2
H
ave you seen her today?” I asked Gunner as he sauntered into the basement pool room under the Science Library. It’s rare to walk in here and for it to be empty, especially this close to midday when Gunner’s classmates would come here to eat lunch and play pool while some girl jacked them off.
He held up a small flashcard between his fingers. “Just came from her room, so I’ll review the footage later.”
“Why not now?” I asked him. “I’ve got time.”
He shrugged his broad shoulders where he held tension, made worse when we discovered that we were fucking the same girl. And that girl also happened to be someone Gunner believed might be Annika. “I like watching on my own,” he argued.
I snorted in laughter at how ludicrous and protective he was being. “Why?” Then I caught a look on his face, and it occurred to me that he had gotten off watching her alone in her room, and if she happened to be changing, then even better.
His black eyebrows dropped low over his sharp eyes, glaring at a spot on the floor. I knew this guy long enough to see that he was pissed that I was fucking Riley, and the girl wasn’t just a possible enemy but a cheat.
“Spit it out, Gunner,” I demanded. “Tell me how much you fucking hate me because I fucked your girl.”
“I don’t fucking care,” he grumbled, and I didn’t believe him.
“I swear I didn’t know,” I added.
“She’s not my girl,” he mumbled. “I pursued her to find out if she’s Annika.”
“Do you like her?” I asked, but I could tell he did. He liked her a lot.
“Yeah, obviously,” he leaned forward to grab his bag and unzipped it to reveal a laptop.
“But, you don’t mind that she might be Annika? I mean…what would you do if Mikky…dealt with her? And there’s the other issue that you are kind of related, brother and sis-”
“We’re not blood-related, and she was disowned by our family the moment she betrayed us. And if Mikky…” he puffed his cheeks out like a blowfish, “if we found out she was Annika, then if Mikky wanted to…” he exhaled. “Then she might end up eating fish, and that’s her fate, and I’ll have to accept it.”
“C’mon, Gunner, you don’t want that to happen. She’s a nice girl,” I rationalized, imagining her swimming naked through the clear water, little islands poking up above the surface, and shiny brown hair dancing in the water behind her.
“She screwed us over,” he argued, noticing the change in his tone as if he’s surrendered to the fact that she was on the chopping block and it was more important that we got what we needed from her; therefore, her life was irrelevant.
“So, you don’t mind if I kept fucking her then,” I pressed to see how he’d react.
His pupils dilated, and smoke poured from his ears, cracking me up. “A…” his thumb twitched. “Are you going to keep fucking her?”
“I want to, but she told me to stay away from her because some guy that she’s dating is dangerous,” I was doing a piss-take and using a mocking tone, “and had a habit of knocking the teeth out of men who dare touch her. And where is this poor guy? Is he still alive? Or lying in a hospital bed?”
“He’s been let off with a warning,” he answered, rolling his eyes. “He won’t fucking try anything again, and fuck, he should’ve obeyed me in the first fucking place.”
“So, you won’t mind me creaming her on the odd occasion for research purposes?” Again, I pushed it with him to see if he’d snap.
“Research?” he questioned, fuck he was in a grumpy mood. “Research to see how deep her hold is?”
I taunted, “Yeah, maybe. Or how long can she stay underwater?” My selkie referenced that he wouldn’t understand.
He cringed. “What? You hold her underwater, you sadistic fuck.”
I tipped my head back and laughed. This was the same guy who stalked her wearing a Scream mask, broke into her room to plant a hidden camera, beat the shit out of some guy who touched her, and he thought I was the sadistic one. “I’m joking, dude. But she is a good swimmer and… I will keep trying to fuck her.”
“Mikky will be pissed. You fucking the staff.”
“So are you,” I hit back. “Besides, Mikky told us to act normal with her until we know for sure. Honestly, I’m leaning toward her being a sweet girl who came here to study marine biology.”
The door swung open, and a guy stepped inside to grab a bag on the floor and glanced up at us. The left side of his face was so swollen that it forced his eye closed, and a string of drool was hanging from the left side of his mouth. He noticed us sitting on the couch watching him and quickly fled back out the door.
“Wasn’t that Shaun?” I asked since it was difficult to tell when he looked as though he had a football shoved in his gob.
“It is,” Gunner declared flatly, looking up briefly from his laptop, uninterested in speaking to his friend, an ex-friend, or an enemy, might be more accurate.
“It looks like he’ll eat his lunch through a straw.” I was starting to feel sorry for the guy, although he would think twice before disobeying Gunner again. If I were him, I’d transfer to another college on the other side of the country.
“That’s his problem,” Gunner shrugged as he scanned through the footage on the flashcard of an empty room.
“I’ve got a class,” I told him as I stepped to the pool table and dunked all the balls in the holes. “How are your grades?”
“Alright.” His gaze was fixed on the laptop screen, frowning as his fingers ran across the mousepad.
“Have you called your mom yet?” I shit stir because his mom was his least favorite subject.
“I told you,” he snarled, and I cracked up laughing. “I think she’s genuinely innocent and confused about that night.”
“Yeah, but did she hint about you visiting her in Larsson?” She’s been asking me for months to convince Gunner to go home for a week to catch up with old friends and her, but he won’t go. Mikky had been on my back because if he didn’t go home to see her, she’d come here to see him, and we don’t want that. “Anyway, I’ll see you later.” I waved to him, but his gaze was fixed on the screen, his eyebrows low over his narrowed eyes.
“Hang on,” he called after me, still not removing his stare from the screen. “Come here and take a look at this.”
I turned back, and he turned the laptop around so I could see what he was talking about. A blond woman, probably in her late 30s, dressed professionally, stood in Riley’s room, speaking to her with a menacing expression.
“That’s a cop,” he stated with conviction. “I’d know a fucking cop anywhere, but she…I swear I’ve seen her before.”
I sat on the couch beside him to get a better look at the woman, who looked familiar to me, too. “Oh, yeah, she’s a cop, but…what the fuck is she talking to Riley for?”
“Let me show you this,” he suggested, rewinding the footage to where we see Riley packing her bags, then stopping to answer a phone call.
“Where is she going?” I scratched my head in confusion because she seemed distressed and searched for someone outside the window.
“She packed all her stuff, even her laptop and school books,” he said, bemused.
“What? Do you think she was leaving town?” I proposed because why else would she pack everything? “Unless she was moving to another dorm or another room within that dorm.”
Gunner screwed his face up. “But she returned only forty minutes later and unpacked her bags.”
“With the cop,” I added, noticing the time. I had to leave now, or I’d miss my class, but curiosity kept me frozen to the seat.
“Yeah, with the cop. Why? It’s fucked up,” he was thinking the worse because that’s how Gunner viewed the world, so it was down to me to rationalize it.
“Okay, so maybe someone broke into her room-”
“No,” he cut me off. “No one breaking into her room apart from…me.”
“Hello. Maybe that’s what happened, Gunner. She noticed someone had broken into her room-”
“Wrong again. I didn’t break into her room. I used the keycard, so it’s not the same because I didn’t break or steal anything,” he argued.
“Okay, hear me out. She suspected someone was entering her room when she wasn’t there…called the police…” I trailed off because even I wasn’t convinced. “That blond cop doesn’t look like a regular officer, does she?”
“I agree. She looks highly ranked with authority by the way she’s holding herself. Like she knows how to shoot a gun, a Glock to be precise, since that’s what police use.”
He flitted back and forth over the footage while I paused to see if he’d find something different, but he kept returning to the same few minutes and paused it on the blond cop’s face. “Look at how pissed she is. Hands-on hips, showing her dominance, then compare it to Riley’s body language.”
Gunner froze it on Riley’s face, her hair obscured half of it, then moved it back and forth. It was evident that Riley was frightened, and my body reacted by tensing. I hated seeing my selkie scared, but the situation had changed. Petra was Riley, and Riley might be our enemy, but this scene urged me to seek revenge.
“She’s not helping Riley. She’s trying to control her,” I summed up, and Gunner’s face creased into a pained look, but he didn’t say anything, so I added, “Bro, there’s something seriously wrong here.”
Gunner made a strange hissing sound with his mouth, sounding like air being released from a tire, and combed his fingers through his hair. “Look,” he pointed at the cop, moving her jacket back to reveal her belt. “She’s armed and letting Riley know that she’s not fucking around.”
“Is she in trouble with the police? I mean…she used a fake ID to get the job at the club, so maybe she’s a serial criminal,” I suggested.
Gunner snorted and shook his head. “Nah, she’s too sweet,” he backtracked, having second thoughts. “Maybe she’s a great actor.”
“Well…if we’re actually looking at Annika, then yeah, she’s a fantastic actor,” I rationalized.
“Yeah,” he agreed, shutting the lid of his laptop with an aggressive snap. “It’s a great disguise.”
“What are you going to do?” I inquired tentatively because he had that look on his face like he was considering doing something stupid.
He shoved his laptop in his bag and stood to leave. “I’m going to learn more about that blond cop.”
“How?” I asked as he stormed away, pent up and angry, fists tightly clenched. Yeah, I get it. No matter how much we try to see Riley as our potential enemy, Annika, the girl who ruined our lives, seeing her hurt and manipulated, flicked a switch in us. Whoever that blond cop was…she was there to lord her weight over Riley, forcing her to stay. Was the blond cop the person Riley was running away from, and why?
“The only person with the truth,” Gunner replied as he opened the door.
“Who’s that?” I called after him.
“Riley.”