Chapter 29
Twenty-Nine
Jade
Most Saturday nights, I was working, studying, or stealing.
But on this particular night, I was standing in the middle of the crowded frat house, looking at the sign Cassie and I had painted earlier that read: Welcome to the Meat Market .
It was supposed to piss off Rogue. Turned out, he didn’t care, and neither did the squealing girls in the corner of the room, ready to be said meat.
They were all wearing Rogue’s auction T-shirts—if they could even be referred to as T-shirts.
There was underboob everywhere. Sure, the Roller Burger uniform was bad, but at least I got paid to wear it.
My attention homed in on one particularly busty blonde. Megan.
Of course she’d happily sell herself off like hamburger meat close to expiring. She glared across the room at me, or more specifically, at Wolf’s arm wrapped around me. I glared right back, hoping she knew exactly who gave her car its new paint job. Slash my damn tires…
Wolf pressed his lips to my temple, and a familiar sense of warmth rushed through me.
If I had to endure this shit, and her , then at least I had him.
The whole auction thing was also made far more bearable, knowing that somewhere in this packed house, were women ready to take a steaming shit on this misogynistic bullshit.
The music cut off when Bellamy stepped onto a chair. “Welcome to Omega Dicksolon’s Charity Auction.”
“Save the jackass penguins!” Petey shouted.
“That’s right,” Bellamy said, pointing at his frat brother. “Bless the little bastards. And bless the lovely ladies volunteering their time to save the flightless birds.” Bellamy waved a hand over the first string of half-naked girls lined up to the side of the room.
“I think lovely might be an overstatement,” Drew mumbled beside me as the room erupted in cheers.
“Don’t be jealous, cuz.” Rogue nudged her. “You could always get a boob job.”
His laughter was cut off when Drew whacked him on the back of the head. “My boobs are not small, you rat-faced little pervert.”
I laughed into my beer, delighted that someone had physically assaulted Rogue the way I’d dreamed of for the past three weeks.
The two of them bickered while the auction continued in the background. Bellamy was listing all the merits of an overly peppy finance student when something smacked the side of his face. His palm went to his cheek, wiping what looked like blood from it, before a look of horror fell over his face.
“What the hell is that?” Wolf said, but before I could answer, all hell broke loose.
A group of women emerged from the crowd and hurled tampons through the air, all landing with a splat. Girls screamed, and the guys ran away like they were tossing live grenades, rather than bloody tampons. Assumably fake blood or pig’s blood, at the very least. I hoped.
“Hey, ho! Misogyny has to go!” the feminists we’d enlisted chanted.
Most of them separated from the main group of girls in their auction T-shirts.
One girl took off her shirt and shouted “free the nipple,” while another smeared the front of her frat shirt with “blood.” The rest of the auctionees scattered, leaving only Cassie standing amongst the carnage, a shit-eating grin on her face.
Rogue shouted something unintelligible before he shoved his way through the crowd, with Petey following.
“Jesus…” Wolf sighed, unwrapping his arm from me before he went to help wrangle the feminists out of the frat house.
“And to think, I thought this would be nothing but a bunch of slutty sorority girls embarrassing themselves,” Drew said, a grin covering her face.
“Aren’t you in a sorority?” She looked the part. Perfect hair, expensive clothes—I couldn’t work out why the hell she was at State.
“Might as well take advantage of my face fitting.” She shrugged. “Cheap room with a private bathroom that I don’t have to share…”
I could probably tolerate it for that. “Fair.” That was a lie. I’d last five minutes in a sorority.
“I’m really hoping that’s not another girl’s actual period blood on Bellamy’s face.”
“As opposed to your own period blood on your boyfriend’s face?”
She screwed up her nose. “Less gross than someone else’s.”
Cassie cut through the crowd and hopped to a stop in front of us. “This was so much better than I expected. I’m gonna go make popcorn to watch Rogue getting his ass handed to him by a hippy with hairier armpits than him.”
Drew watched her prance into the kitchen, then looked at me. “You two did this?”
“We just spread the word about the auction. We’re all about helping the penguins.” I faked a smile and did a little peace sign.
She burst out laughing. “I told Rogue he was an idiot for auctioning Cassie. How he ever thinks he has the upper hand with her…” She shook her head. “Idiot.”
“I think it’s like some weird foreplay for them?—”
“Nope.” She gagged. “That’s disgusting.”
A few feet in front of us, one of the sorority girls shouted at a feminist, shoving her back a step.
“Duty calls. Got to pay for that cheap room.” She headed straight into the fray to help her sorority sister.
I, on the other hand, didn’t know what the hell to do.
Obviously, I wanted to help the feminists, but I also needed plausible deniability, lest Rogue turn me in.
I liked to think Wolf wouldn’t let him, but Rogue seemed a law unto himself, and I got the impression he wasn’t used to being told no.
I didn’t want to make life hard for Wolf.
Before I could make a decision, a sharp nail jabbed my shoulder.
I turned away from the commotion to find Megan, arms crossed over her massive chest, her red lips set in a bitchy frown.
“I thought I told you to leave him alone?”
Seriously. Did she want to sew a name label on him like we were in kindergarten? The girl was mentally unstable.
“Or what, you’re going to slash me?”
In my hometown, if someone said they’d cut you, they were bringing a razor blade to school. There was a reason we’d had metal detectors. I had no doubt Megan was psycho, but she sure as hell was not Dayton psycho.
She gave me a nasty once-over. “You know he only dated you before because you were his high school girlfriend, and he didn’t want to be an asshole.
But the truth is, there are just so many better options here than in your backwoods town.
You’re just his convenient little frat sister. For now, at least.”
A knot of betrayal sank in my stomach at the thought that Wolf had told her about the little sister thing. She must have noticed because a sly smile pulled at her overly glossed lips.
“Yeah, he told me. You’re so desperate, it’s pathetic. Pining after a guy who’s completely out of your league.”
The words burrowed beneath my skin like a flesh-eating parasite.
Gritting my teeth, I channeled the hurt into anger.
Anger at her for saying it, at myself for believing it, for not having enough self-worth to just brush them off.
I took a step toward her. “I don’t think you can call anyone desperate when you’re dressed like such a whore . ”
Her eye twitched, and I forced a smile over my face. I would never let her see my hurt.
“Did you like the new paint job on your car? I think it suits you.” I picked up the end of her blond extension, then dropped it. “Trashy. Attention seeking..”
I wasn’t fighting for Wolf. I was fighting for myself. I didn’t need to fight for him. If he actually wanted her, then she could have him. The thought that he might flickered in the back of my mind, but I squashed it and shouldered past her.
As soon as I crossed the kitchen threshold, someone grabbed my hair. A sharp pain tore across my scalp when my head was yanked back. Megan shoved me against the door frame, looming over me with an insane expression on her makeup-caked face.
Right as I balled my fist, popcorn rained down over Megan’s head.
“You wanna pull hair, Megan!” Cassie shouted, her inner crazy clearly bubbling to the surface. “I’ll pull your cheap extensions out all day long.” Cassie grabbed Megan, spun her around, and slapped the absolute shit out of her.
Megan clasped her reddening cheek. “You bitch!”
Cassie cackled before Megan let out a screech and threw herself at Cass.
Within a matter of seconds, shirts had been torn, extensions ripped out. Cassie took off her high heel and chucked it at Megan’s face, leaving a mark on her forehead. Then Megan tackled her to the floor.
I grabbed Megan’s shirt to pull her away. “Let her go, you nut job!”
She lashed out, her nails clawing my cheek. I didn’t know if anyone had even noticed this fight, thanks to the tampon-wielding women giving the guys a run for their money. “Help! Anyone?”
Jesus, Megan was stronger than her scrawny ass looked.
“What the actual fuck?” Wolf’s voice rose above the screams, right before one of his tattooed arms wrapped around Megan’s waist, hauling her off like she was nothing more than a flea-riddled stray.
I knew he was just breaking it up, but the sight of him touching her, looking like he was saving her, fed that little seed of insecurity her words had planted. He dragged her outside, hopefully kicking her the hell out.
I didn’t have time to dwell on it as the blue and red flash of police sirens bounced through the windows. Most of the partygoers scattered. Rogue barked at Cassie and me to go upstairs while he handled it.
A few minutes later, the front door banged close. I’d expected Wolf to come upstairs, but when he didn’t, I went downstairs to check on him.