Chapter 21
Oh my god.
I’m afraid to move. I don’t want to open my eyes. I don’t even want to turn my head from one side to the other on my pillow.
I’m pretty sure I got run over by a truck at some point.
There’s no other explanation I can come up with for how absolutely awful I feel.
I should go back to sleep—I must have picked up something, a bug, maybe.
That would explain why it feels like I’m dying right now.
Even trying to roll over in bed makes my stomach churn, and my head threatens to explode.
What the hell happened last night? I feel like something did, something I should remember, but I can’t come up with anything. Not that I’m trying too hard to think. Concentrating is too much work. Everything is too much work. Maybe I really am sick. Or maybe there was something wrong with my food.
Shit. My food.
Now I understand everything, and it doesn’t do much to make me feel better. No, I feel even worse because I realize now that I was unconscious during a party full of football players.
And my stepbrothers, who I highly doubt would stop anybody from doing anything awful to me.
With my eyes closed, I run a hand over myself under the blanket.
I’m fully dressed, thank god. It doesn’t mean they couldn’t have put my clothes back on me, but it does seem like a lot of trouble.
And besides, I’m starting to understand how these two think.
They’d much rather I wake up naked, asking a hundred questions, ready to die of shame.
What was it they were saying to me before I passed out?
How they wanted to keep me out of the way?
I think that’s what Colt said—and maybe that’s all it was.
They wanted me drugged, unconscious, unable to ruin their good time or to tell anybody else about it after the fact, which is probably more along the lines of what they were actually concerned about.
I doubt they’re allowed to have parties here when their father is out of town.
Maybe he told them not to. They probably figured I would rat them out.
As if I get a flying fuck about what they do as long as it doens’t involve me.
Fuck. What if this did involve me?
Before I know it, my mind is conjuring up the worst possible scenario.
Did Colt and Nix do something else to me?
Or did they let their friends do something to me?
Like I wasn’t already nauseous enough just from being conscious.
Maybe they only like recording terrible things they do to people, not the things they let their friends do.
I can hope, anyway. If there’s a video out there somewhere of me having stuff done to me while I’m unconscious, I don’t think I could live through it. I really don’t.
But everything feels okay down there, too. I’m not sore the way I was the day after Colt took advantage of me.
The rest of me seems to be in good shape. Aside from my head feeling like it will fall off and roll across the floor if I try to get up, plus my shaky stomach. But the rest of me seems fine. I should probably try to go back to sleep.
I might be able to if it wasn’t for the nagging sense that I’m forgetting something, overlooking something. I can’t imagine what it could be.
Whatever it is, it’s enough to keep me from settling back into sleep.
Instead, I pry one eye open just far enough to find a bottle of ibuprofen and a glass of water on my nightstand.
It looks like one of them felt guilty enough that they left me something to help me get through the worst of it.
I reach out and struggle my way through opening the bottle with my eyes closed, then shake out a couple of tablets before washing them down with the tiniest bit of water.
I don’t trust my stomach enough to drink more than that.
Why do they have to be such assholes? Why do they have to do this to me?
I wouldn’t have bothered them. I wouldn’t have stepped foot out of this room—and considering there were a bunch of football players downstairs, I would have wedged my chair under the doorknob, and that would have been it.
I don’t know where they got this idea about me that I’m always looking for ways to ruin their lives.
All they’ve done so far is ruin mine every chance they get.
It isn’t until I roll onto my back after struggling through the simple act of taking painkillers that I feel something strange.
Something that shouldn’t be there. A stinging sensation like a bug bite or something under my clothes.
My lower back—no, closer to my butt cheek.
What the hell? Every time I try to move, it only feels more irritating.
I guess I shouldn’t go back to sleep until I figure out what it is.
I’d probably be more comfortable in actual pajamas, too, not the jeans I slept in all night.
It means prying my eyes open again and being assaulted by sunlight.
“Good morning, sunshine.”
I almost jump straight up out of bed at the sound of Nix’s voice. “I thought you would never wake up.”
I slowly raise myself into a sitting position, eyeing him warily. He’s sitting in my desk chair, legs spread wide, hands folded over his stomach. “What did you do to me?” I whisper.
“You don’t remember? I guess it sort of wiped out your memory a little bit, huh?” Oh, he is so smug, so proud of himself. This is all a big joke to him. I don’t have it in me to scream the way I want or call him half the names running through my pounding head.
“What did you give me?”
“A mild sedative. No big deal. But like I said last night, I didn’t think you’d eat the whole damn meal. I guess that’s why you hit the ground so fast.”
“How fucked up do you have to be to think that’s an acceptable thing to do to somebody?”
“Hey, no harm done. You’ll feel better in a few hours, and I bet you got a good night’s sleep.”
“Go to hell.”
“Whatever you say.” He stands, grabbing something off my desk I’ve never seen before and tossing it onto the bed. “Anyway, before I go to hell the way you think I should, I figured I would give you this. You want to take care of that—keep it clean so it doesn’t get infected. And use this on it.”
I can barely even focus my eyes, much less read what’s on the bottle he dropped on the bed. “What are you talking about?” Even saying those few words is enough to exhaust me. He needs to leave the room so I can lie back down. I don’t trust him enough to do it now, but he’s still standing here.
“It’s lotion. For aftercare.”
“Aftercare for what, though?”
He tilts his head to the side, smirking. “You mean you really don’t remember? I thought for sure. Don’t you feel it?”
Dread begins tickling the back of my mind, spreading its way through my brain. “Remember what? Feel what?”
“The tattoo you wanted. You asked for it and everything.”
“Just stop fucking with me, please? That’s all I want.”
“You think I’m fucking with you? You’ll feel differently once you look in the mirror. It’s pretty nice work, actually. I’m almost jealous.”
A tattoo? No way would I ever ask for a tattoo—and I wasn’t even conscious. He’s just trying to scare me. I’m not going to make it that easy.
On the other hand… Wasn’t that the whole reason I was going to get up in the first place? The feeling that something was wrong, something I needed to check out?
I forget about the way my head feels, tumbling out of bed and stumbling toward the bathroom. No way. They wouldn’t do this to me. I go in and close the door, then lower my jeans and turn around.
Tears spring to my eyes at the sight of it.
A small heart over my left butt cheek, low enough that it’s hidden by my clothes but most definitely there.
I squint my eyes and move closer to the mirror.
Even though it’s backward, the word is clear.
Alistair. They had their last name tattooed on my ass.
Frantic, I rub at it, but it only hurts, and the ink doesn’t move.
It’s a real tattoo, not something they drew on in pen to mess with me.
A helpless, hopeless little whimper works its way from my throat.
I can’t believe this. Just when I think I’ve seen it all from them, they go and remind me how much worse things could be.
“You asshole.” I fling the bathroom door open, buttoning my jeans, prepared to give him hell. But he’s already gone—and, big surprise, he locked the door. I pound my fist against it as loud as my poor head will let me, but there’s no sound from the other side. Not even laughter.
Fuck this. I am sick to death of the way they’re treating me. I have a little money in the bank now—I need to go somewhere, anywhere. It’ll mean digging into my savings, but that’s still better than being stuck here with them, afraid to leave my room even when they decide to unlock the door.
A plan is already forming in my head by the time I sit down to put on my sneakers.
I can’t get out through the door? Fine. The window will do.
I didn’t spend all those years training to not be able to climb out a window and make it to the ground safely.
Sure, I’m on the second floor, but a downspout runs alongside one of the windows, and I can shimmy down.