Chapter Seven #2
It’s filled with swaying bodies and flailing limbs of girls and boys, some dressed in masks, others not.
My head reclines and I track the black painted wall across the room. Large, paneled windows open the space to the view of the inky wooded forest outside, and I notice how the ceilings sit abnormally high.
I’m thinking about how it would require some kind of crane, or machine to complete the simple task of switching out a blown light bulb when someone shouts, then laughter erupts, and I’m dropping my chin, shooting my eyes from one side of the space to the other.
The subtle harmony of spiced wood, deep forest green indoor plants and textured concrete flooring compliment the shadowy elegance perfectly, only it feels cheapened when a light machine works to bounce a sequence of blue, red, yellow and green off the expensive walls.
“One for you.” Some random guy with mousy-brown hair says, grabbing my arm and lifting it, slipping a red plastic Solo cup into my hand. “And one for you.” He does the same for Jade.
Jade and I grin mischievously at each other as he walks away singing to “Someone To Die With” by Pyrrhic.
We tap the flimsy plastic together, guiding the drinks toward our mouths when the boys intercept. Chase is snatching Jade’s away and Harlen is reefing mine right out of my sweaty palm.
“What the—” Jade protests, and Chase gives her a look that instantly clips her off.
Chase dumps the red liquid into the potted plant beside us, taking the one Harlen holds out to him and doing the same, then he spins and looks at Jade before flicking his dark eyes to mine, oscillating between the both of us.
“At these parties, you only take drinks from us.” He is flicking his thumb back and forth between himself and Harlen.
Jade crosses her arms over her chest, raises her chin. Defiance painted across her flushed face. “Oh yeah, and what happens if you’re off doing…” she stumbles over her words for a moment, deciphering what to say before settling on, “God knows what?” She throws her arms out with a huff.
Harlen steps in. “Then find a sealed bottle, J.”
A smile quirks the corner of my mouth, then I shrug. “Sounds like more fun anyway.”
I can feel Chase’s eyes burning through my temple and I choose to avoid his gaze because something in my gut tells me he has something more to say.
However, the weight of them presses away when Bryce grabs his shoulder, pulling him in for one of those guy hugs. The kind that brings them together until the front panels of their shoulders tap and a hand falls down on the other’s deltoid.
“My man!” Bryce says.
Harlen greets him the same way, and I watch Bryce’s emerald gaze flick over the boys shoulders, landing on me and Jade.
I hadn’t met Bryce before, seen him around though. His eyes are glistening, his pupils dilated, bugging out of his head. He’s high on something.
He wets his full, pillowy lips and bites into his bottom one, sliding the silver ball of his tongue ring, when Chase warns, “Don’t even think about it.”
It makes me want to punch Chase in the throat. I love to hate that he wants to have a say over who we get to know.
“They’re my sisters,” he adds.
I try not to snort at that, but there’s a stabbing pain in my stomach that only makes me angry. I am not his sister; and I never will be.
I shove past him and extend my hand toward Bryce, taking matters into my own hands.
“Laiken.” I turn over my shoulder and stare at Chase. “And I’m not his sister.”
Bryce takes my hand and laughs, asking with a tilted brow, “Ahhh, Campbell, right?”
“That’s right,” I confirm confidently, and when his eyes flick back and forth between mine, recognition tinkering in his mind, I instantly regret not following Chase’s lead.
“Given Up” by Linkin Park had started through the speakers, and I hadn’t noticed that someone had slipped up behind Bryce until I felt Chase press closer, Harlen too.
Jade taps against my side, her cool fingers crawling into my sweaty palm.
A guy's pale arm drapes around Bryce’s shoulders, a ski mask covering his face before he rips it off and shoves it into the back pocket of his light denim jeans.
Colton James presses his too-handsome face close to Bryce’s neck, a bottle of vodka tapping against Bryce’s chest.
“Her granddaddy, and daddy, liked to break girlies bones,” he coos the words out, then laughs, like what he just said isn’t harmful.
My fingers tighten around Jade’s, acid burning in my stomach. The edges of my vision are swimming, and I’m about to make a stand for myself and my father, when Chase steps forward and in seconds has Colton pinned to the wall behind us with a bone-crunching thud.
The room wraps in a sardonic “Ooooohhhhh.”
Chase’s tanned forearm presses to Colton’s slender throat, digging into his windpipe, and when Colton finds a way to laugh louder, still oblivious to the damage of his words, Chase presses harder.
The room erupts, almost everyone yelling, “fight!”
Colton has always been a piece of shit. And tonight he has proven just how filthy he really is. His light brown hair is disheveled, the longer pieces at the top hanging around his gray eyes when he shouts, “She’s a killer’s—”
Chase silences him with a fist to his jaw.
Colton’s head whips to the side, then Chase’s hands are gripping his shirt, wrenching him off the wall as Colton hangs kind of limply to the side, though trying his best to hold onto some form of fight.
“Say it again, I fucking dare you!” The tone of Chase's voice almost chills me to the bone.
It’s frightening.
I have never seen him this angry before.
The entire room has almost turned silent, waiting in anticipation to see how this is going to end.
When Colton doesn’t speak, forcing another laugh, Bryce wrenches Chase away, but not before Chase throws Colton down on the wall again, spitting at his feet.
The air is static, alive, and dangerous.
Colton rolls the back of his skull over the concrete, meeting Chase’s line of sight and there’s a warning in his silvery orbs, a surfaced kind of anger, and it makes me wonder if something else may have happened between the two of them.
Jade squeezes my hand, then my bicep with her other. Her hands are trembling, she’s nervous. “Are you okay?” she asks.
I can’t speak, so instead, I nod, reciprocate the squeeze when Bryce attempts to whisper Colton’s rage down.
Harlen stands to the side of us, unmoving. The confidence he has in Chase is chilling because he’s smiling, like he knows Chase doesn’t need him, that he can stand up for himself, and perhaps that he’d prefer it that way too.
I reach out and tap Harlen’s arm.
He turns his smile on me, then pulls me in for a swift hug. My cheek presses into his hard chest and I hold onto him, fisting his T-shirt. “Did something happen between them?” I ask. “Colton looks like he wants to kill him…”
He flicks his gaze away from the spectacle, and I follow, finding a girl with long black hair and a glittering black bunny mask pulled around her heavily eyeliner rimmed eyes.
She’s standing at the opposite side of the room with a group of her friends, a glint of excitement sparking in her hazel eyes.
I knew her name was Aria, that she was Colton’s girlfriend, and my stomach sunk before Harlen could respond.
“Her.”
That’s all he says.
I want to reply, I want to show that the truth doesn’t hurt, but I also want to take my nails to my ears and scratch them off and pretend that I never heard it.
Instead, Harlen speaks again, whispering into my ear, “But he’s not fighting for her. He’s fighting for you, Laik.”
I uncurl myself, latching back onto Jade’s extended hand, returning my gaze to Chase, watching him spit at Colton’s feet again.
He runs his forearm across his mouth before pointing his trembling finger directly at him and growling, “If you so much as breathe in her fucking direction again, I will fucking kill you!”
Ice fills me, my heart pulsing through my teeth.
Colton grins, it’s wicked and menacing. He palms away the blood gushing from his nose and says, “And if you so much as go near her again…” He pauses, and I knew now that he was talking about Aria.
However, before he finishes, he jerks his chin in mine and Jade’s direction, flicking the switch.
“I promise I’ll do more than breathe in their direction. ”
Harlen snorts, completely unfazed, then yells, “Try, motherfucker!”
Bryce steps between both boys, and I’m surprised he doesn’t get severed in half by the daggers being thrown from both directions.
He raises his voice, shouting at the top of his lungs, “Tonight is going to be interesting!” He draws the last word out.
Everyone claps and hoots, and when I meet Chase’s gaze, I see a promise burning in his dark, hollow eyes.
He’ll take my fight.
For life.