Chapter 14 Olivia #2
I knew coming here and going undercover would be a bad idea.
Everything about this screams stupid. Whenever I’m up close and personal with them, I’m going to lose it.
I know I will. I was safe at the party. Hell, even in the parking lot.
They were far away and I could view from a distance.
Whether it was a hundred feet or ten, I was still unnoticed.
But face to face? Looking into their traitorous eyes and having to pretend that it doesn’t affect me.
These tears will come when I least expect them to.
Greenwood cut me open once, and I know it’s going to carve me open completely this time, leaving nothing but a crevice of darkness behind.
As I gather myself one last time, I take a few steps into the hallway, stopping dead at the sight of the girl from the party sitting on the bench outside Dr. Moreau's office, staring down at her phone.
Ugh. Amanda. Long blonde hair. Flawless, tanned skin.
Dressed in name-brand clothes with an expensive purse.
She’s a fucking cloud of suck, staining the room with the darkness that seems to live deep inside her that gets pleasure from terrorizing everyone.
Including the past me.
“Your boyfriends aren’t here to protect you this time,” Amanda sneers, punching me straight in the gut as her two friends hold my arms back in the middle of the women’s bathroom.
Several girls come in and promptly leave after witnessing the violence with wide eyes and squeaks.
A few brave ones roll their eyes and do their business before leaving.
“They don’t have to protect me,” I wheeze, spitting at her feet.
I gave up struggling against her friend’s–Chrissy and Stacy’s–hold five minutes ago. Better to conserve my energy for something else. Like plotting her death.
“Why, because you’re going to run off and tell them what I did?
” She grins, rolling her eyes like a bitchy, plastic mean girl.
“You’re so predictable and a rat.” Chrissy and Stacy stiffen when Amanda pulls out a switchblade and waves it in my face several times.
The sunshine leaking in through the windows casts a light on the shiny, sharp metal, making my stomach drop to my feet.
Amanda is untouchable. The daughter of a prominent politician in bed with Franco. No matter what happens, Amanda won’t get in trouble for the crimes she commits. Even against me.
I snort, raising my chin. “I won’t have to tell them a damn thing.
” It’s true. I’m sure by the time I leave this bathroom, Hux, JJ, and Mack will be waiting for me.
There have been too many witnesses who have been in and out.
They’ll hear it through the grapevine eventually and come running.
Not that I want them to fight my battles for me, but it’s nice to have back up.
Especially when my attacker is wielding a sharp knife and threatening to stab me.
“Yes, you will, you rat. You’ll squeal the moment you leave here.
I should just put an end to your miserable life.
” She grins, running the blade down my arm until my flesh parts like butter.
It pools there, slowly dripping onto the ugly green tile.
“But I won’t. Not now.” With that, she shrugs, putting her knife into her pocket with a demented grin.
“Come on, girls, we’re going to miss lunch.
Have a good day, loser.” I blink several times when the girls slowly let me go and follow their leader out of the bathroom.
“Fuck,” I grumble, marching to the sink and washing the blood off my arm.
Psychotic bitch. I don’t understand why she targets me the way she does.
Doesn’t she have anything better to do with her life than make mine miserable?
Everyone at Greenwood High gives me a wide berth thanks to my three best friends and their association with the cruelest man in town.
Nathaniel Franco could take her down with the flick of his wrist. If he wanted to, that is.
She’s nearly invincible because of her father and his association with people in high places all over town, coveting high profile officials in his pocket. All the while working with Franco.
My trembling fingers work up the edge of the long scar on my arm.
Carved by a jealous high school girl who couldn’t handle the fact that my guys wanted nothing to do with her.
No matter how many times her rich daddy tried to intervene and secure her prized golden goose.
Franco never considered it. Not back then, anyway.
Seems Amanda’s daddy worked his way onto Franco’s good side.
So, this is where the mean girls go when they’ve graduated high school.
They don’t leave town to seek better opportunities.
They stay here, go to college, and probably make everyone’s lives miserable until they move on to a townhouse in the heart of the city, never leaving unless they’re on vacation.
I blink several times, coming to the realization I’ve been staring at my former bully with a twisted expression.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t go unnoticed by her like it did at the party last night.
She stares back with a vicious expression that would turn a lesser man’s stomach into knots. Good thing I’m not a man.
Her nose scrunches up when she stands from the bench, tossing her bright blonde locks over her shoulder and putting her phone in her purse. “You’ve got a staring problem, asshole.” She says it so easily like a melody on the damn breeze. Or a record scratching.
I clear my throat, lowering my arms to my sides. “Not really.” I shrug, turning on my heels and giving her my back with the intention of getting the hell out of dodge.
To her, I’m a man standing in the hallway staring at her weirdly.
But to me, I’m still that helpless little girl subjected to her bullying tactics and refusing to tell my best friends about it.
I didn’t need them interfering. It made me look weaker than I was.
Besides, they only made the bullying worse.
Even if they knew what was happening. That day, they were waiting for me outside the bathroom with grim expressions.
They didn’t force me to tell them who it was.
Because they knew. They always did. So color me surprised to find out that she and Hux are engaged.
What does it matter, anyway? They killed me.
She bullied me. They’re a match made in hell.
“No, I think you do,” she sneers, her heels pounding against the beautiful marble floors and getting closer to me.
Her tiny fingers dig into my shoulder, stopping my retreat until I’m turning and facing her.
Well, looking down at her. Being a girl who is over five-foot-ten has its advantages sometimes.
Like now, when I’m pretending to be a man.
Or staring down the girl who made my life miserable.
Damn, she’s stronger than she looks.
I glare down at her, raising a brow. “I don’t.” I shrug with indifference. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it's not to give in to your bullies and simply leave them with indifference. It pisses them off.
Her nose scrunches further. “You do! You were staring at me!” she hisses, poking me in the chest aggressively.
Yeah, I was trying to figure out what I was looking at.
It’s what I want to say, but I bite my tongue.
Nothing good would come out of me mouthing off to her.
It would only put a target on my back, and I don’t need one of those.
In fact, I need to get into her good graces.
But if she keeps poking me with her fingers, I might snap.
Without thinking, I grab her fingers and hold them mid-air.
I don’t twist them or squeeze with all my might, but I do make a silent threat with my steady grip.
“I didn’t give you permission to touch me.
” My gaze flicks between her fingers and her open jaw.
“I don’t have an issue with you. It’s you who is making this an issue.
” My voice drops so low, it’s so unlike myself.
“Now, don’t fucking touch me again.” I level her with my best glare, leaning in close so she gets the message.
“Let go of me!” She shouts loudly enough that her voice echoes off the damn walls. Her left hand, shiny with a pretty engagement ring, pulls at my fingers to release her. “Let go of me, you pervert!” She shrieks again with urgency, her breaths frantically heaving in her chest.
I’d believe her panic if there wasn’t an evil shadow lurking in the backs of her eyes whenever her gaze flicks over me.
“She said to let the fuck go of her.”
Everything inside me freezes. Ice flows through my veins at the sound of his deep voice reverberating from behind me.
A voice that hasn’t graced my presence in five years.
A voice that haunts me every fucking day.
Fuck. My fingers lose their grip, and Amanda stumbles backward, whining about her wrist and the pain it’s bringing her. Yeah, fucking right.
But nothing compares to the vise around my heart, relentlessly squeezing it.
I knew coming face to face with one of them so closely was going to be a challenge.
Seeing them from a distance in the car was off-putting.
Being in the same vicinity as them at the house party was earth-shattering.
Even when I saw his lookalike so many years ago, sitting in the restaurant in East Point, California.
Right before I enrolled in their prep school as Espie, the new student.
I froze in the stranger’s presence then.
It was like looking at the man I had fallen in love with.
Tattoos on every inch of him. The same moss-green eyes reflecting back at me.
I couldn’t take my eyes off him. Not until I realized it couldn’t have been him.
Not in this lifetime. Not in East Point.