Chapter 3
the dangers of hookup culture
Saige
"Holy shit!" Dax shouts. "Ripley just fucking murdered that guy!"
No, I think. No, there's no way this is happening. There's no way he's fucking dead.
My knees threaten to buckle beneath me as I slowly step out onto the balcony and peer over the railing.
Miles lies face-up in the grass, unmoving.
How is this happening? How the fuck is this happening? Less than twelve hours ago, I promised my mom I wouldn't flunk out or commit any serious crimes, and now I'm a murderer.
"Well, enjoy prison, Saige," Elias says from behind me.
"Maybe…he's still alive. We should call an ambulance!"
"Oh, good, there's Nolan," Dax says as Nolan steps out into the yard. "Hey, Nolan! Is the dude Saige pushed off the balcony still alive?"
The way he speaks—his intonation, everything about it—is so casual and dismissive, it's chilling. It feels like I'm dreaming, and then I almost convince myself I am. But then Dax grabs my shoulder and squeezes, grinning at me.
That feels real. Hauntingly real.
I wait, horrified, while Nolan approaches Miles's body, placing two fingers to his neck.
After a few excruciatingly long seconds, he looks up at us, shaking his head before dragging his thumb across his throat.
"That means no, Ripley. He's dead," Dax says.
"Well…what do we do now?"
"We?" Elias repeats, incredulous. "We don't do anything. I'm going to call the police."
"Well…but you were here. It was self-defense; he lost his shit! I didn't do anything!"
"You killed Nolan's fish, Saige," Dax says. "That's really sick. What did he ever do to you?"
I shake my head, tears running down my cheeks. "I didn't do that. I didn't do any of this."
"Except for the murder," Elias says.
He turns, heading back into his bedroom, and pulls his phone from his pocket. Dax follows, sitting across from him on the bed.
"It was an accident!" I shout, following them inside.
"Manslaughter, then."
"It was self-defense! Elias…please. You have to tell them."
"Except that I already defended you…unfortunately. You were fine."
"He was a bad person," I say, more for my own benefit than for theirs. "He was going to kill my dog with a fire poker. He was going to hurt me, too."
"Police won't care."
No.
This isn't my fault. This is Miles's fault. It's Elias's fault. If he weren't such a sadistic asshole, this guy never would have targeted me. It was all just to get some kind of revenge on my stepbrother.
"Elias, please! Please, help me."
"She isn't wrong," Dax says as Nolan appears in the doorway. "He was a bad person. And, you know…karma and all that."
The look they exchange tells me there is a lot more to what happened between Elias and Miles than I know, but I can't care about that right now.
I sink to the floor. "I followed him in here to help you. I should have known better…" I blink, thick tears rolling down each of my cheeks. "I know what happened the last time I tried to help you. I should have hit you with my fucking car!"
"What are you talking about? Is she hysterical now?"
"Shut your mouth, Saige…" Elias warns.
"Why?" I ask through tears. "What's the point?
You were right. The world is shit, everyone has disappointed me, and I wish you had let me go over the ledge, too.
At least when I'm in prison, I won't ever have to see your fucking face again.
At least Arcadia is okay." I pause, choking on a sob and wiping my nose with the back of my hand. "I'm sorry about your fish, Nolan."
Nolan shoots daggers with his dark eyes before disappearing again, and I curl into a ball on the carpet and cry harder. "Well, go ahead and do it! Get it over with! Call them! What's taking so long?"
"I'm really enjoying seeing you like this," Elias says. "I think I'll wait a while longer; not like he's going anywhere."
"Nolan might not like watching girls cry, but we don't mind," Dax says.
Although I know he's enjoying watching me fall apart, I don't bother trying to get my shit together. There's no point anymore. Elias wins.
Minutes go by like this, the two of them watching me, whispering, but I can't hear them over my sobbing and intermittent pleading.
"Saige…" Elias says eventually, a hint of a question in his tone. "What if we did help you?"
"What do you mean?" I ask, sitting up and wiping my cheeks with my wrists. "You'll tell them it was self-defense?"
"What if we got rid of the body for you?" Dax clarifies.
Then that would be worse. That's the first thought that pops into my head. Getting rid of his body would make it worse for me than if we just called the police right now.
But only if we got caught.
I nod slowly, my voice almost a whisper. "Okay."
"But you have to understand something," Elias says. "There are conditions to this. For as long as you're here, you'll be indebted to us. And if you misbehave, I can take it back at any time. Dax's dad wouldn't let him go to jail; we'd walk, and you wouldn't. I can promise you that."
"Well…what would I have to do?"
"Whatever we want, whenever we want. There's no list, Saige.
And no fucking limits, either—you need to understand that.
If you say yes, you don't get to change your mind.
You should also know that this has worked before; we're experienced in disappearing people…
just in case you decide to try to run your mouth or some shit. "
"That's a threat, Ripley," Dax adds. "In case that isn't clear."
"And if I say no?" I ask, my voice hoarse from crying.
Elias shrugs. "We call the police right now. It's up to you—which is worse? Prison or me?"
It's him. I'm pretty sure it's him, but I think about spending the next decade or longer in a cage, the word murderer following me around for the rest of my life. And he'll have to leave me alone eventually, right? He'll get bored and move on; he'll graduate and have to go live his life.
So, I nod again, agreeing to a different kind of cage. "That's fine. I'll do it."
"Good. Now prove it."
"What…how do I prove it?"
"Seal it with a kiss," Elias says.
"You…really want me to kiss you?"
"No, I don't really want you to kiss me. I want you to suck Dax's dick."
"You're going to make me—"
Dax cuts me off. "We're not going to make you do anything, Ripley. You're agreeing to this. You have a choice."
"And Dax already has herpes, so he has nothing to worry about."
Horrified, I look at Dax, who rolls his eyes and shakes his head. "I don't have herpes."
Elias takes two slow steps toward me, closing the space between us, standing over me before reaching down and grabbing me by the chin, jerking my face until I'm gazing up at him. "Open your mouth."
I hesitate for only a second before doing as he asks.
"Wider. Stick out your tongue."
With my tongue out and heart pounding in my chest, I wait while he looks down at me, his jaw tightly clenched, averting my eyes when sitting at his feet like this becomes excruciating.
My gaze lands just below his waist, on the hard ridge of his dick straining against his jeans.
"You can open wider than that, can't you?"
I shake my head. He's either trying to scare me, or he's going to shove his own cock down my throat.
"You really shouldn't look so eager, Saige. I bet your fucking pussy's wet, isn't it? Jesus." Elias forcefully releases my jaw before returning to the chair at his desk. Then, he turns to Dax and adds, "It doesn't look like she has any current breakouts, so you should be good."
My cheeks burn, and I look down at the floor. "I don't have fucking herpes, either."
"Well, get to it. We only have a few hours left before the sun comes up, and the neighbors will probably notice the dead guy in the backyard."
I'm still not sure they're serious—not until Dax stands, unbuttoning his pants and pulling out his dick. He looks down at me, slowly pumping it in his fist. "What's it going to be, Saige?"
My eyes dart to Elias. "Do you have to watch?"
"Yeah, I do."
I turn back to Dax, his abs clenching as he works his now fully-erect cock.
"If you don't know what to do, you can say that," Dax says, his voice huskier than it was a few seconds ago. "I'm happy to show you. And I'm a lot gentler than he is—I can promise you that."
"Nah, she knows what to do," Elias tells him. "Saige is a whore. We don't have all night. Let's go."
I wet my lips and shuffle toward Dax on my knees, stopping in front of him and replacing his hand with my own. Gripping the base, I open my mouth wide.
"Wait," Dax says.
I breathe a sigh of relief, thinking he's going to call the whole thing off—that this was enough for me to prove it, and I don't need to seal it with a kiss. Instead, he reaches for me and pushes down my tank until my bare tits spill over the top.
I don't dare look at Elias now.
"Much better." He runs a hand over my chest, stopping to tease the hard tip of my nipple with his thumb before threading his hand through my hair. "Go ahead, sweetheart."
My tear-streaked cheeks burn bright red.
I open my mouth and lean into him slowly, waiting for them to stop me again, shame and desperation competing to tear me to shreds while I kneel half-naked on Elias's bedroom floor.
And his eyes…I can feel them on my body. It makes my skin crawl.
"Any day now, Ripley. Time is of the essence," Dax says.
"No one likes a dick tease," Elias says, his voice startling me. "You have five seconds to wrap that filthy fucking mouth of yours around his dick, or I'll call the police."
"Hey," Dax says, gently tugging on my hair. "It's okay, baby. It's not that big of a deal, right?"
Right. He's right; it's not. But where does it end?
I don't think I want to know.
Shaking, I close my lips around his dick, sucking the precum from the tip before taking him deeper, pumping him with my hand while I hollow my cheeks around him. He lets me go at my own pace, keeping that hand in my hair, moaning softly while slightly rocking his hips.