Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
RILEY
I'd found the list of numbers inside Little House on The Prairie. It had taken me almost an hour of flipping through books on my bookshelves to find the small piece of paper that had three numbers.
The man that answered hadn't said much and we arranged to meet on Tuesday after school.
It had been a week since my life had taken a drastic turn from sitting in the background to being the center of attention. It felt surreal that three teenagers could so easily flip the switch on someone's life.
I still wasn't sure what to do about the video I had recorded in the back of the car. I wasn't sure if it was incriminating enough, and it also incriminated me. If they wanted to turn the tables and say I broke into their house, I'd be in just as much trouble as Jax.
I parked my car and shut my eyes, trying to calm my nerves before facing the three assholes that were making my life hell.
A knock sounded on my window and I jumped. Morgan stood with the paper bag I had left on the back seat of Jax's car. I swung open my door, hitting him with it.
"Ow. What was that for, vixen? I thought we were friends now." He shoved the bag into my hands. "You forgot your clothes. Where are mine?"
"I burned them." I looked into the bag. "Where are my underwear and bra?"
"They're on the bottom." Morgan looked over the top of my car. "Gotta go."
He took off at a jog and at the gate, threw his arm around a girl's shoulder and kissed her temple. I couldn't see who she was from the back, but she had long, bleach blonde hair and shorts that almost showed her ass cheeks. Maybe I'd report her for violating the dress code.
I threw the bag into my car and slammed the door. It's not like he was mine, yet seeing him touch another woman made my blood boil.
I was losing it. Why was I jealous?
"Oh, shit. What happened?" Aiden fell into step with me as I walked toward the gate. "It can't be worse than sand."
"Thanks again for helping me." I looped my arm through his. "I never knew sand was so intrusive."
"We could have just left it and your mom would have a nice surprise waiting for her this afternoon. It could have been payback for not responding to your calls and for taking your money." We got to my locker and I shoved the stuff I didn't need until later into it.
"What if she isn't back when I get home?" My mom was supposed to be back in the early afternoon, but I had been brushing off the idea that she wouldn't be home. Now that I had read her letter, I was leaning more toward her not returning.
"The police said you have to wait twenty-four hours, yeah?" I nodded, and we walked toward English. "Then we deal with it when we get to that point."
"I have to go to the bathroom. I'll see you in class."
We separated and I went into the bathroom. I had needed a pick-me-up after my long weekend and drank coffee even though I didn't care for it. It made me jittery and have to pee way more than usual.
I stepped out of the stall and was washing my hands when I heard the lock and looked up.
Melissa.
With her were the two girls Jax had kissed from the bonfire and the girl who had made the fish breath comment the first day of school. The same girl Morgan had wrapped his arm around before school.
They stood blocking the door with looks on their faces that I thought were only reserved for bitches in mean girl movies.
"Can you please move?" I threw my paper towel in the trash and faced them. There was just the five of us in the bathroom, to my dismay.
"We need to talk." Morgan's plaything stepped forward and I took a step back toward a stall.
I knew the predicament I was in. I wasn't a fighter and there were four of them. I wasn't sure how much locking myself in a stall would help besides putting me closer to becoming a swirly victim.
"Talk?" I could make it into the stall I had just come out of, but wasn't sure I would be able to lock the door in enough time. My body would be able to hold the door shut.
"Morgan is mine. I want you to stay away from him."
"Not a problem. Are we done here?" I was inches from the stall when Melissa lunged forward and grabbed me by the ponytail.
She was strong and she slammed me against the section of wall between the stalls. "We aren't done."
I suppressed the urge to scream for help or fight back. I didn't need to make this worse on myself. "What else?"
"We have papers due in two weeks. You'll write them for us." Of course that was what Melissa wanted. She had to take summer school every year.
I couldn't do that. "We'll get caught." I flinched as Melissa grabbed my shoulders and spun me around so my face was against the wall.
I attempted to free myself, but her nailed thumb pressed against the base of my skull. "How hard do you think I have to press to cause damage?" The other girls laughed.
"Let me go."
"Stay away from them." Melissa shoved me and my chin hit the wall, my teeth piercing my lip. "Ta-ta for now."
They were gone before I could even turn around. I spit the blood coming from my lip into the sink and held a paper towel to the split skin.
The bell rang and I groaned. In all my years, I had never gotten a tardy. The goody-two-shoes in me wanted to cry, but the new side of me was pissed and wanted blood.
An eye for an eye.
I walked out of the bathroom and almost ran into Officer Thomas. "You're late."
No shit, Sherlock. "Four girls jumped me in the bathroom." I moved the paper towel away from my lip and pointed. "What are you going to do about it?"
He had already started walking away and stopped, turning back to me with a scowl. "I don't like your attitude."
I don't like your face. "My apologies. I thought your job was to serve and protect."
"Get to class." He turned and walked off.
How much were the Tritons paying him to ignore me? Instead of heading to class, which I was late to already, I went straight to the office.
"Excuse me. Is Mrs. Miller in?"
The secretary looked up from her computer and her eyes widened. I knew my hair was half falling out of the ponytail and there were a few drops of blood on my shirt.
"Don't you mean Mrs. Angela, the nurse? Mrs. Miller took a leave of absence. We aren't sure when she'll return."
My stomach dropped. "What do you mean she took a leave of absence? I just saw her on Friday!" My voice cracked. "She didn't say anything about leaving and said I could come to her anytime."
"Sometimes life happens. Let's get you into the nurse's office."
I was freaking out. Instead of listening to her or asking to see the principal, I walked to English on a mission. Maybe if other people saw what they had done to me, they would be on my side.
I threw the bloody paper towel in a garbage can and pulled open the door to English with a flourish. Every single head turned my direction.
Mrs. Williams stood from her desk. "Riley, what the hell happened?"
I ignored her question and the fact that I looked bad enough to cause her to have a slip of the tongue. I marched right toward Blake, who stood.
He opened his mouth to say something and I smacked him across the face. His face turned with the slap and gasps spread across the room. Blake's eyes flared and his jaw clenched as he turned his face back to look me in the eye.
"Keep your pussies of the week away from me." I turned and left the room.
I thought my breaking point would be a little further down the line, but apparently not. I hid out in the bathroom, worrying about whether I was going to be suspended. Yet another thing that hadn't even been in the realm of possibility a week ago.
The bell rang, signaling the end of first period. I had cleaned myself up and besides the slight swell on my bottom lip and the fury in my eyes, I looked like myself again and not a deranged lunatic.
I checked my phone and had texts from not only Aiden and Ivy, but the entire lunch crew and a number I wasn't familiar with.
Unknown: Who did that to you?
Me: Who is this?
Unknown: Blake. Where are you? I convinced Mrs. Williams not to write you up.
I shoved my phone back in my bag and left the bathroom. Did he want recognition shouted from the rooftops? He knew damn well who did it to me.
I entered Psychology and sat down in my seat, pulling my notebook out and ignoring the stares and whispers that were being sent my way. Now I was going to be known as the crazy girl who smacked guys.
Hopefully no one got that on video.
The tension was just leaving my shoulders when Blake walked in and came to stand by my desk. "Outside."
I looked up at him and then at the teacher who was watching us like a hawk. Blake looked over at Mr. Bancroft and he gave Blake a nod.
"You're paying off the teachers now too? Unfuckingbelievable." I crossed my arms. "I'm not leaving this room. Go get fucked by your little bitches."
"Ms. Kline, need I remind you that you are in a classroom?" Mr. Bancroft didn't look up from his computer. "Sit down, Blake. She doesn't want to talk to you."
Blake slid into the seat in front of me, even though it wasn't his assigned spot.
The rest of the morning passed without much fanfare, but that didn't stop me from being on high alert. I gave up trying to hide and sat in the cafeteria with the only people who weren't giving me looks like I had ten heads.
Melissa and the other three girls who had cornered me in the bathroom were sitting at a table on the other side of the cafeteria away from the Tritons.
It hadn't taken Blake long to figure out who had assaulted me in the bathroom.
I should have been happy they hadn't sent them, but it didn't matter.
Their hatred toward me had extended to others now. I had a giant target on my back.
"Stop glaring at them." Aiden was picking at his food. "Maybe the principal or the police need to get involved. They did break into your house again."
I had taken pictures and videos of the sandstorm that looked like it had blown through the entire bottom floor of the house. They hadn't stepped foot upstairs from what I could tell.
"I think they did something to Mrs. Miller." I bit into a fry and inhaled sharply as the salt stung my busted lip. "And they’re paying the resource officers to ignore things. They’re probably paying the police chief."
Piper snorted. "You sound like a crazy person."
I dropped a fry and glared at her. "You try having three assholes making your life a living hell and literally have no adults paying any mind."
"You could go to social media or the news." Ivy pushed her tray away. "We could beat their asses."
I snorted. "What good is the media going to do? They won’t care about a kid being bullied.”
I did have the video where Jax practically admitted to breaking and entering, but I had listened to it twice and there was no way to edit it without it sounding manipulated.
I was on my own on this one. I just needed to be prepared for things to get ugly.