Chapter Fourteen #2
he promised to help me keep an eye on her, especially since they go
smoke outside at parties. He swore to me that he'd never let her go
by herself, and as far as I know, he hasn't.
Chelsea grabs my hand, her
fake nails scratching the back of mine as she pulls me toward the
exit. We make our way through the dense crowd, around sweaty
dancing bodies, and I'm actually grateful for the fresh air once we
get outside.
The bouncer opens the rope
for us and I tell him we're just meeting a friend and we're coming
right back in. Chelsea checks her phone.
"She's pulling up any
second," she tells me.
"I thought you said she
was here…"
"She's around the freaking
block, Cap. Relax. She's only been to New York like once before.
She's really excited, but nervous. I wanted you to meet her anyway,
she's really pretty."
"I thought this was your
first time meeting her?" I ask.
"Well, yeah, but I've seen
her photos on Instagram and Facebook. Anyway we've talked so much
in the past month I feel like I've known her forever. We have a lot
in common."
I nod, barely even
bothering to feign interest.
"You probably do too,
actually."
"Hm." I'm getting the
unwelcome sense that Chelsea's trying to set me up with this girl
she's never actually met, and I'm confused by it considering it was
just a couple of months ago that she was attacking Rory because of
her own crush. Nothing Chelsea does seems to make any damn sense
anymore.
"You actually have a
friend in common."
"Hm." Where the fuck is
this girl? I just want to go back inside and get back to the
friends whose company I actually enjoy.
"There she is!" Chelsea
shrieks excitedly, and titters on her five inch heels around me to
where a short, blond girl has just climbed out of a cab.
They embrace and I'm
instantly on edge. "Hey girl!" Chelsea exclaims. "This is Cap, the
guy I was telling you about." But her tone is pointed, not casual,
and I'm suddenly aware this is not the setup I thought it
was.
It's far worse.
Because even before
Chelsea introduces her to me, I know her name. Know exactly who she
is. I don't have to have ever seen her before to recognize the
familial resemblance to features that have haunted my fucking
nightmares.
I automatically step back
from them, half in shock.
"This is my roommate,
Lacey," Chelsea says excitedly as if everything is normal. As if
she didn't seek out Rory's fucking enemy—her fucking rapist's sister and
personal harasser—to be her fucking
college roommate.
"Are you fucking crazy?"
My voice is too low, I'm still utterly stunned.
Chelsea drops the ruse at
least, and the smile fades from her over-glossed lips. "Cap, you
need to hear her out. I know how much you like Rory, but you need
to listen to what she did to Lacey's family. Her
brother—"
"Her brother is a fucking
rapist!" I roar. I'm no longer in shock, no, now I'm enraged. My
heart rate skyrockets and my muscles tense, fury rushing through my
veins and fuming from my every pore. How could Chelsea
do this? How could she
bring her here?!
That motherfucking
bastard's sister flinches at my words,
like she's actually surprised, like it's the first time she's
hearing this about her brother. She must be as insane as he
is.
"I know what she says,"
she stutters, her voice shaking. "But she lies, you know?
She—"
I step forward, keeping my
arms painstakingly at my sides. "What she
says?! What about what I fucking saw?! Are my eyes lying too?" I close my eyes and take a deep
breath. I shouldn't be engaging here. My top priority should be
making sure Rory doesn't see this girl. Not telling her off. "You
need to leave. Fucking now. There is no way I'm letting you
walk into this club," I tell her more calmly, but she looks
puzzled.
"Cap…" Chelsea whines, but
I don't even acknowledge her. I have nothing to say to her. Ever
fucking again.
"What you saw?" Lacey
repeats, still confused, as if she really has no idea what I'm
talking about.
I take another deep
breath. "What I saw," I confirm carefully. "You know, your piece of garbage
brother's hand gripping Rory's throat while she tried to gasp for a
breath. His other hand pushing up her skirt, trying to rip off her
fucking underwear…" I bite my lip to stop myself from saying worse,
because the girl looks like she's about to cry, and for the first
time I consider that she isn't in on this whole thing. That she
really believed her brother innocent.
"Your brother is a violent
rapist," I say slowly. "And if I didn't get to that alley in time,
he'd be a murderer, too. Rory's not the liar. And you,
Lacey," I practically
snarl her name, "are a traitor to your own fucking sex, who
harassed and tormented Rory, and helped your evil family destroy
her reputation. But that was in your pathetic little town. Not
here. This is fucking New York, and here, we all know the truth.
Except maybe for your delusional roommate. So I suggest you find
another city to go to college in. Because here, you're the one with the shit
reputation. And you need to leave right fucking now."
Because Rory is actually
having a good time tonight and seeing this bitch will destroy her
night, and God only knows how else it might affect her.
Lacey doesn't respond to
my rant, she just stands there frozen, and it takes me a moment to
realize her teary gaze is trained over my shoulder.
My heart freezes as I turn
to follow her line of sight.
Motherfucking
fuck!
Rory stands twenty feet
away with Dave, an unlit cigarette dangling from her fingers. She
is frozen is fucking shock.
I turn to Chelsea. "God
help me if you don't make her fucking disappear in the next two
seconds—"
But she does. She grabs
Lacey's hand and leads her across the street and they keep walking.
I don't wait to see where they're going. I don't fucking care. If I
ever set eyes on Chelsea again it will be too fucking
soon.
I make my way cautiously
over to Rory. Dave's brows are pinched together in consternation,
the cherry of his forgotten cigarette burning off and falling to
the ground. Rory's mouth gapes open and it doesn't even seem like
she's fucking breathing. She stares at the spot of the
confrontation, not even glancing at me as I approach, though I know
she knows I'm there.
"Rory," I breathe. My hand
cups her jaw, my thumb brushing her cheek, but still, she doesn't
move a single muscle.
"What the fuck was that,
Cap?" Dave mutters, but I just shake my head.
"Go inside Dave. Nothing
happened, got it?"
He shakes his head and
shrugs, as if blaming me for something, and I suspect they both
heard every word I said and he knows at least the gist of what went
down. Infuriatingly, he looks to Rory first, asking if she's okay
out here, as if I'm someone to protect her from.
And maybe I am. After all,
it was me who convinced her to forgive Chelsea, who put her in this
position in the first place. Fuck, her college fucking roommate…
she must have been plotting this since… before even that
brunch! Goddamn it. There I was, guilting Rory over being a bitch to Chelsea,
asking her to cut her a break, and Chelsea was planning
this?
I shove my fingers through
my hair in frustration.
"Rory?" Dave asks again
when she doesn't respond. My gut churns, terrified that she's going
to panic, or that she's actually gone into some kind of literal
shock. But then she nods, just once, so subtly we both would have
missed it if we weren't watching her vigilantly, and then finally
Dave heads back inside.
I grab her hand, pulling
her down the block, away from the site of the confrontation, in the
opposite direction Chelsea took that witch. Finally Rory shakes her
head and blinks, sucking in a gasping breath, but she still doesn't
meet my eyes.
"She's gone, baby girl," I
assure her. Shit,
I shouldn't be calling her that, but it just came out. She doesn't
react though, doesn't correct me, and we stop under an awning
around the corner from the club.
"W-why…" is all she can
get out.
"Look, she set it up.
Chelsea. That's the roommate she was all excited over."
"H-her roommate?" Rory asks shakily,
finally meeting my gaze.
God, it fucking guts me to
see her hurting like this. "I never should have told you to give
her another chance, Rory. She didn't deserve it. She set this
up."
"But, why?" she asks again.
I want to say I don't
know. But I can't lie to her. I step closer to her, brushing my
knuckles along her soft jaw. She's so incredibly beautiful, even in
distress. "Because she's a crazy, manipulative bitch." I sigh.
"Look, she must have been planning this for a while. Maybe ever
since your fight. Her apology was bullshit."
I watch Rory take it all
in, probably processing every false word, every fake smile Chelsea
threw her way these past weeks. I watch her brows pinch together as
she silently figures out how Chelsea must have sought Lacey out on
Facebook, how the two of them must have plotted this confrontation.
How they must have planned for a much more dramatic confrontation,
one in which I believed Lacey's story, and in which they accused
Rory of the same old bullshit. I can't imagine what Chelsea must
think of me to believe that I would have listened to a word of it.
If I wasn't so outraged for Rory, I would be insulted.
"She… she's going to
FIT?"
My fingers find their way
through her loose hair, stroking it gently in an attempt at
comfort. "I guess," I murmur. I doubt my threat about her
reputation will be enough to get her to change her college plans.
She doesn't come across as very intelligent, but she must know that
New York is a big enough town that my word won't go as far as her
family's did down in her small town.
"Look, Ror, this isn't
Linton, okay?" I remind her. She looks up at me, still looking so
lost, so helpless, but there isn't a single tear in her eyes. She's
too strong for that. "She won't bother you again. And if she does?