Page 70 of Vipers & Roses

“Lucy?” she stands four feet away, dithering and shuffling on her feet in a non-committed fashion.

“Josh doesn’t know,” she tells me, gazing at the great oak branches.

“It’s your business. I didn’t mean to barge in like that, but the door was left open a crack, and my friend wanted to speak to the coach,” I explain, but she seems distant, not really listening or at least not interested in what I’m saying.

“So, don’t tell Cormac because he’s good friends with Josh,” she says, swinging her bag while still gazing up at the branches.

“Er, I already mentioned it to Cormac, but he didn’t believe me,” I confess. “But you should know that others have seen you and Lyons…”

Now I have her attention. “Where?” she snaps, hostile.

“In a classroom in the Sports School,” I tell her.

Lucy leans against the oak trunk, watching students walking by toward the Art School. “He said I remind him of you.”

My body tenses, and nausea stirs in repulsion, but I see it now. Her hair is a similar color to mine, except mine is wavy and hers is straight, but our features and body size are also similar. I see it now, and I don’t like it one bit. “I was a good swimmer like you-”

“I didn’t mean swimming technique,” she barks, playing with the engagement ring on her finger. “He doesn’t care about my swim strokes or race times.”

“Lucy, is he making you do something you don’t want to do?” my question strikes like a ton of bricks.

“I’m what you’d call an average swimmer with average times, not even good enough to be on the team. Everyone wonders why I’m there.” The anguish is evident on her face, and with every word she utters, the uneasiness in the pit of my stomach intensifies.

“Look, Lucy.” I rise from my knees to speak to her at eye level, but she seems threatened by this.

“Don’t. Just tell Cormac not to say anything to Josh, okay? I can’t have him…” she starts walking away, “knowing. It’ll break him.”

“Lucy,” I call after her, but she storms off at such a quick pace that I doubt she heard me.

Left disturbed by the cryptic conversation, I pull my garden gloves off, toss them in the bucket, and start pacing irritably. I have another thirty minutes left of the shift, but I must go now to cure the malaise in my heart.

The heat from the sun burns the back of my neck as I go from a slow jog to a pounding run toward the Sports Science School. Sweat pours from my brow as my thigh muscles shudder with every movement, and my breath adjusts to the adrenaline surge. I’ve got a bug on my shoe that needs squashing, and there’s only one way to fix it.

I swing open the entrance into the Sports Science School admin building, home to the tutors, professors, and lecturers' offices. A shudder travels down my spine as a flash of a memory invades my mind of the last time I stepped inside this building. It was over two years ago, but that was then, and this is now. I had done my research, and I know exactly where he likes to play, but the thing is…he doesn’t realize that he is the toy and I am the bitch who’s going blow his fucking brains out.

Running swiftly up the stairs with hot blood pumping through my veins, I avoid the eye of everyone who passes me because of avenges on my mind.

I come to his door at the end of the hall of offices and pause to raise my fist against the wood, but instead, I turn the handle and push the door open.

Sitting at his desk, he looks up briefly before grunting smugly, “You forgot to knock.”

Boldly, I stride in, slam the door behind me, pull up a chair, and sit directly opposite him behind his desk.

We sit silently for several moments as I stare at his lowered head, knowing he’s trying to control this situation by ignoring me. So to piss him off, I lift my feet clad in muddy work boots onto his desk, cross them over at the ankle, and relax back into the chair.

He exhales impatiently. “I knew you couldn’t resist,” he says without looking up. I’m unsure what he means by that, and I don’t care.

“So, how much did you pay the peabrain heavies to threaten me with their sour breaths?” I throw the question at him, knowing he can’t deny it, so he may as well be honest. “Now, what was it they said?” I scratch my head. “If you think about squealing on Coach, you better think again,” using a doofus dumbass voice to sound like the doofus dumbass who threatened me.

“I’m glad you received the message,” he states evenly, outwardly unaffected by my presence. It’s almost as if he was expecting me.

Cutting to the chase, “What are you doing to Lucy?”

He grunts. “I suspect you already saw what I was doing to her.”

“No, you sick fuck, what are you blackmailing her with?” I growl, tapping my work boots together to loosen mud from the treads to fall on his tidy desk. “There has to be something because she sure as fuck wouldn’t willingly bend over for you. Just like I refused to cave to your coercions, so your only option left was to use force.”

He graces me with a sinister look, and I must compose myself not to react to his taunts. “I’m not interested in your stories, Rae,” he exhales impatiently again.

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