Chapter 1 Ali
Ali
MAY
Drenched in sweat from my PE class, I stuffed my gear into my gym bag.
As quickly as possible, I double-checked that I had all the books I needed for the assignments I had to complete over the weekend, trying to ignore the itching from all the sweat.
I hated to have sweat on me for too long.
Normally, I’d be the first one in the shower and likely the last to leave.
Now the thought of undressing in the girls’ locker room made my skin crawl worse than any amount of sweat.
If I left something behind, I was screwed. There was no way I was going to come back for anything, and I’d fallen behind in two of my classes the past few weeks.
With how close to the end of term it was, and finals speeding toward me, I’d royally fucked up.
I only had two weeks before the school year was over, and if my parents found out that I was dangerously close to failing multiple classes, they would lose their shit.
Summer school was not an option. It would mean missing the Australian tour my parents were leaving for right after school ended, which would mean spending the break at my godmother’s house instead of traveling with them.
As much as I loved Aunt Lucy, I couldn’t spend an entire summer away from Sixx.
He would be in Australia with his parents’ bands, Blonde Bombshells and Tainted Knights.
My dad was TK’s lead vocalist, and my uncle Gray was the band’s guitarist. Sixx went on every tour with his parents, as did my cousin Caprice.
No way in hell was I leaving Sixx alone with that bitch for an entire summer.
I trusted my boyfriend, and there had never been a moment in our lives when I’d doubted he was mine.
It wasn’t jealousy. It was marking and protecting my territory.
Caprice lived in her own fantasy world where she thought Sixx was secretly in love with her.
A delusion that her mom, my aunt Kassa, helped her feed.
Just because Kassa and Gray were soul mates from childhood did not mean that Sixx and Caprice were destined to be together because she had a crush on him. Caprice needed some serious therapy and maybe some hard-core antipsychotics. She more or less stalked Sixx. More than less.
I wasn’t opposed to people feeding their obsessions, but only if the other person was just as obsessed with them in return. Feeding Sixx’s need for me was something I lived for. The only thing Caprice was going to get fed was my fist if she didn’t keep her eyes off my boyfriend.
Once I had everything in my bag, I threw the strap over my shoulder and was about to sprint toward the student parking lot when my phone pinged.
I flinched, the sound having become my biggest anxiety trigger over the last few weeks.
Reluctantly, I looked at the screen while I speed walked toward the exit.
Unknown: I really liked the blue panties you wore today.
Unknown: You know blue is my favorite color, don’t you? That’s why you wore them. Just. For. Me.
Bile lifted into the back of my throat. Swallowing with difficulty, I sucked in a few deep breaths as I stepped outside. Fear and disgust flooded my system, making me dizzy. Pausing, I closed my eyes, trying to center myself.
The unknown number had been texting me for weeks now.
At first, I’d thought it was one of my friends who had gotten a new number, and I had responded a few times.
It hadn’t been, so I’d blocked the contact.
Only to get another unknown message the next day.
I’d blocked that one too, more annoyed than concerned at the time.
Then had come the text bombs, hundreds of them blowing up my phone. Messages telling me things like how pretty I was or detailing the sender’s favorite freckle on my back and how much they couldn’t wait to see me the next day.
At school.
That was when I started getting nervous, yet I’d remained quiet.
A few times, I’d almost confided in my sister, but she sounded so distracted lately that I’d kept it to myself.
At one point, I’d considered telling Hayat, but she was busy.
Those two were the only older girls I trusted with something like this.
Evan was one of my closest friends, but he didn’t know how to keep a secret to save his own life.
Mom and Dad would not come at the situation with cool heads.
But it all came back to the same reason why I kept quiet.
I really didn’t want this crap getting back to my boyfriend.
Sixx would lose his mind, and I couldn’t risk him doing something stupid.
He’d already won the World Youth BJJ Championship ten out of the eleven years he’d participated—the first year he competed, he’d come in second.
Now he was on track to perform in the adult World Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Championship and dominate.
His mestre was a red-black belt, which was basically a seventh-degree black belt in jiu-jitsu and had been a black belt for over thirty years.
Mestre not only had his own academy, but he choreographed fight scenes for some of the biggest action movies in Hollywood.
Out of all the students Mestre had, Sixx was considered his protégé.
If Sixx stayed out of trouble and won that championship, the road to the career he wanted to pursue in MMA would be paved in gold.
If he found out about my unknown admirer, he wouldn’t think twice before hunting and killing the person with his bare hands.
I had to make sure that didn’t happen.
A horn honked nearby, and I yelped before focusing on the driver behind the wheel of the Range Rover that had just pulled up beside me.
Evan powered down his window, his grin causing his dimples to pop.
With his mop of brown-black curls pushed back from his face by a sweatband, he was a welcome sight.
I didn’t have my license yet, and Evan picked me up and drove me home every day.
It was just easier, because our schedules coincided. He was always in the gym shooting hoops, even when basketball season was over and my extracurriculars kept me late. Evan only had one more year, though, and then I would be all on my own.
Before those texts had started from the unknown sender, I would have said I had no problem with Evan graduating and leaving me behind. Now, I wasn’t nearly as confident.
That was Future Ali’s problem.
With it being Friday and basketball season long over, Evan was ready to get home as badly as I was. “Hurry up, slacker.”
Flipping him off, I took my time walking around to the passenger side, carefully deleting and blocking yet another unknown number.
A nagging suspicion of who the sender was made me glance back at the doors I’d just come out of, but I didn’t see anyone.
No lingering students. No…teachers. Faculty parking was on the other side of campus, but I’d seen the assistant basketball coach talking to a few of the players on more than one occasion, usually to Evan.
Which could have been a simple coincidence.
But Mr. Gaviria was also the PE teacher.
Again, it could have been a coincidence and I was making a mountain out of a molehill, as Grandpa Carter sometimes said.
Yet my skin crawled whenever I had to share space with the young, new teacher.
Something ugly twisted in my stomach whenever he smiled at me.
Not butterflies or heat. Dread. And also, something I didn’t want to acknowledge.
Fear. I felt a lot of fear that froze my muscles when he got too close during class.
Those emotions had been festering before the first innocent texts had begun. It only got worse as the messages became more and more personal. Like knowing what color underwear I was wearing. Or the placement of a freckle that only a handful of people knew about.
There was no way of proving it was my teacher, though, and I wasn’t about to deal with the insanity that would follow if I took my suspicions to my parents or another adult.
I set my phone to Do Not Disturb. My parents, godparents, sister, Hayat, Evan, Bentley, Sixx, and his parents were the only people who could get through when I switched on DND.
As I slid into the front seat, Evan scrunched up his nose. “Did you not shower after PE?”
Busying myself putting my phone away and fastening my belt, I avoided looking at my friend.
We’d grown up so close, we might as well have been siblings.
He was my second best friend, with Sixx being in the number one place.
Bentley, my cousin, was someone I considered a good friend too.
He, Sixx, and I used to get into so much mischief when we would go on tour with our parents.
Bentley didn’t travel with Kassa and Gray much these days, though.
He’d graduated two years ago and was working on his own career goals.
Evan knew my tells as easily as I knew his. I’d been working hard to keep my stress from bleeding through so he didn’t get nosy. He and Sixx might loathe each other, but they shared a common goal—protecting me.
“I saw a mouse in the girls’ locker room,” I mumbled, shuddering, and not at the thought of a cute mouse. I would have taken a hundred of those adorable little things in the same shower stall over the faceless monster that had taken countless pictures of me while I showered.
Whoever it was had sent me several of the photos they’d taken while I was naked, along with a video.
Ninety-six seconds of me singing purposely off-key in the shower.
What turned my stomach was how naked I was, the way the camera had moved slowly up and down my body, as if the person filming was touching each part of my body.
First while I soaped up, then again as the suds washed away, leaving me completely bare.
I was never going to shower at school again.
Which would get gross, because I did cheerleading during the football and basketball seasons, and I ran track.
That video had doubled my suspiciousness of Mr. Gaviria.
I’d been trying to keep my distance from him for a while at this point.
Staying in bigger groups during gym class, not going anywhere on campus alone.
I even waited to use the bathroom when I had at least two other girls to go with.
Thankfully, I had a little acting talent and could mask my anxiety from those who didn’t know me as well.
“I don’t know what is more gross, the thought of mouse poop all over the girls’ locker room and showers, or the way you smell right now.” Evan powered down all the other windows, angling himself away from me. “Do you even wear deodorant?”
“Jerk!” I didn’t smell that bad, but I definitely wanted a shower as soon as I got home.
A few minutes later, Evan dropped me off in front of my house before going to his own home down the block.
“Ali-Cat?” Dad walked out of the kitchen just as I was about to run upstairs.
He was dressed in black slacks and a black button-down that was only half done up, exposing some of the ink on his chest that he’d been adding to since long before I was born. His dark blond hair was styled, which meant he was going out.
“You look nice,” I told him, pausing on the first step.
“Mom and I are having a date night. Are you going to be okay with dinner on your own?”
“I have plans,” I told him, adjusting my gym bag strap on my shoulder. With all the books I’d brought home, it was heavier than normal, and I was so freaking tired. Sleep was elusive lately. I was exhausted, and my period was about to wreak havoc. Even as I stood there, I began to cramp.
His jaw clenched. “With Sixx?”
“Would you rather I go out without him, Dad?” I asked, brow raised, half challenging him.
He huffed, looking even crankier because the truth was, he didn’t like it when I went anywhere without Sixx. “Is he picking you up?”
Sixx and I had been official for a while, just not Dad-official.
Meaning my dad wasn’t ready for us to be more than BFFs.
He’d get there. Eventually. Until then, it was better to let him pretend Sixx was simply my bestie.
Labels didn’t really matter. It was all the same.
I’d gotten lucky, finding my soul mate so early in life.
Dad had rules for when I went out without him or Mom. One of those was that I either went with Evan, took security, or I had to be with Sixx.
Out of those three options, Dad was the most at ease when I was with Sixx because he knew Sixx would do whatever was necessary to ensure I made it home safe.
Whether he wanted to admit it or not, Dad trusted Sixx more than any other person when it came to me.
That Sixx was a black belt in jiu-jitsu and could become unhinged with the flip of a switch if someone so much as looked at me too long was a plus in his favor, according to Dad.
“Yes. We might go to dinner and then a movie.” Another cramp twisted low in my abdomen. I bounced up onto my tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “Have fun with Mom. Love you. Bye.”
“Ali-Cat!” he called after me as I sprinted up the stairs. “I want your location turned on all night.”
“Sure, Dad.” That wouldn’t be a problem since I planned on keeping my phone hidden in my room. Even if we went out, I was going to “forget” it at home.
I couldn’t chance Sixx seeing any of those texts.