Chapter 53 – Clover
Chapter Fifty-Three
Clover
TWO WEEKS AFTER KOLA’S RETURN TO CAMPUS
It’s December, and bitterly cold despite the fact there isn’t a single inch of snow on the ground.
I have never missed California weather more.
Kola spent days in captivity, never seeing the face of her captor, raped repeatedly.
She doesn’t know if there was more than one person.
She can’t remember anything except the pain.
She’s had one surgery down there to help with everything and she’s supposed to have another over the holidays.
Despite that, Kola refuses to quit dancing.
I worry about her, but the school finally caved and agreed to pay for her parents’ flights out of the multi-billion dollar endowment.
Kola’s parents are coming up to campus to meet with the dean, see their daughter and receive assurances that a situation like this can’t possibly happen on their campus.
We don’t know when exactly they’re coming, but Kola claims she doesn’t want to see them and they’ll only make things worse.
I can’t blame her for that either. The school administrators will be quick to point out that she wasn’t on campus at all when this happened. Ugh.
I’m terrified my parents might be on their way up here too. My mom is exactly the type to plan a sneak attack, especially since her advanced social media stalking led to her discovering our dance performance tomorrow night. Ugh.
It’s not going to be the same. Kola, Sylvia and I are still dancing, but we’re all so worried about Kola’s injuries. She insists that she doesn’t want to end her life because of what happened, but it’s not her emotions I worry about. I don’t want her getting hurt again.
We haven’t heard anything from Spicy Freak and the police are super involved, but that doesn’t make the last few weeks of the semester any less horrifying.
We’re having an emergency friend meeting to cope with everything soon.
Thomas has been acting all weird — even weirder than normal for Thomas, and I can’t help but think he regrets getting so romantic with me in front of Sylvia.
Thomas comes to my room to walk me to the meeting, but he brings an unfortunate companion, who shoves my bedroom door open and saunters into my room wearing white shorts and a pink polo shirt.
“Threesome time, Clover! Take off your knickers.”
I grab my cricket bat and Kit shrieks as I lay into him and Thomas enters the room quietly behind him and shuts the door.
“I’ll let you kill him if you want.”
“STOP BEATING ME!” Kit wails like a baby walrus.
I smack him a couple more times.
“Stop making horrible jokes!”
I toss my cricket bat aside and Kit cowers behind Thomas, scared as hell. That cricket bat has taken me so many places… I grin and put my hands on my hips.
“Um, Thomas, why are you bringing Kit into my bedroom?”
“We’re your personal escort to the meeting.”
“How is Kit relevant?”
Kit gasps in mock distress and falls against my door. I swear he deserves a good kick in the nuts.
“I am indeed relevant,” Kit says, exaggerating his posh accent. “I’ve officially been blackmailed too.”
Thomas elbows Kit and rolls his eyes. “Unfortunately, he’s not lying. I found out this morning.”
“First thing I did was tell my mate Thomas. To my surprise, he’s an expert in blackmail.”
“I’m not an expert and can you stop acting like a cunt? Clover already hates you.”
“I have good reason to. Thomas, seriously?”
“Sorry… Can we go?”
“Not until Kit apologizes to me for being a dick.”
Kit waves his hands and bows dramatically. “Sorry for being a dick and a cunt, and everything else in between. If it makes you feel better, it’s my personality.”
“That does not in fact make me feel better.”
“Clover? Care to leave before your desire to kill him grows even more?” Thomas suggests.
“Yes. Please.”
Kit unfortunately links arms with me and Thomas walks behind us. I pull my arm away from Kit and snap, “Touch me and I’ll cut your dick off.”
“I just wanted to show you my threatening email. Sheesh.”
I roll my eyes and fold my arms angrily as we stomp to our special meeting spot — the dance studio.
Most of the sports teams either have championship games, or they’re finished for the semester.
We’re the only team left and since nothing this exciting happens at this school, everyone is all over it.
Kit and Thomas flank me on either side and it really does feel like having two badass but very annoying bodyguards.
“Please tell me you warned Sylvia and Kola about this,” I grumble to Thomas.
“When would I have had time for that? You’ll handle it,” he says cheerily.
Everything Thomas says makes me want to punch him in the stomach sometimes.
He thinks I’m stubborn, but he’s definitely ten times worse.
We arrive at the dance studio and Thomas does the secret knock before shoving Kit in through the door.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Sylvia snaps, immediately getting between him and Kit. When she sees Thomas entering behind him, she flings her English reading at his head. Thomas ducks and then I get a face full of Sylvia’s balled up printed assignment.
“Clover! That was not meant for you.”
“It’s fine…” I grumble. “I would have done the same. Spicy Freak apparently emailed Kit.”
“How can there be more than one person with such a hard-on for Thomas?” Kola says, jumping off the back window. She hardly takes that hoodie off anymore. It’s black and oversized and covers her up completely. She doesn’t look like Kola and she doesn’t have Kola’s excited dancing anymore.
“I have a hard-on for Thomas,” Kit says instantly. “Want to see it, babe?”
Thomas elbows Kit hard.
“What?” Kit snaps. “She’s not broken. I’m just saying I’m attracted to her.”
“You can keep that to yourself next time,” Kola snaps. “And he’s right, Thomas. I can handle myself with a shrimp dick like Kit.”
“I’m a grower, not a show-er.”
“You’re disgusting,” Sylvia says. “Now can we focus? We need to be smart about this. We have all these emails, we know the police are out looking, but we can do some work too. We don’t have to sit around and wait for them to attack us.”
“I want to see Kit’s email,” Kola says. “Every guy is guilty until proven innocent.”
She sticks her hand out, practically demanding Kit’s phone.
Kit’s the type of guy that would clearly rather die than give up access to his precious cell phone, but he hands it right over to Kola and he doesn’t stop looking at her.
Kit needs to chill. The last thing Kola needs is some obnoxious ass guy sniffing around her. He’s way too thirsty.
Kola reads the email and quickly passes the phone to Sylvia. “I’m going to be sick.”
We all take turns reading it. We all remember what horrible things happened to Kola and what horrible things could happen to all of us if Molly’s accomplice is above the law.
“We don’t even know what’s going to happen to Molly,” Sylvia says.
“Didn’t you all hear the news?” Kits asks.
“What news?” Kola snaps. In his pink polo and white shorts, Kit’s asking to be at the receiving end of Kola’s anti-white boy rage. His attitude does him no favors.
“Molly’s dead. She killed herself. The story went to our school emails an hour ago.”
“Excuse me if I’m sick of checking my damn email,” Sylvia snaps.
“She killed herself?” I repeat. I don’t believe it. Why would she kill herself? Molly couldn’t have raped Kola and since she was held prisoner, she might not even get picked up as an accomplice. She would have essentially been free to go after a couple of months in a mental health facility.
Suicide didn’t seem like her.
“If that’s what the story says,” Thomas says, “It must be true.”
“What paper published this?” Sylvia asks.
Thomas seems utterly disinterested, barely raising his eyebrows when Kit responds.
“The BBC.”
“So it’s true then,” Kola whispers. “Molly killed herself.”
* * *