Chapter 2 #3
“Oh.” The memories came rushing back, and with them, a wave of clarity. I didn’t know this guy. And based on where I’d met him, I didn’t want to.
“Is he okay?” Austin asked. He looked like he meant it.
“Yeah…” I said slowly. “No. I mean… yeah, he’s fine. But no, we’re not doing this. Like I said, I don’t know you.” He opened his mouth to answer, but someone else beat him to it.
“Blair?” I turned. Lucas stood in front of me. Alone. It took a second for my brain to register that he wasn’t just passing by. His face was tight, like he’d been looking for me for a while.
“Where’s Cherry?” I asked, skipping pleasantries.
“Yeah,” he said, voice tight. “That’s why I came to find you. She’s upstairs. We went up to, uh, you know… talk.” Yeah, right. “But she’s like… really drunk,” he added. “I didn’t know what to do.”
“What?” I asked, looking to Austin, whose face was now lined with concern. “I just saw her and she was fine.”
“Hey,” Lucas raised his hands. “I’m just telling you what I know. And what I know is, Cherry’s upstairs out of her mind. She can’t even walk.”
“Fuck,” I muttered, ditching my drink on the counter and walking away without another word. I elbowed through the crowd and took the stairs two at a time. My heart was racing. Cherry was a lightweight, sure, but this didn’t sound like her usual tipsy spell.
The first door upstairs—empty. The second, also empty. The third, Cherry. She was sprawled across the bed. Her body limp except for her head, which slowly rolled side to side against the sheets like she was trying to shake something loose.
“Cherry,” I whispered, rushing to her side. I sat on the bed, rubbing her back. Something felt wrong. “Hey,” I tried to lift her. She didn’t budge.
Then I saw him. Austin. He wasn’t looking at me, he was staring across the room, at someone else. Brandon.
Austin stepped forward, voice low and dangerous. “You have three seconds to answer before I kill you,” he said. Brandon looked frozen. Guilty. Austin’s next words made my stomach drop. “What the fuck did you put in that drink?”
In a single second after the words left Austin’s mouth, he had already crossed the room.
He stood in front of Brandon, who had instinctively backed up against the wall.
Brandon’s face showed the terror I was sure he felt…
and I wasn’t sure if it was because he knew Austin was seconds from punching him, or because he really hadn’t done what Austin was accusing him of.
“Wait,” I called, though my hand stayed on Cherry’s head. She was still gently moving, and that was the only thing keeping me from panicking completely. “What do you mean? Was the drink really strong? What kind of alcohol does this so quickly?”
Neither of the boys turned toward me, though I heard Austin sigh. A sound that dripped with disappointment. Like what I said was almost… pitiful.
“No, Yellow,” Austin said. He still didn’t look at me. I could have rolled my eyes at him calling me that stupid color again, but I couldn’t think about that right now.
“This,” he said, pausing as he took another step toward Brandon.
Brandon’s face paled as he stared back. “This son of a bitch slipped something a lot harder than alcohol in that drink.” Brandon didn’t say a word to defend himself.
He only shook his head rapidly, side to side.
“Tell me I’m wrong,” Austin’s voice dropped dangerously low.
It made my skin crawl, and I wasn’t even the one he was talking to. “Tell me I’m fucking wrong then!”
Austin’s hand flew through the air, and I flinched, thinking he was going to punch Brandon in the face, but it hit the wall beside him instead. The sound was loud enough to make anyone jump.
“A lot harder?” I echoed, the words finally sinking in. My brain caught up a second too late, my heart beginning to slam against my ribs. “Oh my god… he drugged her?”
I turned back to Cherry, trying again to lift her into a sitting position. It was useless. Her body was limp, like she had no control over her muscles. Panic spun through me like a blade. My thoughts were spiraling. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t breathe.
“Tell me what you put in the drink,” Austin’s voice boomed again. That same menacing tone. “Tell me, you piece of shit.”
“I didn’t,” Brandon stammered, his voice the opposite of Austin’s, it was weak and shaky.
“I didn’t, dude, you know… you know how these chicks get.
Cherry gets drunk like this all the time.
” He tried to peek around Austin’s body to look at me.
“She gets like this all the time, right? She’s a drunk. Tell him, Blair.”
My mouth curled into a scowl. A wave of disgust rolled through me. Brandon didn’t get to look at me for long.
“Don’t fucking look at her,” Austin spat, stepping in between us. “Don’t you dare look at her. I’m not going to ask again,” Austin told him. “Tell me what you put in the drink, or I will kill you right now.”
I froze where I was, my hand still in Cherry’s hair. Kill him. That wasn’t even the most shocking part. The shocking part was that he sounded like he meant it.
Brandon’s lip began to move, and I knew he thought the same thing. “It was just one roofie, man,” he muttered. “It was just one roofie, that’s all.”
Silence fell. No one moved. No one spoke.
Only the dull thump of bass from the party downstairs kept the room from being completely still.
Brandon’s words hung in the air like poison.
They clung to everything. They got under the skin.
Then, like lightning splitting a calm night sky, sudden and brutal, Austin’s fist flew.
The sound of it hitting Brandon’s face was the thunder.
“Oh my god,” I muttered, averting my eyes for a split second. But, like watching a car crash, my eyes found their way back.
Brandon had slammed against the wall, his head turning with the force of the hit. Blood was already pouring from his nose. His eyes squeezed shut in pain. I didn’t feel bad for him. Not even a little bit.
“What were you planning on doing?” Austin shouted, grabbing Brandon’s collar and yanking him forward. “You were in the room with her. What were you planning on doing to her?”
His voice was loud enough to carry through the floorboards. I was sure people downstairs could hear it. And as if to confirm that, the door burst open. A familiar guy stood in the doorway, his eyes wide as he looked around the room, the one who Austin had been with at the drug house last weekend.
“Austin,” he said, moving fast toward him. “What’s going on? Looks like you got one in. Step away, man. You don’t need the cops after you.”
Austin glanced at him, unbothered, then turned right back to Brandon. “He roofied this girl,” he said, jerking his chin in our direction. “We found her in the room with him.”
The guy’s face dropped as he took in the scene, casting a glance at Cherry in my lap before stepping back. “Carry on.”
Austin’s fist flew again, landing hard on Brandon’s jaw.
Brandon had nowhere to fall now. Austin still had him by the collar, keeping him in range.
I looked away just as Austin wound back again.
My stomach twisted as I turned back to Cherry.
She had stopped moving. The fear that had been building in my gut broke loose, spilling into my chest.
“Cherry,” I whispered. I didn’t expect her to respond. “Cherry,” I said again. Still nothing.
I leaned down until my cheek hovered in front of her mouth.
When I felt her breath against my skin, a tiny drop of relief slid down my throat.
I pressed my fingers to her wrist, the way I’d done with Holden so many times.
With every faint thump under her skin, I reminded myself to breathe.
I brushed the hair from her face and lifted her head gently into my lap.
“That’s enough, Austin,” the other guy shouted. I looked back. Brandon was on the ground now. He was trying to hold Austin back, pulling at him from behind while Austin resisted, still trying to throw him off.
“Stop, Levi!” Austin yelled. His voice cracked, not with weakness, but something else. Rage, yes—but something deeper came with it. “You know I don’t fuck with rapists. You know I can’t let him walk away. You know, Levi. You know what he was going to do to her. Piece of fucking shit.”
Pain. That was the other emotion in his voice.
I turned back to Cherry, trying to find clarity through the chaos.
Austin’s word echoed through my mind. Rapist. The word pierced through me like a blade, twisting in my gut.
Had Cherry almost been raped? I couldn’t accept that.
I didn’t want to. I wanted to push the thought away, shove it down into a place I’d never have to revisit.
I tried to breathe. But then I felt it, her heartbeat had slowed.
Maybe someone else wouldn’t have noticed.
But I knew how to count seconds between beats.
I had done it more times than I could remember.
“Austin?” I called his name, my voice shaking.
The room went quiet. “Austin?” I said again, not taking my eyes off Cherry.
Her pulse was everything now. It was the only thing I could feel.
I heard his footsteps. I looked up when I felt him kneel beside me.
The fury was mostly gone from his face now.
The pain, though, was still there. Carved into him.
“How’s she doing, Yellow?” Austin asked, his voice gentle.
“Her heartbeat is slow,” I whispered. “It’s slowing down.”
“It’s okay,” Austin said, and the calm in his voice was contagious.
My panic didn’t vanish, but it loosened its grip.
He placed his hand over mine, gently moving my fingers off Cherry’s wrist and replacing them with his own.
His eyes stayed focused. I could see him counting, just like I had.
He looked over to Levi and gave a short nod. Then he turned back to me.
“It’s okay, Yellow. She’s fine. She just needs to sleep it off.”