Chapter - Bay #3
The thing I did this time was call the number of his family’s real estate development company, and he called me back from a blocked number.
Ennio takes out a business card and hands it to me.
"I’d advise you to memorize that number. Don’t leave it lying around casually."
"Will you lend me the car then? When I finally make that decision?"
"I will. And if necessary I’ll cover you. But this time you should handle the main part of the job yourself. You have to learn it at some point."
We’re already driving between the scattered buildings of the small town where I live.
"Thank you for everything, Ennio, and for understanding. And for… what you said. You know. About not giving up on… the other thing."
Ennio’s face remains cool, almost aloof, when he replies, "I was once in a situation similar to yours, and I was almost exactly your age when I carried out my own revenge. I can’t say I don’t understand you."
"But others wouldn’t get it. They’d say, hand it over to the police, think about what happens if the Hansons start suspecting you, and so on."
"Maybe they would say that, but if you gave them a police case, they would have you on a platter anyway, and your family, and Alex. Right now they can’t be sure.
If you space out the killings with enough time, you should be able to divert suspicion and accusations away from yourself. Patience is a virtue."
"And you did everything all at once?"
"Mostly. But my situation was different. In my family, matters like these are handled… faster."
"Well yeah, the mafia."
Ennio gives me an unreadable look. "Simply the family business," he says vaguely.
He stops the car at a good distance from my house and turns toward me. His dark eyes focus on me with strange intensity.
"Good luck. Make the right choice, Bay. You’ve already tasted what the first step of revenge feels like. Think about whether that’s what you want driving the next chapters of your life."
"I will. I promise."
I extend my hand and he shakes it. His hand is smaller than mine, but hard and cold, and he holds mine for a moment.
"Let yourself be a teenager, Bay. Don’t let anyone take those years from you. They won’t come back."
I don’t respond to that.
"We’ll stay in touch."
He nods, and I jump out of the car.
Walking along the roadside toward my parents’ house, I feel a strange euphoria in my head.
Revenge gave me something, carved something out of me, some part of being broken. It brought me a kind of relief, maybe not complete yet, but real and significant.
I decide not to let myself fall again, not to let myself break apart. What I need to do now is turn every shadow of suspicion away from myself.
As I’m at my room, I open my diaries.
The grim one, the one about my life, not the pink Alex-diary. I write there.
ONE DOWN.
THREE MORE TO GO.
◆◆◆
Two days later, when I show up at school on Monday, I immediately notice the strange looks Vin and Rob send my way.
Sometimes it’s hard not to understand certain things, sometimes you simply feel them even if you can’t explain them, but on some level I know that they know. Maybe Doug or Neville told them, maybe they figured it out on their own.
There’s that specific kind of stare, the kind that carries a mix of contempt and mockery, yet there’s something questioning in it as well.
After two days, their family definitely knows Matt never came home. What happened to him? Of course their debt wasn’t paid off thanks to Alex’s foresight, since I managed to stop the transfer. So maybe they suspect someone else took an interest in their brother?
Besides those two, there are two more Hansons at our school, one omega and one beta, but even in their eyes I catch that same strange look, and a few days later I find a note on my locker.
I hear you’re whoring yourself out. How much?
At the bottom there’s a crude drawing of a bent-over body with clearly spread cheeks and an exaggeratedly open hole.
The only blessing in all this is that Alex doesn’t see it, and with my jaw clenched I manage to grab the paper before he notices, but I already know my story with these people is far from over.
So the whole Hanson family knows what happened to me, and it’s only a matter of time before others at school find out too.
That awareness is far from pleasant, but instead of crushing me it only deepens my anger.
Something dark and hateful keeps growing inside me, and I feel more and more certain that I can’t let Kit escape what he did.
They want to destroy my reputation, I will destroy their lives.
As for my relationship with Alex, it starts shifting in its own strange way.
Alex keeps his word, just like I asked him, he never brings up what happened again, but even more than before he tries to be there for me, tries to help me, tries to steer my attention toward things that feel good, and he still comes over to my house, helping me record videos, promote them.
I also notice a return of what happened a year ago during his visits to my place. Usually, just before leaving, Alex builds circles of pillows on my bed. He does it in silence, and I don’t say a word either. He simply arranges them and leaves with his head slightly bowed.
Sometimes I stand there, staring at them.
I know it’s his genuine instinct, his way of wanting to protect me and give me strength.
Even though the nest can’t actually calm me because his wrist glands aren’t producing soothing pheromones and Alex isn’t a mature omega, it still holds symbolic meaning for me.
I know it comes straight from his heart.
When the holidays come, the school hosts another holiday event, and I perform with the school band.
My parents and brothers show up, Alex’s dad, and of course Alex is in the first row, and I put my whole heart into my song, doing everything I can to perform it well, and people cheer and have a good time, and Alex’s eyes stay fixed on me with that look of admiration that means the world to me, his support wrapping around me like a safe little bubble.
When the last song ends, I bow, and that’s when I notice something… the whole crowd that had just been clapping starts falling strangely silent and everyone stares, stunned, at something behind my back.
I turn around… and my vision goes a little dark.
The stage has a metal frame above it where people hang different decorations that can be lowered like theater curtains, giving various backgrounds for each performance.
Most of them show snowy holiday scenes with trees, ornaments, Santa, or reindeer, but apparently someone slipped in an unexpected one between the rolls, and that’s the one that’s being lowered now.
It shows a cropped drawing of a bent-over ass, and behind it someone’s hips, with an obviously aroused dick pushed between naked cheeks, and at the top there’s a huge caption:
School whore Bay. Five bucks a fuck. Don’t miss the offer.
There’s no way to describe what I feel. From the audience I hear rustling and murmurs. The principal lunges toward the control panel that operates the mechanism and quickly switches the sheet to another one showing a cheerful reindeer.
But what’s done is done, and it’s too late. I want the earth to swallow me whole. And I want to kill. I want to walk up to Rob and Vin, because I’m sure it’s their doing, and drive knives into their stomachs.
Multiple times.
The entire school saw my humiliation. My parents.
Alex. I turn around and run off the stage, out into the hallway, and I don’t want to stop.
I run out of the school, cut across the parking lot, and all I want is to call Ennio right now, but I know I shouldn’t do it from my main phone. I need a burner for that.
So I quickly order an Uber and head toward downtown where the twenty-four-hour stores are.
I put my phone on silent because it keeps ringing with incoming calls, from my dad, and from Alex.
Still, I ignore it, shove the phone into my pocket with a stern expression on my face as we drive into the center of town.
There I take out cash from an ATM and go into a supermarket.
They have a counter selling phones, sleek cases, the newest models, chargers, but they also have a few disposable ones.
I buy one of them.
After leaving the store I head to a nearby park, my energy strangely focused and cold.
I have Ennio’s number memorized, and after four rings he picks up, but obviously he doesn’t recognize the phone number, because his voice sounds very formal.
"Speaking."
"Ennio, it’s me, Bay."
A moment of silence, some rustling, footsteps, like he’s walking out of a room.
"What is it," he asks curtly.
"I made my decision. I’m going after Kit."
Another silence, then he asks, "Did something push you toward that decision? It’s only been two months."
With a tense, slightly rough voice, I summarize what happened at school.
Ennio exhales and says, "Contrary to how it feels, this isn’t such a bad situation, Bay.
It shows they don’t think you’re behind Matt’s disappearance if they’re messing with you like this.
But now, right after that incident, you’ll be their first suspect.
If you make your move, they’ll know exactly what triggered it.
This may even be a deliberate provocation to flush the fox out of its den. "
I stay silent, because of course he’s right, it sounds logical, but I’m practically vibrating with emotion, the desire for revenge boiling in my veins.
Ennio sighs, "Bay, I understand what you’re feeling, it’s the kind of humiliation no teenager wants to face, but please, revenge is a dish best served cold, you’ll get them when they least expect it."
I don’t answer, my teeth clenched so hard it hurts.
"Wait a little, let them lower their guard, let them forget about this, but you won’t forget, just keep a level head."
"You don’t understand, the whole school saw it, the whole school…"