her shoulder. “I got you, girl.”
“Thanks.” I blush, not knowing how to respond.
If only she knew what I knew.
But I can’t risk my friends being pulled into my troubles.
“Oh shit, hide me,” she suddenly says, ducking for cover under the books.
“What’s happening?” I ask.
“Levi Torres,” she whispers. She hastily points at a guy with dark hair entering the library, who’s wearing a button-up white shirt to hide the scorpion tattoo peeking out near his neck, his middle-parted fringe falling over his face as he looks around.
“Wait … Levi Torres? Max said something about him being his half brother.”
“He’s been egging me on to go on this camping trip with a bunch of friends.”
“And why is that a bad thing?” I ask.
“Because he’s Levi fucking Torres,” she hisses. “Do you see those damn abs?”
I take another look at his toned body. He’s definitely defined in all the right places. “I get it.”
“See? Why would I go on a camping trip with that trap walking around in my vicinity?”
I laugh. “I don’t see how that’s a bad thing, to be honest.”
She frowns from under her book cover. “No, no, no. I’m out of here. Talk later, okay? Good luck with Silas.”
She rushes off, passing a few bookshelves to curve around the route Levi is taking. I didn’t even get to say goodbye. She just ran off like she wanted to avoid being in the same room as him.
I check the clock again and swallow back the nerves. Ten more minutes. If I’m late … they’ll come for me. I have no choice. I have to go.
I push myself off the chair, close my books, and tuck them into my bag, then head out the door. I make my way to the Skull and Serpent Society, feeling like every goddamn person on this campus watches me enter that building. Or maybe I just feel hyperaware of every scrutinizing gaze as I walk up to the door and push the bell.
After a while, a guy bearing a striking resemblance to Max opens the door, and it makes me do a double take.
“Uh … hi?” he says.
I clear my throat. “Sorry, I have an … appointment with Silas.” I rub my lips together. “I’m Ivy. I don’t know if he told you?”
He just looks amused. “Another one, huh?”
“Another what?”
He grips my arm and pulls me inside, closing the door before I can even say a word.
“He really doesn’t know how to quit,” the guy says, snorting. “It’s like he can go on for days.”
I’m still confused what this is about. I hope it’s not what I think it is.
The guy sticks out his hand. “Elliot Fletcher.”
I frown. “Fletcher? You’re Max’s brother?
He pushes up his glasses. “Oh, you know Max?”
“We’re friends,” I lie. I’m not sure exactly what we are, but that’s the least of my concerns right now.
“Interesting.” He crosses his arms, looking at me like he’s onto something. “You’re that new girl, right? Max talked about you, but I didn’t think Silas would steal you from under his nose.”
“Max told you about me?”
He takes my coat and hangs it. “Max talks. And talks. And talks.”
I snort. “Sounds like him.”
“It is what it is.” He winks. “So … two boys wrapped around your finger, huh? I won’t tell, but I do love the drama.”
“Oh, I’m not into them,” I say, trying to shake off the rumors before they start.
His brows furrow. “Really? Because you said you were here for Silas.”
“So?”
“He only invites girls over he intends to fuck.”
My pupils dilate.
He walks off through the hallway while it feels like someone just knocked the air out of my lungs. “He’s upstairs, toward—”
“I know where his room is,” I interject.
“Good luck.”
He heads into the kitchen while I walk up the creaking steps of the Skull and Serpent Society, the dark walls feeling like they’re slowly entrapping me the closer I get to his room, where music is being blasted. I can smell the weed from the other end of the hallway, and it makes me cough.
Before I knock on the door, I take a deep breath.
This is it. No way back now. But I’m here, as told.
My nostrils flare and twitch as I force my hand up and knock.
The music in the room stops abruptly, and it makes my heart rate shoot through the roof.
“Come in.”
Silas’s unhinged voice makes goose bumps spread on my skin.
I step inside and search until I find him in a black pair of cargo pants and a white shirt sprawled on the black velvety couch, smoking pot.
A smile spreads from ear to ear on his face, causing the heart tattoo underneath his eye to wrinkle, but it abruptly disappears within seconds. “Good. Now close the door.”
I’m already irritated as hell as I kick it closed with my foot under his watchful gaze.
“Come here,” he says.
I walk closer to the table in front of the couch and stop, folding my arms.
“I was wondering if you’d show up.” He tilts his head, his short hair falling over his sunken-in eyes. “It would’ve been so fucking fun to drag you out of your hiding place myself.”
More goose bumps erupt on my skin at the reminder of what he and Heath did the other night in Priory Forest. “Too bad for you.”
He narrows his eyes, and his lip quirks up. “I would’ve made you enjoy it.”
Made me.
That’s what he likes. Control.
Fucking psycho.
He holds out the marijuana. “Want a drag?”
“No thanks.”
“You obviously need it.”
“I’m fine,” I grit.
His eyes narrow, and he looks amused by my effort to keep my shit together. “Are you?”
I swallow back the lump in my throat. “What do you want from me?”
His brow rises, and he puts down the blunt. “Did you forget your fucking debt to me?”
He fishes a knife from his pocket, while his eyes nearly bore a hole into my head.
“I didn’t,” I say. “But you never told me why I had to be here at eight o’clock.”
THWACK!
The pointy end of the knife lands right between my feet.
He eyes something lying on the table in front of him—a black-and-white outfit with ruffled shoulders and a skirt that’s way too short for anyone, let alone me.
“Put that on.”
“What? That thing is way too short for me. No.”
He narrows his eyes. “You think that knife is the only one I have?” He flashes three more just from one of the other pockets in his cargo pants. “Put. It. On.”
Fuck him. He only wants to degrade me. What’s he going to do? Put me in ridiculous outfits and parade me around in front of his friends like some sort of toy he won?
But if I don’t agree … he’ll definitely make me.
Your debt isn’t nearly paid …
I can still hear the words singed into my head.
He won’t stop until he’s satisfied, and I’ve agreed.
Fuck.
I snatch the outfit off the table, judging it, and slowly but surely, my jaw drops. It’s a goddamn maid outfit you’d find at a kink shop.
“What’s this for?”
“You got fired from your job, right?” He smirks and picks up his glass of Coke, taking a sip. “You can earn back the money you took right here in this house.”
I snort. “As your maid ?”
He puts the glass down. “You have a problem with that?”
My nostrils flare.
Is this a joke?
The chill in the air definitely tells me enough. “You’re insane. I’m not going to—”
“You will,” he interjects, those piercing green eyes staring me down. “Or do you want me to remind you of the deal you made with me?”
Fuck that asshole. I was right; he does want to make me feel like less than.
“Now … are you going to do as you’re told?” he asks. “Or do you want me to make you?”
My fingers dig into my palm so hard it cracks and bleeds.
Fine. He wants a show? I’ll give him one to remember.