Chapter 47 Haven
Haven
“Wait…wait…” I press my face against the car’s window, trying to make sense of a bunch of blurred lights up ahead. The rain smearing down the glass isn’t helping. Neither is the amount of alcohol I consumed.
“Are those…is that…” I whip my head around, staring blearily at Melissa. “Hey. You. How drunk am I? No. Really. Give it t’me straight. How. Drunk?”
“You…” She points at me, stares at her finger, and spreads her fingers out so she can study her manicure. “Fuuuck. I chipped a nail.” She sways as the Uber driver angles for the curb. “Whendidi chip anail?”
“Drunk,” I insist, and then turn back to my faceprint on the window. “I think I’m very drunk.”
This is a problem.
I wasn’t supposed to get drunk.
I’m starting a new job tomorrow, for fuck’s sake.
Which is precisely why I’m drunk. Ironically…I think. I was celebrating my independence. In secret, of course. Still haven’t told anyone.
Won’t. Can’t. I’ll get in trouble with my professor.
That’s a really bad thing.
I burp and almost throw up.
Great. I’m gonna have a hangover tomorrow, aren’t I?
“Wow. Fuck. Wha’s happ’ning?” Melissa demands.
Suddenly she’s trying to climb over me to reach the fucking window.
“Dude, hey. Bound’ries.” I shove at her, miss, and slap her in the face. “Whoops.”
“Ouch.” Her eyes narrow as she tries to focus out the window. “Why’re the cops here again?” She gasps, grabs my shoulders, and twists me to look at her.
“Ow!” Pretty sure she dislocated something. “Cops? Again?”
“Did someone die? God, what if it’s Ezra? What if he died?” Her eyes are so wide, I can see all the white around her irises.
“Satan had better get the red carpet out,” I mutter, trying to untangle her fingers from my clothes. Her clothes. My clothes that were her clothes.
Holy cow, am I drunk.
“You two gonna be okay?” the Uber driver asks hesitantly.
“Oh, yeah, Eric, I’m pre’y sure—“ I begin, but then Melissa opens my door for me—from the inside—and I fall onto the sidewalk.
“Ow.”
She tumbles on top of me a second later.
“Fuck.”
Boots crunch over the wet road. Eric the Uber driver hauls us to our feet.
“Why’re you so tall?” Melissa demands as she tugs herself free.
I pull at the sleeve of her cropped pink blazer. “’S not his fault, Mel.”
We don’t make it past the foyer of the GAZ house, because the place is swarming with damp sorority sisters, campus police, and a pair of frustrated cops.
“Is this ‘cos we’re underage? They seriously call the cops around here?” I whisper, fucking incredulous.
Melissa ignores me, grabbing Hillary’s arm as she plods past. “The hell’s going on?”
Hillary turns a slack face to her. There are streaks of mascara under her eyes. “Someone broke in.”
“Broke—” Melissa cuts off when a thirty-something police officer walks over to us. “We’ve been robbed?” Her voice is going higher and higher. She grabs the officer’s sleeve. “What they take? Oh God, no! My purses!”
He opens his mouth, but she whips away and hurtles toward the staircase, only to be blocked by the second cop.
The first cop scans me and gives me a wan smile. “I’m assuming you were at the party with the rest of them?”
“Party? More like…more like a teeny little get t’gether.”
Jeez, could you slur anymore, Haven?
It wasn’t a party.
It was a rager.
Only reason we left is that the girl who’d arranged the get-together got the dates wrong, and her parents arrived unexpectedly. And angrily.
Oh so fucking angrily.
If I’m in shit, so are half the girls in this foyer. But I guess I shouldn’t bother trying to hide the fact that we’ve been drinking. Everyone’s barefoot, rumpled, frizzy, and smudged.
And the smell…
“Would you say more than a hundred students, or less?” the cop asks like he honestly thinks I’m capable of counting over ten.
Meanwhile, I’m trying so hard not to black out, it’s been over a minute since I’ve blinked.
Is this the guy Kai was talking about last week? The one that wanted info on him and Ezra? Sure sounds like it.
God, I wish I wasn’t so drunk right now.
My gaze flicks down to his name badge. “Did someone really break in, Mr Thatcher?”
Whoever made liquor that tastes like melted chocolate must be laughing in trillionaire right now.
“Deputy,” he corrects pleasantly. “You’re a member of the Gamma Alpha Zeta sorority, correct?”
“Uh…not really. It’s kinda more like a, you know,” I give him an airy wave, “long-term sleepover sorta situation.”
“Which room is yours?”
“Last on the left.”
He glances up, a gleam of interest in his brown eyes. He’s cute for a guy his age. But way too serious. And way too goody-two-shoes. Also, since when do I judge how hot older guys are?
Oh, right.
Since a certain smoking hot professor set his stalkerish sights on me.
I should tell Mr. Detective over here about Bastian. I could report his ass right here, right now.
I stiffen at the thought.
Well, maybe not right now. In my current state, it’ll end in tears. And vomit. I’m not in the mood for either.
“Last door on the left?” he repeats.
Hang on…wait just one fucking second.
Is this a narc raid? Melissa might have weed in our room.
“Me and Melissa’s,” I elaborate reluctantly.
Not to throw her under the bus or anything, but I’m not getting kicked out of college for some weed. Something tells me no matter what, I’ll end up being the ‘friend’ she’s holding it for.
“Name?”
“Parker. Mel. Issa.” I was going to point her out, but when I hear her raising her voice, insistent someone let her go upstairs to check on her purses, I decide against it.
“Your name?” Mr. Detective Thatcher helpfully clarifies.
“Oh. Ha ha. Lee. Haven Lee.” I realize I’m wringing my hands, and quickly shove them behind my back. The deputy glances up, eyes narrowing ever so slightly.
“Haven Lee,” he repeats suspiciously. “The Haven Lee?”
Why does this suddenly feel like an interrogation?
I glare at him. “Depends. Which Haven Lee you lookin’ for, exactly?”
“The one from the Rain Dance.”
“Like, half the school was there.”
He gives me a rueful smile. “I’m not accusing you of anything, Miss Lee. Just fact checking.”
I shift my weight again and force down another burp as I consider my options, nearly puking. Blerk. Chocolate booze tastes good going down, but not so good coming back up.
Oh, yeah. Options.
I got none. Everyone saw me. But years of Riversider conditioning makes admitting anything to this cop feel like I’m peeling off my skin.
“I was in fact at the Rain Dance,” I say reluctantly.
“So it was you,” he murmurs, eyes narrowing slightly. “Didn’t recognize you without your body paint. Is there any particular reason you haven’t filed an assault charge against Ezra Jordan?”
My eyes snap back to Thatcher.
Deny, deny, deny.
“What? Why?”
Thatcher’s eyes narrow.
Whoops.
“I mean, who?”
This goes way past conditioning. Riversiders have a code. Snitches get stitches. And since you only go to the hospital if you’re ringing Death’s fucking doorbell, it’s more like snitches get infections and severe scarring.
“I was informed by a—” Thatcher flips back a page or two in his notebook “—Kai Jordan that his brother assaulted you. I then verified this information with several other parties.”
Kai said that?
To a cop?
What parallel universe did I wake up in?
“Don’t know any Kai.”
Deny, deny, deny.
“Kai Jordan,” Thatcher repeats, like the booze is making me dumb.
I shake my head.
“Kai? From the NEX fraternity down the road?” Thatcher prompts.
I keep shaking my head, hoping it’ll get my brain back online so I can come up with something smart to get this guy off my back.
“Strange. Says he knows you. Said you were friends a few years back.”
So exactly which part of our history wasn’t I supposed to tell this guy, Kai? Because from the sounds of it, Thatcher bought the fucking rights to your autobiography and you’ve already got the first draft done.
Asshole.
“Oh.” I slap my forehead. “Kai!” I point at Thatcher. “Now I remember.”
He stares at me for a second and then ducks his head to write something down. “I saw the video, Miss Lee. Now, unless you’re claiming that wasn’t you…?”
God, who hasn’t seen the video?
Oh. Right. Me.
I could have. The VibeFeed account Bastian made for me has opened up a lot of doors…but why watch a replay when I can still smell the dog food and feel that collar around my throat at 2 a.m. most nights?
“Yeah…it’s, uh…it’s all coming back to me,” I mutter miserably.
“Good. So let’s circle back. Any reason you decided not to report this assault?”
Which one, Detective Nosy?
I clamp my lips closed, fighting the urge to giggle maniacally. Thatcher’s serious face is sobering me up real good, but now I’m veering off into hysteria.
“I, uh…” Can’t tell him I was too fucked up on drugs. That I decided to rather have a threesome with my professor and ex-bff than head to the police station. That so much fucked up shit has happened since, Ezra’s bullying pales in comparison.
My clothes itching after my dash through the rain. I scratch the back of my neck, wincing. Between the hangover brewing behind my eyes and the damp clothes scraping against my skin, my body feels like it’s staging a full-scale rebellion.
“Um, I need to change out of these clothes. Could I go upstairs to fetch—”
“No one’s going upstairs, Miss Lee. It’s an active crime scene up there.”
“Where’m I supposed to sleep tonight?”
He rocks back on his heels, giving me a ‘not-my-problem’ shrug and a ‘just-doing-my-job’ purse of his lips.
“Let’s go back to the night of the Rain Dance.”
“Let’s not,” I mumble.
Itchy, grumpy, fucking pissed off.
Homeless…again.
Thatcher frowns. “What?”
“What?”
Thatcher gives his head a small shake. “The dance.”
“What about it?”
Thatcher’s lips tighten, but somehow he remains calm. Which is infuriating, because I want him to blow a fuse and leave me alone. He points at me with the back of his pencil.
“Just tell me what happened at the party.”