Chapter 31
June
I told Will all about my countless moves, we talked over reheated pizza, and right after dinner Jackson picked us up in his fire engine–red pickup truck.
He poked his blond head out the window and blew out a cloud of smoke.
“Hi, June.”
I got into the back seat, and Will sat in front.
“Jackson,” I replied, making eye contact with him in the rearview mirror.
His eyes were lined with black. His sharp white cheekbones were tinged with red, and his hair was lightly teased back. He looked like a ’90s grunge star with pop influences.
“You know he’ll be pissed, right?” I heard him say after a few minutes.
“Don’t worry about it,” answered William, nervously moving his leg around. The night fell, but even in the dark I recognized where we were immediately. It was the same place we’d gone to get Hunter on the night of my first date with William.
Jackson parked next to a row of sports cars.
We went past the place with the neon sign and headed to an old, abandoned rink.
The atmosphere was unsettling to put it lightly, hazy with clouds of smoke.
I had a burning desire for Will to take my hand right then, but I didn’t have the courage to make the first move.
“Weren’t they go-karts?” I asked, pointing at the dirt road.
“What go-karts?” chortled Jackson.
Our small talk got lost in the empty space. I recognized James, wearing a black leather jacket, a vape pen between his lips, with tousled hair, in the middle of a group of bigger guys.
“James!” Jackson yelled.
James turned, and focused on me. “No. Please tell me this is a nightmare.”
“Chill. I’ll explain later.” William cut him off, as if his words alone could calm James down.
James grabbed his arm. “Did you tell her? Did your little girlfriend force you to tell her fucking everything?”
“Why are you still freaking out? I didn’t tell her anything!” William struggled and broke free of his grasp.
“Why the fuck did you tell her?”
“I didn’t, cut it out!”
I saw William take a deep breath before whispering quietly, “She already knew.”
I would’ve appreciated if James talked quietly, too, because what he said then was, as usual, horrific.
“Is the idea of getting laid enough for you to betray me?”
“Cut it out,” growled William, coming a half inch away from James’s nose.
James tilted his chin up. “I’m the one who should cut it out? She doesn’t give a fuck about you, Will.”
I wanted to scream that it wasn’t true, but Jackson shot me an exasperated look.
“As expected, they’re about to fight. Happy?” He sometimes reminded me of my mom, with how harsh he could be.
“Do you think this is my fault?” I exclaimed, stretching out my arms dispiritedly.
“Jax, gimme the keys. I’ll be back soon,” said William, scampering away from me.
“Will? Where are you going?”
I turned around to follow him, my head spinning. Up until that point, I still had no idea where we were. Screams and noise were coming from everywhere. It reeked of tobacco, alcohol, and danger. We seemed to be at the local haunt for convicts.
“Come on, what the fuck is it to you if she came?”
Jackson handed James a vape pen to calm him down, but he looked too wired to pay attention to him.
“Jackson, do you ever fucking understand me?” He turned, staring, darkly at me. “Will fucked up.”
I couldn’t hold back any longer. “It’s not his fault. He didn’t tell me.” Judging by the disdainful look on his face, I would’ve been better off shutting up. But shutting up wasn’t my strong suit.
“Shut your fucking mouth.”
He vaped nervously, not caring about how the smoke irritated my eyes.
“William did it for me. I asked him to. I practically cornered him into it. You can’t be upset with him.”
“No, in fact I’m upset with you. Stay the hell away from me,” he said, turning around to go back to his friends.
It occurred to me that Jackson had disappeared and Will hadn’t come back yet. I was completely alone.
“Hey, sweetheart, I’ve never seen you around here. Wanna go for a ride?” A guy with red cheeks exhaled his heavy breath all over me.
“Huh?” I asked, looking for an escape.
I clung to my hoodie in an attempt to shrink myself so much that I’d be invisible, but unfortunately, it didn’t work.
The guy got really close to me, reeking so badly of tequila that it made me nauseated.
“Do you work here?” he continued, disregarding the fact that I’d turned away from him. “So? Do you work at the club or not?”
He started insisting, and I only had two options: run away or run away.
I took a step back but bumped into something solid. I immediately recognized his cologne.
“Aren’t you fucking embarrassed? Can’t you see that she’s underage?”
James was behind me and blew smoke in the creep’s face until he left.
“Thank you.”
“Shut up,” he whispered in my ear, making me shudder.
I suddenly turned around to ask him what we were doing there, but we were too close, and I lost my train of thought for a second. But he didn’t seem to have any issue.
“I can defend myself,” I added pridefully. At least, under normal circumstances.
“Doesn’t look like it.”
I saw him stare at a group of bigger guys glaring at us from far away.
The ringleader was a redhead who reached his hand out to greet everyone who came by. He was probably handling drugs or maybe money. Or both.
I didn’t feel safe there at all. James kept vaping, so I tried to hide behind him.
“I told you to stay away from me.” He glared at me as I almost brushed against his arm. “Are you gonna fucking hug me too?”
“Can I not be near you?”
“Get lost, I told you.” He didn’t seem to understand my behavior until he noticed the group staring at us. “You don’t have to touch me,” he spewed resolutely.
“Right, because I can’t wait to get my hands on you? Gross,” I retorted, getting even closer to him.
James snickered as if I’d just said something ridiculous.
“Right, right, keep telling yourself that, eventually you’ll start to believe it.”
“What are we doing here?” I asked.
“You have some fucking nerve?” he prodded, leaving me bewildered.
“Yeah, well, if you don’t like it, go somewhere else,” I replied acidly.
He suddenly became serious. “Tell me something, Snow White. How’d you know?”
I bit my lower lip. I wasn’t gonna mention Poppy.
“I asked you a question,” he demanded.
“I overheard you talking about it with Will at school.” I said the first thing that came to my head.
“Liar. Does this look like a place where you should be?”
“Oh, right, because this place is only for mysterious assholes like you, right?”
He looked me up and down. “How the fuck do you go around like that?” He laughed, looking at the giant army-green hoodie that went down almost to my knees.
“Quite nicely. I was at Will’s studying.”
“Exactly. Poor thing.”
I should’ve changed the subject because I was going to end up tearing him to shreds.
“I don’t understand why it pisses you off so much that I’m here. Look around, there are plenty of women.”
I motioned in the dark, pointing at a random pair of them. Some were wearing such short, clingy dresses that they left little to the imagination. I definitely stood out with my sloppiness.
“I knew you wouldn’t stop.”
“Sorry, stop what?”
“Poking around.”
“No, and you know what? I won’t stop poking around until I find out why William does everything you tell him to. Including crazy shit like this!”
James side-eyed me. “Oh, because you think I—” He burst out laughing, then put the vape pen away. “You don’t understand shit.” He bent down to grab a piece of paper on the ground and throw it into the trash, which was overflowing with cans.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
A shadow approached me before he could answer.
It was the guy with the reddish beard and the revolting demeanor, whom I mistook for a drug dealer.
“Hunter.”
“Austin, now’s not the time.” James brushed him off.
“In fact, I’m here to talk with the lady,” he said, putting his arm around me. “How old are you?” he slurred, clearly drunk.
“Younger than your girlfriend was when I fucked her in your bed. Beat it, Austin.”
The guy chuckled unnervingly and walked away, winking at me. James pulled my hoodie sleeve, filling me with fear.
“Look, given that you attract the worst maniacs, stay close to me.” I felt a deep sense of relief.
“But on one condition,” he added.
“What?”
“That you shut your fucking mouth.”
His presumption made my blood boil.
“I hate you,” I snarled.
“That’s for the best.”
Just as I thought I’d seen everything, a lanky guy with a long black coat and a raven-haired ponytail came up to us. He looked like he’d just walked out of a science fiction movie.
“Hunter, your turn.”
James didn’t say anything, but he followed him into the bluish dark. I started to get scared as I saw him walk away. “Where are you going? Don’t leave me here!” I begrudgingly ran behind him.
The other guy looked at me confused, as my action piqued his interest.
“You bringing her?” he asked.
James stopped walking and turned around to look at me.
We stared at each other intensely, and for a moment I felt uncomfortable. There was no emotion on his face, just indifference.
“You know what? Yeah, I’m bringing her.”