Page 41 of False Idols

Those are the thoughts making me crazy while Ali giggles up at me and the party shows no sign of letting up. It has to be past midnight, but the party won’t be over until the sun comes up. No one is safe while The Reaper hunts, but seeing morning break usually calms everyone down after a night like this. Tomorrow, everything will go right back to normal. Everyone will go right back to pretending there’s nothing wrong in Bloom, but I’ll know. Nevaeh will, too. It’s what makes us perfect for one another.

She sees what I see. She knows what I know. We aren’t cowards like the rest of Bloom. They pretend, but Nevaeh and me? We don’t know how to pretend. I’ve known that truth from the second the cops threw me in a cell and left me there. There was no going home or waking up from the nightmare. No do overs or chances for mercy.

Tonight showed her that, too.

“So when are you taking me out?” Ali trips over her words as she closes the space between us and as much as I want to knock her on her ass, I can’t. The hallway is still packed full of students. Down the hall someone is doing a keg stand and there’s kids smoking a joint a few feet away. I throw Ali off me and it’s going to draw attention, so I stay where I am.

“What?” I ask, pretending I don’t hear her slurred words.

“A date,” she says and spit hits my cheek with how loud she’s yelling. The stoners nearby lift their heads to look our way, just like I knew they would. Except I didn’t think it was going to be from Ali causing a scene.

“You want to go on a date with me?”

“Um, obviously. You’re, like, so hot and smart!” Ali throws her hands out for emphasis and then gives me a slow shit eating smile, “And besides, how long has it been since you touched a woman? Did they let you have conjugal visits?”

I think of Nevaeh beneath me. Her cries in my ear while I fucked her into the fucking mattress so hard her bed frame squeaked and bounced.

“No, they didn’t.”

Ali trails a finger up my arm and makes a show of pressing her tits up against me. “Why not? I could treat you right. I bet you were real lonely in there, weren’t you?”

I scan the hall again. It’s just the stoners around now. They won’t bother Nevaeh if I leave to deal with Ali. “Not allowed for what I was booked for.”

“But you were innocent!” Ali yells and stumbles back from me with a glare. “That bitch did that to you.”

“Her name is Nevaeh,” I correct with a sharp look. I’m not going to let Ali talk about Nevaeh. Ali is shit on my shoe. She has no right to Nevaeh.

Instantly the drunk girl act in front of me sobers and she straightens up. “Right, right. Sorry about that.” Ali tucks a lock of hair behind her ear and gives me eyes that I know are supposed to be innocent, but all I see is bullshit and greed, “I know you’re big on forgiveness, which is just another reason why I want to get to know you better.”

She means fuck. Jordan turned her down for whatever reason and now she thinks she can fuck her way into being my girlfriend. I might not be the top choice anymore, but I come from a rich family with a lot of connections in the area. I can’t fault Ali’s change in tactics. It’s smart, especially if she thinks I’m hard up. She doesn’t know I have Nevaeh’s cum still wet on my dick or the knife with Nevaeh’s blood on it in my pocket, though.

“I’d like that,” I lie and shoot her a smile. I can use Ali when it comes to hurting Nevaeh. I plan on making her miserable. The easiest way to do that without touching her is for her to see a girl like Ali on my arm. Ali reminds me of Carrie. They have the same look, the same way of speaking and moving on campus, but Carrie had a soul. There’s nothing of substance in Ali, which is a shame, but not for me. It’ll make this whole thing easier, because Ali will see exactly what I want her to see.

“Let’s get another drink and chat!” Ali smiles at me and bounces forward again. She grabs my hand and tugs me away from Nevaeh’s door and towards the main lobby where the music is louder. “I just think we have so much in common!” She’s screaming at me over her shoulder, a lot louder than she needs to be with the level of music playing, but she’s doing it for attention.

Ali wants everyone to know she’s with me right now, so I play dumb and let her take me with her, because I’m already thinking about my next move when it comes to breaking my beautiful liar. She’s so fucking pretty when she cries. Especially when she cries for me.

I can’t fucking wait to watch her do it again.

16

NEVAEH

After Beau left, I was scared to leave my room. The party was still going and I was too nervous to make a go for the bathrooms alone after the attack, but I had to do it. There was too much blood. God. The blood. The cut on my chest was shallow, more of a deep scratch than anything from what I could see in the mirror Sunny and I had in our room. It was the wound on the side of my neck that was deeper. That’s where the blood had come from. Beau's hand around my neck had kept the wound open while we’d had sex. I tried to clean the blood off of myself, but it was useless. It was in my hair and on the side of my face, under my fingernails. I don’t know what Beau looked like, but I was a wreck.

“Fuck, Nevaeh,” I whisper and shift from foot-to-foot in front of the mirror. If I didn’t do something, Sunny was going to come back and find me like this. There would be no denying what had happened then. I’d already changed the sheets on my bed and tried to remake it as best I could. I look to the side and swallow hard. My bed looks so normal. So completely normal. How is that where Beau took my virginity? There had been blood on the floor, but I’d cleaned that up with my ruined shirt that I shoved to the bottom of the dirty clothes hamper I kept in my closet. I’d throw it away later when there wasn’t a damn party going on in the dorm.

Someone laughs outside the door and I hear the telltale creak of a footstep in front of the door. I hold my breath and wait, but thankfully they move on. Every second that I don’t do something, I’m risking Sunny coming in here and catching me with blood on myself and a wound on my neck. I shove on a hoodie to hide the damage to my neck and chest before snagging my towel, a fresh change of clothes and my soap. I don’t need everything. There’s a first aid kit in the bathroom and I just need to get the wound clean enough to patch up. I run my finger over it gingerly and wince. It’s throbbing, but I’m lucky it isn’t bleeding again. I’m lucky Beau didn’t cut me any deeper than he did. I don’t know how he didn’t, with what we were doing. I hesitate in front of the door but after another second, I force myself to move. I unlock my door and slip out into the hallway.

The first thing I notice is the smell of weed. It’s heavy in the air and I wince. It stinks, but Minnie said that meant it was good. I try to hide my cough when I see a circle of stoners passing a joint around. One of them laughs when they see my cough but the rest of them don’t look my way. Good. I don’t want anyone to stop me in the hallway, so I keep my head down and hurry towards the bathroom at the end of the hallway. It’s close to the lobby where most of the students are right now. The music is still as loud as it was before I went to my room with Beau, and the lights are just as frenetic, which is good. It means I shouldn’t worry about anyone seeing me and following me, but even as I think it…I feel eyes on me.

It’s like a prickling sensation on the back of my neck. My skin goes hot and I know someone is watching me. It’s the same feeling I used to get in youth group when the older boys would linger a little too long to talk with me and Minnie. My mom always showed up before anything happened, but I know what this feels like.

Someone’s watching me.

I don’t let myself look until I’m right outside the bathroom door. If anyone is going to come after me, I want to see them coming. That’s when I see who is looking at me. It isn’t the person that attacked me in the showers. That voice was a woman’s and the person watching me is a man.

It’s Beau.

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