2. Asch #2
“We teach her that Kappa Alphas—that you and me—aren’t to be trifled with.
” Blaze scoops up the tofu and takes a bite.
“She thinks we’re terrible because some chick was passed out in the frat?
We could show her really terrible.” His grin turns darker.
“Be honest. What do you really want to do with her? What would we have done last night, if she hadn’t left? ”
“We’d have just fucked her and been done with her,” I say.
But what I want to do to her now? That’s a different story.
I’ve never been a malicious person. I’ve helped Blaze with his squabbles, petty or otherwise, but that’s never been personal. This is.
“ Just fucked her? Sounds boring.” Blaze prods. “I was thinking I would have taken her cunt while you had her mouth. We could have made her really scream. And by the time we were done with her, there’s no way she would have walked out on steady feet.”
“Yeah, well. She doesn’t get that experience now, that’s for sure,” I say. I manage a tight smile. “Anyway, it’s not like we’re ever going to see her again.”
Blaze laughs. “What are you talking about? There are what, five thousand students on campus? We’ll see her again.” He gestures toward the front of the restaurant. “Like right now, even.”
I lift my head in time to see Pandora walk through the door of the restaurant, and my eyes darken as I take in the sight of her. It should make that familiar lust spike, but now I’ve seen her for what she really is.
She’s a crazy bitch in a pretty package.
Her long brown hair is pulled into a ponytail, so I can see the snake earrings dangling from her earlobes.
Minimal makeup, but the eyeliner is thick and makes her eyes look wide.
Her nails are painted in bright neon pink.
The jeans she’s wearing cling to her ass, and the shirt is equally tight, reminding me of why I’d approached her at the party. Her breasts are a perfect handful.
She’s fucking hot.
Blaze really isn’t going to want to let this go.
Not until he’s claimed her.
“What, you want me to invite her to sit with us or something?” I ask sarcastically.
Blaze grins. “A pretty girl like her shouldn’t sit alone, right? Who knows what kinds of perverts are out there.”
There’s no talking Blaze out of this, I already know that. My best bet is to get it over with and hope he grows bored of Pandora fast .
He doesn’t generally fuck a woman more than once or twice anyway.
“What do you have in mind?” I ask, my voice low.
“She hurt you,” Blaze whispers back, his voice more serious than I’m used to. “So we hurt her back.”
As I glance down at my arm, where there are still streaks of blood where the napkin had done little more than smear it, I think that maybe the idea isn’t the worst.
I get up, painting a smile on my lips as I cross over to wait for her to finish paying for her food. “Hey, Pandora,” I say, turning on all the charm I can muster.
Dimly, I think that I don’t actually have to do everything Blaze suggests, but this is something I want to do too.
This is something Blaze is doing for me .
Pandora smiles at me. “Hey, Asch. I wondered when you were coming over.” Her eyes flick to my arm, and she licks her lips. “Ouch. That looks like it hurts.”
Her friendly demeanor is only a mask, and I remind myself what’s under the surface.
It doesn’t matter what she acts like now.
I’ve seen what she really is, and between Blaze and me, we’re going to make her regret fucking with me.
“Only a scratch,” I say. “Hey, Blaze and I thought you might want to come sit with us. Let bygones be bygones, and all.”
Pandora nods. “Sure! I’ve never been one to hold a grudge, anyway.” She bumps her shoulder against my arm—my injured arm, making me wince—before she heads toward Blaze, tray of food in hand.
I watch her, trying to figure out what game she’s playing, then I follow behind her. I stop myself from rubbing at the cut again.
I pull out a chair for her, gesturing for her to sit. “Here you go,” I tell her.
“Thanks.” Pandora sits down and peers at Blaze’s food. “Tofu salad? Is it any good? ”
Blaze shrugs. “It’s fine? I’ve had better, but the sesame dressing is great.”
Without even asking, Pandora scoops up some of the tofu with her spoon and takes a bite. “Ooh, not bad. Maybe I’ll get it next time.”
Blaze stares at her in shock. “Did you just steal my food?”
Even I’ve never dared to take anything of Blaze’s without asking. He’s yelled at people for using his pencils without permission, for Christ’s sake.
I brace myself for the usual loud reprimands, but Blaze grits his teeth and swallows whatever cursing he normally would have done.
Pandora grins. “Yep. You want some of mine? I got the Asian sesame crunch wrap. And edamame.” She pushes the edamame closer to Blaze.
“I’m vegetarian,” Blaze says, smiling back at her. “I don’t want your wrap.”
Pandora rolls her eyes. “I was offering a bite, not the whole thing. And last I checked, edamame is made of beans, not beef.”
I don’t know what game Blaze is playing, but I’ll play along for now. I take one of the edamame beans, popping it into my mouth. “Pretty good,” I say. I don’t offer her a bite of my own wrap, though.
Blaze glowers and drags his tofu closer to himself. “Were you raised in a barn, Pandora?”
“Yep. My roommates were the cows and the pigs.” Pandora laughs. “Well, I have three siblings, and there were Mama, and Papa, and Da… Damien, and Uncle Slayer, so eight of us in the house. All meals were huge communal meals. What about you? What kind of barn were you two raised in?”
I don’t want to talk about the tiny, cramped home I was raised in. “Uncle Slayer?” I repeat, quirking a brow at her. “Sounds like there’s a story there.”
Something about the name nags at me, but I chuck it up to the many people in Blaze’s circle. Probably one of his father’s underlings used “Slayer” as a moniker .
“Yeah, the story is that he was boning my mom and one of my brothers is his,” Pandora says in the same even tone.
I blink at her. That’s not the kind of story I’d had in mind.
Pandora has to be being flippant, but she doesn’t crack a smile at the obvious joke. She takes another few bites from her wrap. “What about you, Blaze? You’re from down south?”
Blaze’s shoulders stiffen, but he keeps the fake smile plastered on his face. “What? How do you know that?”
“The accent? All southern drawl and all.” Pandora smirks at him. “I bet most women swoon when you open your mouth.”
Blaze bites his lip before he shakes his head. “Most women do swoon, but not because of the ‘accent.’”
I know Blaze has worked hard to erase any southernness from his voice, so it must kill him that Pandora picked up on it anyway — especially when she didn’t comment on my own admittedly subtler accent.
“We’re from New Valence,” I tell her, watching her expression. Something isn’t quite right about it, but I don’t know what it is that’s setting me on edge. “Are you from around here?”
“New Bristol, born and raised.” Pandora finishes her wrap. “I realize Dyschord is only two hours away from the city, but it feels like I went back in time with how sleepy and slow Harmony is. There’s only one night club in the town, too? How do people survive this?”
Harmony is mostly a college town, with the majority of the population the college students and people employed by the university. I don’t even know if it would be able to sustain a second nightclub.
It’s not like anyone is enforcing the law enough to keep underage people out of the one nightclub that does exist.
“That’s what frat parties are for,” I say with a smirk. “You don’t have to pay to go out clubbing. Just come join us, free of charge.”
Well, free of charge for her. Blaze is paying out the ass for the two of us to be a part of the fraternity.
It’s another way I’m beholden to him, another reason for him to get tired of me .
I know he doesn’t think that way; he spends money like water and barely bats an eye. He’s never understood how difficult it is for me to accept his help.
“The drinks are free too, right?” Pandora says, winking. “Does that include the roofies?”
Blaze lets out a small chuckle. “I thought you didn’t hold grudges?”
“That doesn’t mean I forget.” Pandora reaches out to rub her thumb under the cut on my arm. “I won’t hold it against you, though.”
I jerk my arm back. “I just got that to stop bleeding,” I tell her, trying to bite back my irritation. I should be focusing on how to lull her into a sense of false security so that we can entice her into whatever trap Blaze is trying to set, but it’s hard when she’s acting like… this.
Pandora giggles and pops a few edamame beans into her mouth. “You’d have better luck if you’d actually dressed it. Need me to bandage your boo-boo and kiss it better?”
It’s all I can do not to glare at her. Instead, I laugh, for all that it’s forced.
“There’s a first aid kit at the frat house,” I tell her.
My room isn’t in any shape to invite anyone into.
It’s not as bad as my mom’s entire house, but it’s embarrassing enough to where I don’t allow anyone but Blaze inside.
I’m reluctant enough to let him inside, but he insists it’s fine.
It’s not.
He spends the time trying to motivate me into cleaning it, to varying degrees of success depending on my levels of self-loathing on that particular day.
“You’re welcome to patch me up there,” I add.
There’s a slight change in her expression, a brief narrowing of her eyes, before Pandora nods. “Sure. If you’ll have me. But there’d better not be any more naked girls.”
Blaze gives Pandora his most charming smile, the one that never fails to make my own chest feel strange. “Oh, don’t worry. You’ll be the sole focus of our attention tonight. The only naked people will be us.”
Pandora’s grin widens. “Getting ahead of yourself, aren’t you? How about we start slow? I’m thinking of reforming my slutty ways, maybe doing a bit of vetting first. Gotta make sure the cock I jump onto doesn’t belong to some kind of dick.”
I’m shocked when Blaze starts laughing. The comment wasn’t that funny.
Maybe he’s playing it up for her.
That has to be it. He’s lulling her into a false sense of security.
I finish eating, then stack all the trash on one of the trays so I can take them over to the trash can. I set the trays on top of it, before returning to Pandora and Blaze.
Blaze brushes some of Pandora’s loose strands behind her ear, and she smiles as he does.
“I really am sorry about last night,” Blaze says. “First party of the semester, I’d already had a few drinks… You didn’t see me at my best.”
“You haven’t seen me at my best either,” Pandora answers, equally as flirty. Her eyes flick over to me. “But Asch might have gotten a glimpse.”
Yeah. A glimpse of how psychotic she is. “Is that so?” I ask, starting to walk toward the door. “Always rescuing damsels in distress?” I have a feeling that’s not what she’s talking about, though.
No, I’m pretty sure she means the cut on my arm.
She’s playing, just as much as Blaze is.
“Or something.” Pandora hooks her arm around Blaze’s. “Let’s see this first aid kit. I’m sure it’s…” She trails off, frowning lightly, and looks around.
I glance around the restaurant too, but I don’t spot anything out of the ordinary. There’s some guy in the back corner who looks away when our eyes meet, but that’s it.
“Pandora?” Blaze prompts.
She shakes her head. “No, never mind. Let’s go. ”
I lead them outside, but the idea of taking her back to the frat house rankles even more. I glance at Blaze, catching his gaze with my own.
“Do you know all the shortcuts yet?” Blaze asks Pandora. “There are tunnels that connect some of the buildings.”
“Oh, I heard about those! For when it snows in winter, right?” Pandora says.
Blaze directs us toward the nearby student hall. “Exactly. Why trudge through several feet of snow when you can be warm and dry in the tunnels?”
The tunnels are used a lot in the winter, but right now, in late summer? Nobody bothers. They aren’t always the shortest distance either, but Pandora doesn’t have to know that.
I’ll have to make sure she doesn’t have a chance to pull that knife on me or Blaze again. I don’t make the same mistakes twice.
The two of them chat, and I occasionally chime in with a response. We arrive at the entrance to the tunnels, and between the late hour and the time of year, no one else is around. I open the door, gesturing for the two of them to go in first.
This is the perfect place to teach her a lesson
Pandora won’t know what hit her.