Page 22 of False Idols

“She’s fucking lying again, isn’t she?” Jordan calls out to the group and they murmur in agreement. The energy is changing, shifting until I can feel it pressing down on me. It’s like a pot of water that’s about to boil over. I swallow hard and look around me for help. I know Mike and Andy aren’t going to help me, but maybe someone else will. They have to know this is crazy.

“Grab her,” Jordan says with a snap of his fingers and the guys on either side of me do. My books hit the ground and I end up stepping on them when they start to drag me forward.

“Let go of me!” I throw myself back and try to twist away, but there’s no way. They’re stronger, bigger, and faster than me. Even if I did get away, they would just drag me back. “Stop! Please!” No one listens and I’m forced down onto my knees with my captors holding onto my arms in front of Beau and Jordan. Beau is a step back and watching everything. It’s Jordan that comes forward.

Jordan crosses his arms and comes to stand in front of me. “What do you want us to do with her?” He asks Beau.

Everyone goes quiet. They’re waiting for what Beau is about to say. I don’t, though. I know if he’s going to break his forgiving persona he created just twenty four hours ago it’s going to be for a reason. I have to get away.

I pull, try to yank my arms away and scream. “Help me! Someone!”

Jordan’s face twists in anger and he starts to pull his hand back. He’s going to slap me, I know it. But before he can do anything, everything goes sideways. Beau catches his hand and nearby someone screams bloody murder.

“He killed her! The Reaper is back!”

It’s like time stops. The Reaper. That’s the person everyone thought Beau was that killed Carrie Salt. More screams behind us erupt and students start running. It’s been four years since he killed anyone, but we all know the drill.

Get home. Get safe.

The Reaper killed two girls on the same day once. The second was after they found the first one lying dead in a wheat field, but we didn’t know what it was then. No one went home, so he took another and left her with a note stapled to her severed arm.

Get home. Get safe. Or I’ll take another one.

Now everyone knows the rules. We all go home when The Reaper decides it’s time.

“What the fuck?” Jordan asks, but he’s not looking at Beau. His eyes are trained on the students running for their dorms. Beau drops Jordan’s hand and jerks his chin at me. He wants me gone. The football players around me have lost their edge and I can already hear them starting to make calls to people to check if they’re home. I’m grateful the guys holding me let me go, but when I go to stand, Jordan’s attention is back on me.

“Leaving so you can point the finger at Beau for this one? Is that where you’re running off to?”

Ice shoots through me because just like that, the attention is back on me. A serial killer is on the loose and I’m the one they want to fucking hunt.

“I need to get home. We all do, you know that!”

“Or maybe we fucking leave you out here for The Reaper to find,” Mike says and I feel the blood drain from my face. Oh fuck. Oh no. “Tie your lying ass up for him to cut up. That’ll stop your lying for good, won’t it?”

“Get away from me!” I swing at them when someone grabs at me, but I miss.

“Grab her legs, I know where to leave her for him to find,” Jordan orders and I’m picked up a second later.

“Let me go!” I scream and twist. I have to get away. I don’t know where they’re taking me, but I know I’m dead if they leave me outside. The Reaper will do what he did to Carrie to me. I scream and kick, but it doesn’t do anything. Rage fills me. It can’t end like this. Not with it being them. Boys that I went to school with. Not with Beau watching me.

“I thought you loved The Reaper, Nevaeh! Time to meet him!”

“We’re all witnesses this time. Beau didn’t do shit!”

I don’t know who is yelling or speaking. Everything is melding and blending until it’s just a roar in my ears, but I don’t stop fighting. I can’t let them take me off campus. I have to get free. I turn my head and see people still running. There’s books and papers people have dropped on the ground. Everyone is panicking. They don’t even notice what’s going on with me, but I don’t think they would stop it even if they did.

“Drop her.”

The frenzy dies and the boys holding me stop. “Beau, come on. She deserves this.”

When Beau speaks it’s not summer sunshine, it’s with the edge of a blade. “I said, drop her.”

I hit the ground so hard that I bite my tongue and blood fills my mouth. My tailbone hurts from where I landed but I’m grateful it’s not worse after last night. I crawl away from the football players and, because I don’t know where else to go, I end up at Beau’s feet. For the second time that day he has my books in his hands.

He holds them out to me. “Get the fuck out of here, Nevaeh,” he says and I expect that, but what I don’t is for him to say, “Get home. Get safe.”

I nod and take my books from him as I get to my feet. The guys that just dragged me away are standing nearby but they don’t come any closer as I skirt around them. They would if Beau wasn’t here. I know they would.

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