Chapter 3 Neil #4
But I knew perfectly well about the code of silence the students had.
They minded their own business and didn’t give a shit about what happened to other people, not even in the most serious cases.
One of them could have seen the culprit; maybe they even saw more than one of them.
Maybe the person was standing right there enjoying my enraged face, but none of those assholes would have said a fucking word if he was.
“Goddammit! Answer me, motherfuckers!” I stabbed a finger at a random group of people and narrowed my eyes. Sensing my intentions, they all took a few steps back.
Their fear didn’t give me pause, far from it: It gave me a thrill. I was like an animal that had caught the scent of prey.
I advanced on them quickly, my right hand beginning to tremble, and my heart battered in my chest like it wanted to force its way out. I felt like bashing someone’s face in, and I didn’t care who it was.
“Hey, hey, pump the brakes, man.” Luke moved in front of me and forced me to halt.
Where the hell had he come from?
“Don’t touch me.” I shook off his hand and continued staring in a fugue at the unfortunate kids behind him.
“Calm down. We don’t know who did this.” I stared at him. Was this man trying to reason with me? “You can’t just beat up these random people. You’ve gotta keep your nose clean,” he chided me.
Since when did Luke dispense advice or try to give me pep talks?
“What the fuck do you know about it?” I exploded on him. “It’s my car, not yours, and some asshole bashed in the window. Get out of my way.” I tried to shove him aside, but Luke planted his feet.
“Neil…” he said sharply.
“Luke, I told you to move,” I repeated insistently. He didn’t listen. Then Xavier appeared to back him up and took me by the arm to drag me away.
“Come on, man. Don’t do this shit. It was probably some punk kid who picked the wrong car to fuck with.” He managed to pull me away, but I didn’t stop glowering at the little group behind Luke or even at Luke himself, who stood there motionless with a pitying look on his face.
I couldn’t stand being looked at that way by my friends any more than I could stand these random assholes sticking their heads in the sand.
And I definitely wasn’t used to not responding to a clear challenge.
“There’s nothing to see here, you assholes. Piss off!” I yelled at the rest of the students. Xavier’s hand was still clamped around my bicep to keep me from falling on someone like a wild animal. “Did you hear me? Get fucking gone. Now!” I was raging so loudly that everyone flinched.
“Come on, chill out.” Xavier kept tugging me back.
I tried to recover some composure before finally breaking free from him and passing a hand through my hair.
Instinctively, I went to the Maserati and opened the door to assess the damage.
I made a face, however, when I saw there was a piece of paper attached to the rock in the front seat, tied down with crisscrossing red thread.
I immediately picked it up and read the words on it: Hard Candy. Player 2511.
Why had this not occurred to me before?
Sure, I had a lot of enemies, but the only person who’d gone after me lately was him.
“Shit,” I whispered, holding the paper tightly in my fingers.
I got out of my car and shut the door behind me.
There was no point in rereading the note; it wasn’t going to help me come to any conclusions.
His messages were typically indecipherable, but this one wasn’t even a riddle, so it would be more impossible than usual to figure out what he planned to do with just two miserable words.
“Hey, what happened?” Xavier asked, trying to read the sheet of paper in my hand. I glanced around and realized that I didn’t want to have that conversation in the student parking lot. So I pushed the threatening note into my pocket and jerked my chin at the both of them.
“Let’s get out of here,” I ordered firmly.
A few minutes later, we hit up a restaurant near the campus, a place we typically came after class. The smell of coffee and freshly baked pastries was in the air as soon as we walked in, along with the irritating cacophony of voices from other patrons.
We walked through the restaurant with our heads held high, not sparing a glance for anyone else.
Everyone knew how prone to aggression we were; it didn’t take much to provoke any of us into a brawl.
Ignoring the alarmed stares we received, we sat down at our usual table right next to the big window.
My friends both looked at me, waiting for me to speak.
“You want to tell us what’s going on?” Luke asked first, but before I could answer him, a waitress materialized to take our orders. I shot her an irritated look and saw that it was the same one that Xavier had mocked and humiliated in the past.
“Don’t be stupid,” I warned Xavier, already knowing what he was going to do, and he gave me a lopsided grin.
“What can I get for you?” the girl—I’d never caught her name—said haltingly. She kept her eyes on the little notebook she had clenched in one trembling hand. She was obviously less than thrilled about our presence.
“Hey, Babydoll. Nice to see you again…” Xavier leaned sideways to get a better look at her ass in her short uniform skirt. Luke immediately elbowed him in the gut.
“Three coffees,” Luke said, deciding for everyone and allowing the girl to get away as soon as possible. Xavier made a huff of annoyance, but I silently thanked Luke for intervening. All we needed was for the owner to boot us for indecency or harassment.
“So?” Luke turned his attention back to me, and I rested my elbows on the table. My leather jacket tugged at my tensed biceps. I was so on edge it felt like I was suffocating.
I didn’t bother with words, instead just digging around inside my pocket until I grabbed the paper and slammed it down on the table. Both of them sucked in a breath.
“Hard Candy. Player 2511,” Xavier read. “This nutjob again?”
“What are you talking about? Who the fuck is Player 2511?” Luke asked.
“This asshole in a mask who’s been sending riddles and notes to Neil and his family for a while,” Xavier responded, summarizing the situation pretty clearly.
“Xavier’s got it. I don’t know who he really is. He’s shown up on multiple occasions with a white mask and a black Jeep,” I explained.
Luke looked from Xavier to me. “On which occasions?” he pressed, increasingly bewildered.
“The first time, he caused my brother’s accident, and then he crashed into Selene when she was trying to go back to Detroit.
He’s also the one who attacked Chloe at the masquerade party she went to with Madison.
” I stared into his eyes. “You were the one who told Madison to come to the party, weren’t you?
” I still needed to have a conversation with Chloe about the whole thing.
“Yeah,” he admitted.
I shook my head, rubbing my temples. I held him partially responsible for what had happened to my sister, but I had to keep my cool.
“You know she’s just a girl, right? What the hell is a guy like you doing with a girl that young?
I’d feel like I was fucking my little sister if it were me,” Xavier observed, sounding horrified.
For once, I actually agreed with him. I had no interest in how my friends chose to live their lives, but sleeping with a seventeen-year-old was depraved, even by mine and Xavier’s standards.
“She’s not a little girl. And she knows what she’s doing in bed,” Luke said defensively.
“Just because she knows how to act like a woman doesn’t mean she is one,” I interjected, and both of them gave me thoughtful looks.
It was a simple enough concept: Some women were women, while others were just girls imitating them.
The difference could be subtle, even invisible, to someone who was less observant or less experienced with the phenomenon.
I, unfortunately, had plenty of experience, courtesy of Kim.
“My sex life is none of your concern. Why don’t you focus on sharing women, playing heads or tails, and all the other twisted shit you guys get up to?” Luke said dismissively, waving a presumptuous hand in the air.
“Shall I remind you that you’ve done all that same ‘twisted shit’ yourself?
Don’t play the white knight now, because you’re not,” Xavier shot back in irritation, and, once again, I agreed with him completely.
I could vividly recall how Luke had talked about Selene and how he’d kissed and touched her in the pool house.
Just the thought of it made my chest shudder and my stomach clench.
Luke was absolutely no better than the rest of us.
“Let’s get back to the broken window on my fucking Maserati,” I snapped.
I didn’t enjoy talking about my problems with them, but Player had attacked me in broad daylight this time, right in front of the school and countless students.
I couldn’t just pretend nothing happened; I couldn’t ignore it, and I needed to use the Krew to my advantage.
“Right,” Luke agreed. “Why not call the police?”
The main obstacle there was that if Player was an enemy or someone I’d hurt, the police could very well wind up investigating things I did in the past and tossing me in jail instead of him.
“Are you a moron?” Xavier put in. “He can’t do that.
Did you forget about Roger Scott and the whole thing with Scarlett?
” he continued, just as the waitress arrived with our coffees.
Xavier clammed up, and the girl set the mugs down in front of us, hurrying around the table like she owed somebody money.
Xavier watched her with amusement, thrilled at the idea that his mere presence was putting the waitress into such a panic.
When she turned to leave, he gave her one last lingering look, turning back to pick up the interrupted conversation.