Chapter Thirty-Two #2
“May I cut in?” Axel asks, and just like that, I’m handed off to my stepbrother without missing a beat.
It makes me sad, and I don’t like it because as we move, I’m transported back in time when we were ten and forced to take ballroom dancing lessons.
Back when I could talk and we stepped on each other’s toes and fumbled, griping about being too close to the other, making faces and laughing at our instructor’s heavy German accent.
I’m grateful he doesn’t speak for the remainder of the waltz.
I’m spinning again when Axel inhales. I keep my eyes off of him, searching for Jonas in the dancing bodies, but my eyes land on him.
On her. On the stupid grins on their faces as they stand beside Dean Whitmore, and when Thadd’s gaze finds mine, his eyes narrow to the point of slits and a completely different melody begins in my head, making my feet stumble because I can’t differentiate the music in my head from the one playing outside of it.
“Does your leg hurt? Do you need to sit down?” a concerned Axel asks just as Jonas comes to me.
“I got her.”
“I-“
“I said I got her, Axel.” Jonas reiterates, a bark in his tone.
“Okay, yeah, I’ll… I’ll just go.” And off he goes, tail firmly tucked between his legs. “See you around, Cookie.”
The old nickname splits me.
“You okay, baby?”
I nod, but then I shake my head as he leads me out onto the quad, and we stand by the wall near the back garden that’s dead and still so beautiful, lit up by more tea-light candles. It’s secluded and picturesque.
I’m going to disappear tonight. I… I might need a ride home. I need you to make up an excuse for me.
Jonas’ brows shoot up. “Tonight?”
I give him one simple nod and lift my skirts, dragging his hand beneath them so he can feel my goodie bag strapped to it on the outside of my thigh.
He sighs. “Just… keep your phone on you so I know when to go to you, okay? I’ll stay close by wherever you go, but baby, I don’t like you doing things like this without me.”
I grin up at my love. “Bad girl?”
Oh, the upwards tilt of his lips beneath that mask is wicked. Desire pools between my thighs as he crowds me with his heat. “Yeah baby, I’ll have to punish you later for being bad without me.”
My nipples harden, his hand still between my skirts as it travels upward and my thighs part for him so easily. “Or maybe I should punish you now… fuck you’re so wet. I love your pussy. I’m a slave to it… to you. Fuck, I love you.”
For a moment, I understand the allure of having an affair dressed like this, because when he loosens his trousers and steps forward, my back against the rough stoney wall, his lips on mine, his hand digging into the flesh of my thigh, and he thrusts into me, our masks touching on the nose, thrills shoot up. And it’s not the chill of the evening.
It’s the rush that is loving Jonas Anderson.
______
After going to the bathroom, pulling on the full body spandex suit I purchased from none other than a popular party store, slipping it over my legs and pulling it as high as I could without making the bodice of my dress bunch up, tying the goodie bag around my thigh and stepping out to the Ball again - I keep my focus on the Whitmore’s, every turn they make, every person they speak to, every drink in their hands, counting six for Ashleigh when Thadd removes it from her hand. How her smile falters beneath her mask.
I know how much that hurts. The smiling. When you want to rage.
When I finally see them making an exit to leave, at barely nine, I know it’s because Ashleigh is drunk and Thadd wants to leave before she causes a scene. Never could hold her liquor, that one.
I tap Jonas twice on the elbow, to which he makes an excuse for me from his lovely mother, and we make our ways through the doors where the faculty is standing around, mingling, drinks in their hands, I catch Maverick’s and Damon’s eye, sending a wink their way, and they each give a nod.
Maverick must think Jonas is taking me home to fuck, but I already saw the text he sent Damon.
Jojo: Lil B needs to fly. Tonight. Keep that beast occupied. See you at home.
So much secrecy, and unfortunately, necessary.
But how do I tell Maverick what I am? That it’s me causing chaos on the quad ?
As much as I want to tell him, I can’t think about that right now.
I keep my focus on the pair ahead of me, Ashleigh’s wobbly steps, the train in her dress.
She really does look beautiful tonight. I wish the lullaby wasn’t playing in my head where the duo is concerned…
she was my friend after all. But I suppose, just because we knew each other, played together, slept over at each other’s houses and were in the same sorority together doesn’t mean we were actually ever friends.
As we follow in the dark, Jonas unzips my dress, I hide my bare breasts as it loosens, plunging my arms into the sleeves and feel it settle into place on me, hugging where it needs to hug, conforming to my shape.
I keep walking, letting the dress fall as we get to the Rover, and Jonas simply picks it up for me without any hesitation and I open the bag tied to my thigh, pulling out the upgraded balaclava with mesh in the eye holes like my moth mask.
Jonas stops just behind the Rover, “You got it from here?”
I nod once, and continue my speed, leaving him behind, weaving in and out at a faster pace, gaining up on them.
They parked their SUV under a tree, the grill of it facing toward the parking lot and under a moonless sky, it’s easy to conform to the shadows.
When Thadd unlocks the vehicle and opens the door for Ashleigh, the lights inside don’t come on.
It stays dark, and I’m grateful for that.
I slip into the back passenger door and lay on the floorboard as Thadd rounds the front of the car to slips into the driver’s side.
We’re on the road for not even five minutes when Thadd simply says, “You’re such an embarrassment, Ashleigh. Couldn’t even go one night in public without drinking, could you?”
Ashleigh slurs an almost incoherent “sorry,” before it all goes silent outside of my mind again.
______
"Please! Raven!" Ashleigh gasps. And I would but…
Ugh, this music .
A lullaby, a seductive melody, frenzied, rushed, then slow, it was angry and sweet and wanton and fuck this music is pure magic.
It’s no longer in my head. It’s spread throughout like warm wax coating my insides, I felt it in the depths of my womb, in my toes, the base of my spine, between my fingers, like silk and warmth.
“Why?” I lean over her from behind, where I have her tied to a chair, loosely, as to not leave any conflicting restraint marks for the story I’m weaving here. But the GHB in her system makes her slow and sluggish, and it made her really fucking heavy, too.
“I hate… you.” She mumbles.
It should hurt, probably. I don’t know what I did to warrant her hatred, but, oh well.
That warm wax feeling from the lullaby in my head curls around me, like a protective blanket.
So warm as I slide the knife from under one ear, from behind, as though she did it herself, because that will be the story.
“Poor Ashleigh,” they’ll say, “finally had enough this time. Finally made good on her promises.”
I watch, mesmerized as her tan skin splits for me, the muscles tearing open, the music a growing crescendo as I deepened the blade like one of Maverick's studies showed me how by reading and listening to the interviews and... Maverick...
There’s a pang in my chest.
How could I ever tell him about this?
Pretty, pretty, psycho Raven.
I shake my head to rid myself of those thoughts, unwilling to let myself be distracted from what I need to do to make the enchanting music stop.
I will say, after slipping out of their SUV, following them from the garage and then hiding in the shadows of their bedroom, dropping just enough GHB into the waters on their bedside while they got ready for bed in the bathroom and waiting, again in the shadows wasn’t easy but hearing this fucking melody?
A balm to my soul.
"Raven! Please... you don’t have to do this. You can stop this!" Thadd sobs softly. I let my eyes find his, that music a dull throb in my veins is replaced by another emotion that's always simmering underneath the surface.
Rage .
It's a fury that burns so hot it makes me feel so fucking sick to my stomach and feels like needles under my skin .
"Why?" This time I ask in a hushed whisper. "I w-w-was her friend."
His eyes widen, still connected with mine, glittering with unshed tears. Another body wracking sob escapes him, "Because Tyler-"
I rush to him, slapping him. "I was her friend!" I state clearly, this time without a stutter, like the rage boiling inside of me has no time for mistakes.
Only precision.
"Because she was jealous! Of you! Always jealous of you. Your family. Your money. Your beauty. The fact you thought you were so much better than everyone else.”
I never once thought that I was better than anyone else.
I just wanted to create my own life, my own music, my own path.
I never wanted this! I just wanted to be free of all these expectations of me, free of disappointing my mother all the time, free of these societal norms, having to hang out with wolves in sheep’s clothing.
I wanted to make my own friends that didn’t know about my net worth.
I just wanted to make my own fucking destiny… and I was robbed.
I didn’t deserve this.
“She overheard Tyler telling me what he was going to do to you and she volunteered to help. Once she knew there was no way we’d be caught, she wanted in, Raven."
"Why?" I asked again, digging the blade into his forehead, carving a C, crimson trickles down over his brow and I love it. It sings to me.
"Fuck, Raven!"
"Why?" I ask again carving an H.
"You really don't know? Augh!"
E.
"You were sold to the Prescott’s!"
My heart plummets.
A.
"Goddammit! You were sold to the Prescott’s but you weren't the Monroe Tyler wanted!"
I never wanted to be a Monroe. I liked being an Alvarez-Paloma. I liked California. I loved my dad. I didn't choose this. Did Sofia know ?
T.
"You dumb, stupid... bitch." Thadd laughs, those creepy violently bright white perfect teeth of his showing bright red, bloodied between parted lips. Lips Ashleigh once gushed about to me. "You really didn't know about the little trade? Axel-"
I stab him, deeply, exactly where I was stabbed except unlike how they did to me, I use all my strength to slide the knife from the side of him, under his ribcage all the way forward.
There's a splashing noise and something hits my shoes, well, Ashleigh's slippers that I’ll put on her feet when I’m done.
His entrails are slipping out as he groans.
"Ray," he chokes out. "You can still stop this. You can still save me."
"Like you saved me?" I ask sincerely. God, that music...
"Break her leg... take her down to the ravine..." I croak their words back to him.
The symphony. It’s so beautiful I could cry.
He trembles beneath me, skin paling, his head hangs back, resting on his shoulder. He simply whispers "Ray..."
The music dulls in my mind once more, decreasing softly as the light in his eyes fades.
It's not like in the movies. Thadd's eyes don't close but a tear does leave his eye and I follow its trail until it goes behind his ear. His pupils dilate and his body twitches a final time and then relaxes. I grimace at the mess he makes.
Yuck.
You’d think I’d be used to that bit by now.
I walk back over to Ash, wiping all the blood on my gloves onto her hand, untie her and then place the knife on the floor as though it simply fell limply from her grasp and put her slippers on her feet.
I go to their fireplace, open the flue and then light a low fire. I get naked, burning any evidence I was here, including the rope I used to tie Ashleigh up.
My leg aches from dragging them from their drugged stupor as I stalk to their bedroom, grabbing a nightgown and robe that Ashleigh owned, grab the baggie I came here with, put the expensive blonde wig on once I've put her clothes on and her shoes. If they have cameras, they'll only catch "her."
Walking around their space, their empty home, it does something to me as it does absolutely nothing to me at the same time.
There was a time I loved Ashleigh. We had been friends at Harlon Prep, then went to different academy's.
Even though I went to Hawthorne with Axel, she went to St. Paul's, we still hung out, and when we both rushed for our sorority, became closer at RMU until she started dating Thadd. That's when Brina and I got way closer.
She was jealous of you... your family...
My family. That had sold me to the Prescott’s. Like fucking cattle.
I find Ashleigh's study. A large calendar is hung on the opposite wall.
So she can view it from where she sits at her desk.
She has one bookshelf lined with... photographs and a few self-help books that look as though they've never been opened.
If that doesn't sum up Ashleigh I don't know what does.
Jesus not even one trashy book. How were we ever friends?
I peek at her Calendar, noting her cleaner won't be in until Tuesday in parenthesis it says (Pay Nadia.)
A happy shiver runs through me, delighted that they'll sit in their rot for a few days.
Except I forgot to calculate that there are some parents that actually love their children. That check up on them with a text or a phone call… I forget that there are parents out there that will drop by, unannounced, full of worry when they don’t text back.