33. Asch
ASCH
The three of us sit in the living room of the small semi-furnished house Blaze rented for us. Three bedrooms, two and a half baths, a kitchen, a living room, and a basement rec room.
We got the TV set up, all of us quiet through the process.
My bedroom is almost completely bare, save for the bed and desk that were already included. I’d tried to salvage my stuff, but it was all black with smoke and soot, when it didn’t melt or burn.
It’s probably pathetic, how much I’m mourning belongings, but I barely scrape by as it is. The knowledge that I have to replace everything on the low balance in my bank account somehow is daunting.
I know Blaze will offer to buy me a whole new wardrobe without batting an eye, and this time…
I’m not sure I can afford not to take him up on it.
I’ll still hate myself for doing it.
“Here,” Blaze says, offering me a beer bottle.
I go to take it, but the sight of it has me feeling unsettled, a little sick, and I shake my head. I’m not in the mood for beer bottles, no matter how nice it might be to get a buzz and shake off some of this lingering unease.
Blaze passes it to River instead, then sits down in the armchair.
I stay silent. I’ve barely said a handful of words since…
Since .
I don’t know what to say anymore.
River glances at me. “You okay, man?” he asks.
I want to laugh. I’m so far from okay that I might as well be in another zip code. “Yeah,” I lie.
Blaze and River sip their beers, but I notice Blaze looking down at his beer bottle more often than necessary.
“It was hot,” Blaze says suddenly. “Her kicking and screaming.”
I should agree. Seeing her fight Blaze would’ve gotten me off. But seeing her kicking and screaming in front of the frat hadn’t. If anything, it had made my stomach turn and anger boil up within me because she’s ours .
I don’t know when I laid claim to her in my head, but now that I’ve acknowledged it, I can’t let the thought go. She belongs to us — to me, to Blaze, and even to River. But no one else.
“Yeah,” River says. “It was.” His jaw clenches. “And she deserved it. She deserved every second of it.”
In the heat of the moment, when Blaze had laid out what she’d done — the fact that he could’ve died — it had made sense to retaliate against her like we had. I don’t understand why it’s not sitting well with me.
Whatever we had with her is over.
“Nobody gets to cross my family. Cross me ,” Blaze continues. His tone is harsh, but I know him well enough that I can hear the hesitation.
Blaze doesn’t hesitate. He doesn’t feel bad about things.
Blaze takes what he wants, fuck the consequences.
Pandora’s the same though, isn’t she? She’s never once considered the consequences.
My phone dings—as do River’s and Blaze’s. It’s a group message to all of Kappa Alpha, with another photo from two nights ago.
If I scroll up, it’s nothing but nonstop photos of Pandora, naked and fighting. Some of the photos are repeated, or from barely different angles, because nobody can get enough of them.
Blaze snarls at the phone. “Aren’t they getting bored of this yet?”
Don’t they realize how stupid it is to distribute these things? There are people in the frat who might have a conscience, who might decide to share them with Pandora in the event that she decides that — fuck the consequences — she’s going to the police anyway.
As much as I want to tell myself that that’s the only reason I’m bothered by the onslaught of pictures, I’m not that delusional. I hate that everyone gets to see her this way. That should’ve been reserved for us .
I’d gone along with this, though, and I’m as much to blame as any of the rest of them.
My eyes go to the beer bottles in Blaze and River’s hands.
“They’ll stop eventually,” River says.
After they save them to their phones. After they continue to share them with their friends.
“Yeah?” I find myself asking, my voice harsh. “After everyone on campus has seen them. We’re lucky she hasn’t gone to the cops.”
She’s been quiet, too quiet, and that isn’t like the Pandora I’ve come to know.
“What are they going to do?” River asks. “It’s not like they actually care about anything like this.”
“Besides, Pandora Pavone isn’t going to run to the pigs,” Blaze adds.
“That’ll invite investigation into her family.
They might pretend to be legit, but we know there’s plenty of dirt still to be found.
And there’s no statute of limitations on murder.
If even half of what I’ve heard about Giulio Pavone is true… ”
“Then the cops won’t go after him either,” I say.
River laughs, though the sound is dark and bitter.
“No. They’d never do anything more than a precursory sweep over what he’s doing and what he’s done.
He’s got them paid off or too scared to say anything.
Every once in a while, a rookie comes in and tries, but that never lasts long.
The New Bristol PD is as corrupt as he is. ”
Blaze waves dismissively. “The FBI, then. They’d probably love to take down the Pavones.”
“But you can bet the Bouchards would end up under investigation too, if Pandora comes to their attention,” I point out.
“So, a stalemate,” Blaze says. “Which means we don’t need to worry about authorities. Like I told you, Asch. Stop being a fucking worrywart over some shit that doesn’t matter.”
I don’t mention that the Pavones could decide to take matters into their own hands. Blaze doesn’t want to hear it. For someone slated to take over an entire criminal organization someday, he’s got serious blind spots, and one day…
One day they’re going to smack him in the face.
I don’t want to be the one to say I told you so .
I watch River scroll through his phone, looking at the pictures again.
My stomach knots all over again. “Would you stop looking at those?” I hiss.
River looks up from his phone. “What? We did it. What’s the point of pretending we didn’t?” he asks, and his voice is flat.
“This is what you all wanted,” Blaze says coldly. “To hurt her. To punish her. To teach her a fucking lesson about what it means to piss us off.”
“No, it’s what you wanted!” I retort.
“She burned your trash!” Blaze argues back. “You were fucking upset about that. I got you closure for that!”
My trash.
I don’t think I’ve ever hated Blaze before, but right now? What I feel is pretty damn close.
“If by ‘trash,’ you mean everything I own, yes!” I shout. “You wouldn’t know what it’s like to lose everything. I was upset! And we did something I?—”
Something I regret.
Fuck, this is not the time to be having regrets .
“Don’t tell me you have feelings for her, Alvarado,” Blaze says, with cruelty I’ve never heard aimed at me. “You were the one who kept going on and on about how I had to take her seriously! Well, I did exactly that!”
“That wasn’t ‘taking her seriously!’” I reply, my hurt thudding in my chest. “That was just fucking stupid!”
“She deserved it,” River interrupts me, his voice savage.
“After everything she’s done, she finally got what was coming to her, and she doesn’t have her Daddy and her Papa and her Uncle to do the dirty work for her.
” He laughs again. “Congrats. You might both get to keep all of your body parts. You think she’d have kept it if it had been a whole hand? ”
“She’d have kept it and made a whole fucking necklace out of it,” Blaze answers. He goes over to River, and now it feels like it’s the two of them against me.
“Let’s be real,” I say, “You didn’t do this to punish Pandora. You did all this because you were afraid Zayden would finally get to be in charge of something.”
Blaze’s eyes narrow. “I wasn’t afraid of anything.”
“Yeah? So you called your dad, and he didn’t give you your marching orders?” My heart is thudding in my ears. I can’t believe I’m arguing with Blaze like this.
Blaze stomps over to me and grips my shirt. “What my dad said doesn’t fucking matter. I wanted to do this. You wanted to. River wanted to. We all wanted to see Pandora taken down a peg, or ten, and she fucking deserved it, and there’s no fucking reason to feel bad about anything .”
“Get your hands off me,” I snarl at him.
My hands fist at my sides, and it’s all I can do not to take a swing at him.
It’s not a reaction I’ve ever had with him, not something I’d ever have dreamed of having…
before Pandora. She’s fucking everything up for me, for us, and I should hate her for it. I shouldn’t be defending her.
“Maybe you’re just mad that you played Blaze’s bitch again,” River taunts me from nearby. He sets his beer bottle down.
I see red. I yank away from Blaze, already on my way to River to punch him in the fucking face, but Blaze grabs my arm and keeps me from reaching him.
“ I am not his bitch, ” I say with as much savagery as I can put into my voice.
“But maybe we should talk about how you’re Pandora’s fucking puppy.
Following her around even though she took your finger. And she thinks you’re a shit lay.”
River storms toward me, his face twisted up into something that makes him look downright ugly. “I didn’t know she kept it!”
“She made a fool of you,” I taunt him.
She made a fool of all of us, but I don’t say that out loud.
Blaze suddenly pushes me forward at River, and I crash into him. We both stumble and fall onto the couch. I scramble to get off River, ready to defend myself.
“She deserved it,” Blaze howls again. “She used us, she betrayed us, she… she’s a slut, a whore, a bitch, a…” He trails off, clenching his fist. “Why the fuck am I more mad at the fuckers who touched her?”
I take several steps away from River, and while my attention is on Blaze and his words, I’m not letting River out of my sight. “Because she’s ours!” I burst out. “And you know it. No one else should’ve touched her.”
And I want to gouge the eyes out of everyone who saw her in a way that only we should.
“She’s not ours!” River interrupts. “She’s just some whore who will fuck anything with a dick.”
Blaze bursts out laughing. “Is that right? Then you don’t care if Asch and I keep her, right? If you never got to touch her again. If she kicked you to the curb entirely.”
“She’s not going to—” River begins, then grits his teeth.
“Of course she’s ‘going to,’” I snap at him. “She’s not going to want anything to do with any of us.”
Blaze runs his hand through his hair and shakes his head.
“Zayden. We blame Zayden. He got the brothers all pumped up. He snitched to my dad. The three of us, we did what we could to mitigate it.” He nods, like this is in any way a reasonable plan, like Pandora would actually believe it.
“She couldn’t see who was there. We tell her Zayden was watching, that he was giving silent orders to the others. That he gave Keegan the bottle.”
“So we look like weak little pussies instead?” River points out. “Yeah, that’ll make her forgive us.”
“Well, if I hadn’t been there, they really would have gotten their dicks in her!” Blaze shouts. “Half of them were desperate to do it.”
The idea of them fucking her has me seeing red all over again.
I think I really would fuck them up so hard they’d never go near her again if they had. I wouldn’t have been able to stand by and let it happen. As it was…
“Let’s call Zayden,” Blaze says. “I’ll tell him to meet us. We can tie him up as a gift for Pandora.” He pulls out his phone and makes the call.
I wonder how Blaze’s father will feel when he finds out about this. Zayden’s father works for the Bouchards, and Zayden’s always been a loyal little bootlicker.
It’s a moot point, though. The call goes straight to voicemail.
“Fuck. Does he have class right now?” Blaze looks at his phone again. “Maybe he’s in the greenhouse.”
River shakes his head. “It’s not going to work, anyway.”
“It will!” Blaze sounds desperate now. “But if it doesn’t, so what? We don’t need her forgiveness. I just thought?—”
The doorbell rings.
We all freeze.
Then there’s a harsher knock on the door.
“Hey, fuckfaces! Open up!” Pandora’s voice calls out.
I’m the first to recover, and I go to the door, River and Blaze behind me.
I’m not delusional enough to think she’s here to beg for our forgiveness, and I open the door carefully, my eyes instantly going to her hands to see if she’s actively armed. She’s fast, and if she’s gotten a new knife, she could do some serious damage.
She’s holding a black plastic container with a lid on it, which doesn’t do anything to ease my tension .
Neither does the fact that her face still has CRAZY written across it in faded black marker.
Blaze wrote that. I’d watched him, apprehensive, when he’d placed that first C.
I’m not sure if “crazy” is better than what I thought he was going to write across her face.
The rest of her looks fine, at least. She’s wearing tight black jeans, a new pair of combat boots, and a hot pink hoodie that’s zipped up all the way.
“Hey Asch. Blaze, River,” Pandora says, smiling widely. “I was in the neighborhood and I thought I’d stop by to deliver this.” She holds the container out to me.
Her nails, usually well-manicured, are dull with obvious dirt under the chipped polish.
“Is it a bomb?” I ask warily.
Pandora laughs. “No. I don’t know anything about bombs. You can open it with me right here, if it’ll put you at ease.”
Blaze pushes the door open wider and takes the box.
“Let me guess, a dead rat,” Blaze mutters.
“Ooh, that’s really close,” Pandora answers with another giggle. “Go on, open it.”
River is the one to lift the lid to the box, and when he looks inside, he pales. “Fuck!”
His reaction sends a chill through me, but I can’t see past him and Blaze to peer into the box.
“Jesus fuck,” Blaze mutters.
I give in to my curiosity and get closer to Blaze. A strong stench of blood fills my nostrils.
Inside the container is a head.
Zayden’s head, neatly sawed off. His wide, glassy eyes stare at us, his expression frozen into pain and fear.
Bile rises in my throat.
“Okay, that’s it! That’s my message!” Pandora’s smile is unnaturally wide. “You’re all on notice! You wanted war… Well, I’m giving it to you! No more nice, sane Pandora!”
“Pandora…” I begin, only to trail off.
She brought us a fucking head .
Pandora skips down the front steps, then stops to wave at us. “I’m so excited, boys! We’re going to have so much fun !”
Fun.
I watch her leave, and my only thought is:
We’ve unleashed a box of evils.