Chapter Thirty-Two
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
When the final bell rings, I’m already waiting in Hyacinth, leaning up against Hunter’s door. He looks up from his phone just in time to not run into me, his brows shooting up to his hairline.
“H-hey,” he greets. The way he jumps back like a startled cat shouldn’t make me smile the way it does, but I can’t help reveling in the feeling of having control over someone like him.
“Hey,” I reply, keeping my voice as low as I can. Last year I had a cold so rough it left my voice shot for a month. Tiffany said if the rasp stuck around, I could quit working at the diner and get a gig as a phone sex operator. I don’t have the rasp, but I can remember the timbre, the way I had to work my throat to choke anything out. I’d rolled my eyes at Tiffany, but she may’ve been onto something—Hunter’s eyes light up like a Christmas tree.
“Didn’t see you at lunch today,” he says with a smirk as he leans in closer to me, his usual confidence back.
I shrug, letting my jacket fall off my shoulder, revealing the wool sweaterdress I dug out of Solina’s closet. It’s the only thing I could find that wasn’t borrowed from Poppy or covered in patched-up holes. “I didn’t feel great this morning, so I went back to bed after breakfast.”
“Poppy mentioned you were being weird.”
I fight the urge to grit my teeth. Figures Poppy would tell Hunter about me running off this morning.
I slide my hand down Hunter’s silk royal-blue tie, tugging him until he braces an arm on the wall beside me, our lips a breath apart. “But I’m feeling much better now.”
When he smirks, his lips catch against mine for the briefest second. “Oh really?”
He doesn’t wait for a reply before closing the distance, the arm holding him up coming down under my coat to wrap around my waist. It doesn’t take long for us to go tumbling into his room, or for him to paw at my coat. I break the kiss when he tries to push off the sleeve, pulling the coat back onto my shoulder. The weight of the switchblade in my left pocket grounds me, a small comfort I won’t let him take away.
He uses the opportunity to loosen his tie, moving at breakneck speed to get me closer to the bed on the opposite end of the room.
While he trails too-rough kisses down the slope of my neck, I reexamine the bookshelf over his shoulder. The sturdy polished-wood frame houses dozens of books, family vacation photos, and medals for lacrosse and track. The trophy that once hid the camera I broke is knocked over on its side.
Right next to a watch case.
My breath hitches, which Hunter takes as positive reinforcement, his kisses getting hungrier as his hands start to tug at the hem of my dress. As much as I want to push him away and get as far from this place as I can, it’s too soon to make my move. So, I give him my best performance. Pulling him away from my neck, I close my eyes and lose myself when I kiss him as hard as I dare. Playing the part comes easier when I give up my body to his touch and let my mind float somewhere else. Imagine that his lips are softer, plumper. His hands callused and bandaged. His hair thick and full and slipping through my fingers like silk. When he breaks the kiss, I’m lost in the smell of apricots and the warmth of a girl I’d foolishly thought could be mine.
“Damn,” Hunter mumbles under his breath, breaking the spell. “You’re something else, aren’t you?”
He doesn’t know the half of it.
His voice pops the bubble I’d made to distract myself. It’s harder to give in when he kisses me again. I can’t ignore the rough scratch of his stubble against my cheek, or the way his ring digs into the curve of my jaw. All I have left of my daze is the ghost of Claudia’s hand against my chest, pushing me away. The look in her eyes when she told me we should stop.
“One second,” I choke out in between kisses. I’d originally planned on waiting a little longer, letting him get so desperate and needy that I had him right in the palm of my hand, but I overestimated myself. I can’t keep doing this. Forcing myself to lean into his touch and smile into his kiss.
As expected, Hunter doesn’t stop. Just brushes his lips along my neck again, and tugs on the collar of my dress until he can move down to my clavicle. Every press of his mouth against my skin feels like a punch to the gut.
“I forgot to take my birth control,” I blurt out, breathless and desperate for him to move off me.
My entire body exhales with relief when he does, looking at me with a quirked brow. “Uh, okay? We’ll just use a condom, then.”
The thought of Solina not using one with him is enough to make me want to hurl, but I swallow the lump in my throat and push that nauseating thought as far down as I can. “Right, but this is a super-risky time of the month, and I don’t want to take any chances.”
The concept of ovulation and menstrual cycles throws Hunter for a loop, his nose wrinkling as if I did throw up all over him. He shoves his hands into his pockets, suddenly repulsed now that I’m not a wide-open possibility. “So, what do you want to do?”
I shrug, putting on my best attempt at demure as I run a hand down his chest. “If you run back to my room and grab it from my nightstand, we can pick up where we left off.”
Hunter seems entranced by the idea until he glances over at his window, a light dusting of snow sticking to the glass. “I’ll freeze my balls off by the time I get back,” he whines, collapsing onto his bed with a huff.
Soon as he falls back, I strike, gliding over him until I’m straddling his waist. He’s immediately back at attention, physically and mentally. The hand he’d thrown over his face comes up to grip the back of my thighs, the annoyance in his forest-green eyes replaced by a hunger I’m sure makes other girls swoon.
Leaning up on his elbows, he goes in to kiss me, but I move my head out of his path just in time. His grip on me tightens, like he’s preparing to hold me down, when I lean in to his ear.
“I’ll make it worth your while,” I whisper, my lips close enough to graze his earlobe.
The promise is enough to send a shudder through him, his body shivering beneath my touch. It’s oddly intoxicating, knowing how little it takes to turn a ringleader into a puppet.
He’s up and tugging on his coat without having to be told twice. He layers up for the journey, pulling on a hat and gloves before crossing the room to place his hands on my cheeks and pull me in for a bruising kiss.
“Stay right there,” he commands, and I give him the sultry smile he’s looking for before he leaves.
The second the door clicks shut, I spring up from the bed and try to shake the lingering sense of his touch off me. According to my phone’s stopwatch, it took me fifteen minutes to speed walk here from Kincaid. But Hunter’s legs are twice as long as mine, and a horny teenage boy can easily move at the speed of light.
Once I’ve shaken off the disgust, I get to work.
The watch case is, predictably, locked. Muttering every curse I can think of under my breath, I scan the room for a place to start. The desk is unusually sparse. Nothing in the drawers except for chewed-up pen caps and untouched notebooks. A wastebasket sitting beside his bed serves as a graveyard for used vape pods. I run my hand along the edge of his mattress and the bed frame, finding a packet of white powder that I’m sure is cocaine, along with a baggie of the same pink strips he had at the bonfire. Tossing those aside, I try prodding at his pillow for any lumps, finding a ragged stuffed bear beneath it. Amusing, but not helpful.
Inside the nightstand is a mess of crumpled twenty-dollar bills, busted Rolexes, and two boxes of condoms. I wrinkle my nose and push the boxes aside to dig into the back of the drawer. A strange sound catches my attention, one that doesn’t match the scrape of the boxes and watches being shoved to the side. I reach for one of the condom boxes, bracing myself to find something gross and unhelpful. The first box is light, only two condoms left, but the second is much heavier. Heavier than it should be. Shaking the box, I hear that same rattling sound. My heart races as I empty it onto the bed, a strip of condoms unfurling and revealing a small silver key nestled between the folds.
I don’t get too ahead of myself, or dwell on Hunter’s choice of hiding spot, as I rush back to the bookcase. My knees go weak as I slot the key into the lock, hands unsteady as I turn it, and hear—
A click. And the box slides open.
If I had time, I’d let myself celebrate, but I’ve wasted enough of it searching for the key. Like Izzy said, buried underneath the velvet cushions holding the watches in place is a purple flash drive. I cradle it in the palm of my hand, examining it as if to make sure I didn’t just imagine it. Once I’m sure I’m not stuck in a daydream, I head for the desk, plugging the USB into the side of Hunter’s laptop and clicking the space bar until the screen comes to life. Thankfully, it doesn’t ask me for a password.
There’s only one folder on the flash drive, no name associated with it. Inside it are dozens of video files, all labeled with random strings of letters and numbers. I click on the first one, filmed earlier this year, and hold my breath as the video player loads agonizingly slowly.
The quality of the video is grainy at best, and thanks to the angle, it’s tough to make much out the first few seconds. The focus is mainly on Hunter’s bed, with a bit of Gabe’s side of the room in the left corner of the shot. My pulse quickens as two people come into frame.
It’s hard to make out the details when half the screen is grayish pixels, but I can tell from the hunched slope of the boy’s spine and softer edge of his jaw that he’s not Hunter. His hair is darker, his clothes not as flashy, from what little I can see. Gabe, I realize with a furrowed brow. The girl across from him is covered almost entirely by the shadows clinging to the corners of the screen, but I can tell from the look on his face that whatever they’re talking about, he’s not happy. All I can see is the side of her head, dark hair skimming her shoulders.
“I know that, Mom, and I’m working on it,” Gabe says with a groan, his voice muffled. But the voice isn’t coming from the laptop.
I hear the sound of keys jingling and move on pure gut instinct, going to yank the flash drive out of the laptop, but it won’t budge. The grainy video stays on the screen as Gabe’s voice comes closer. I slam the laptop shut, giving the flash drive one last yank. It’s too effective, sending the drive flying across the room and under Gabe’s bed.
Fuck.
I don’t let myself second-guess, just dive straight for the bed. It’s either hide or serve myself up to him on a silver platter. He’d be at the dean’s office before I could ever explain myself. My foot vanishes from view a split second before the door flies open, Gabe storming into the room with a huff.
“Yeah, I know,” he repeats, sounding more and more annoyed with each syllable, snow dripping off his drenched coat and onto the carpet. I quickly grab the flash drive from where it’s wedged between his bed frame and the wall, tucking it into my pocket and carefully sliding farther back into my hiding spot.
There’s dust tucked into every corner of Gabe’s bed. My skirt is covered in it just from the few seconds it took me to slip into my hiding spot. My nose twitches, the prickle of an oncoming sneeze. I clamp my hand around my mouth as he stomps toward his side of the room, tossing his damp coat onto the ground like it’s not worth a couple hundred bucks.
“Could you just try talking to him?” Gabe blows a raspberry, and I can hear his fingers raking through his hair, scratching against the product holding it in place.
A new voice, distant and staticky, speaks up as Gabe switches the call to speaker and crosses the room. “Sweetheart, you know I’ve already tried talking to him.”
Must be his mom, her voice as ice-cold as his.
“ How can you expect him to come around when you’re still doing the same things you were last year? ” she continues.
Gabe groans. “I’m not doing that stuff anymore, I already told you.”
“Then what’s all this about a party in the woods? Kids ending up in the emergency room?”
“That …” Gabe trails off. I can hear him suppress a scream—either against a pillow or his fist. “That wasn’t me. That was someone else.”
“And this someone else just happened to deal the same drugs to the same group of kids you dealt to?”
Gabe shifts around the room as he replies, shrugging off his clothes and tossing them into a pile at the foot of his bed. “Yeah, Mom. This shit isn’t liquid gold, they don’t need me to get their hands on some.”
His hand reaches out to grab a pair of gray sweatpants off the ground a few feet in front of me. I tighten my grip around my mouth, my heart pounding so hard I can feel it in my fingertips as he stoops down to grab the sweats. A little farther and he’ll have the perfect view of me curled beneath his bed. Without thinking, I reach into my pocket for my switchblade, prepared to strike if he gets too close.
His face comes into view, wrinkled up in annoyance, and the world starts to burn an angry shade of red. Fuck, fuck, fuck , he’s close enough to—
“Watch your mouth,” Gabe’s mom’s razor-sharp voice cuts through the silence.
“I’m sorry, I just …” Gabe stills, sighing as he straightens back up again and runs his outstretched hand through his hair instead. I don’t let myself relax just yet, but the pressure in my chest loosens. “Could you help me out again? Just for this month?”
“ For what? ” his mom snaps. “ Your father already handles your tuition, and room and board. What else could you possibly need? ”
“It’s different here, Mom. I can’t keep up with everyone else with two hundred dollars, I’ve—”
“That’s more than enough, Gabriel. Money is tight as it is, and you shouldn’t be ‘keeping up’ with anything other than your work, especially if you want any chance at this fellowship.”
“Fine.” He sucks his teeth, grabbing a different pair of sweatpants on the opposite end of the room so quickly I don’t have time to panic. “Then what am I supposed to do for college, huh? Is two hundred dollars enough to get me through four years at the Ivies? Or did you forget that I’m the one who’s had to keep myself afloat since sophomore year?”
“You do not speak to me that way. I’m your mother. ” Her voice is boiling over with a quiet, subtle rage. You can practically hear how tightly she’s gripping the phone, while her voice stays at a controlled, respectable volume. She pauses, exhaling sharply while Gabe stays frozen in the middle of the room with only one pant leg pulled on. “I’ll send you something next week, but that’s it . I don’t care what the other kids in your class are doing, or how much they have to spend. We don’t have the type of money for you to go off and blow it hanging out on the weekends anymore. Do you understand me?”
Gabe lets out a muffled sigh of relief. “Thank you, Mom. Seriously, I—”
“ Don’t ,” she interrupts. “I’m not making any more excuses for you after this. If your father winds up having to expel you, it’ll be your own fault.”
Before he can respond, she hangs up.
While I’d love to see the look on Gabe’s face after getting his ass handed to him, I don’t dare move a muscle. He was already desperate enough to try to scare me into leaving Kingswood with that note he slipped under my door. There’s no telling how far he’ll go to get rid of me.
He pulls his sweats on the rest of the way and starts to pace the room, mumbling something to himself that I can’t make out. He lets out another muffled scream before slamming his fist down on his desk. The shock of it forces a squeak out of me that’s thankfully drowned out by the sound of the bed creaking beneath him. Still, I clamp both hands around my mouth, willing my body not to pull any more surprises.
Suddenly, Gabe leaps off the bed. He storms around the room in a new type of rage, grabbing things off his desk and throwing them erratically into his messenger bag. Between the slamming drawers and crumpled papers is the sound of his phone unlocking and then ringing. With the call set to speaker, he keeps up his tirade while he waits for it to connect, crossing from one end of the room to the other as he alternates between pacing and grabbing things from random corners of the room. For a second, I start to panic that he might check under the bed next, when the call connects to a voicemail box.
“You’ve reached Claudia Bustamante. I’m not here to take your call right now. Please leave a message at the beep and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
Before I can process what’s going on, Gabe explodes.
“Enough of the bullshit excuses, Claudia!” he shouts, spittle flying from his mouth and onto the floor in front of me. “You told me this was going to be settled weeks ago, but she’s still here. Apparently she even gets to take that chem test over again. And what the hell was that all about after the bonfire? Security was on their way. I told you I had things handled, and you just decided to mess that up too? And what’s going on with the letters? I left another one yesterday, but she’s never even mentioned them to us.” He sighs, stalling in place, and I’m worried he’ll be able to hear how hard my heart is pounding, threatening to burst out of my chest.
“I’ve given you way more than enough time. Either hold up your end of the deal, or I’m sending everything on Monday.”
The threat lingers in the air before I hear the click of his phone locking again. Once the call ends, he grabs his bag and coat off the floor and leaves the room before I can let out the breath I was holding. The second the door slams behind him, my body crumples to the ground. The carpet soaks up my tears as they stream down my cheeks and across the bridge of my nose. I don’t know when I started crying, or if I even really understand what I just heard. My body knows what my mind hasn’t caught up with yet.
Claudia isn’t who I thought she was.