Page 99 of In the Danger Zone
“Give it b-back to m-me,” I muttered. “Why’d you even take it?”
“I saw it sitting on your desk when I grabbed the check. It made my life a lot easier, so thanks for that. I didn’t wanna forget her name, so I took it with me.”
My head shook in disbelief. “Who’s name?”
“Shelly, Sandy, Samantha. I don’t really remember her name.”
“Samantha. Samantha B-Benson. Sam. That’s…” The amount of people who seemed to care about helping me back home could be counted on one hand. Sam was one of them. She had been the only journalist in all of Great Falls who was willing to publish my story. That, of course, didn’t get very far.
“Yeah, I reached out to her.” Brie waved a careless hand in the air. “She wasn’t much help, though. Patrick Collins, though. That guy had no issue handing over those photos of you all cuddled up in that hospital bed. I think I lost the card, by the way. My bad.”
“You’ve b-been talking to Patrick?” His name alone was enough to make me feel one foot small. I would never forget his particular brand of cruelty. “From Great Falls?”
“He’s a bit of a scumbag journalist, isn’t he?” Brie laughed. “Not sure how he got a hold of that email I sent Shelly, but he was more than willing to help a girl out. Greed will do that to you.”
I rubbed my fingers against my forehead, suddenly wishing I was back in Professor Ross’ class. That was a cake walk compared to the bomb Brie had just dropped. “What a m-mess.”
Brie took a step closer to me, a finger pointed at her chest. “I just did what you were too scared to do. You were never going to let Coach Murphy know what Asher did. I did you afavor, Daisy. You don’t want him on the team and I just helped you achieve that goal. And just between us girls… Asher can be kind of an asshole. To me, I mean. So, it was a win-win in my eyes.”
“You knew A-Asher was a liar. You knew he’d show Evan that video of m-my dad, that he’d m-make m-me look b-bad.”
She rolled her eyes. “Duh. The only reason he didn’t show Evan until recently was because he was worried Evan had fallen for your bullshit. But it all worked so well. Just perfectly. It was like it was meant to be. Butnowlook at what happened.”
“You knew what he did and youstilllet all of this happen?”
Brie grinned. “I thought the whole almost killing you thing was kinda funny.”
She didn’t care. Not one bit. But I was used to that. A lot of people hadn’t been particularly concerned that Asher quite literally nearly murdered me that day.
“A-Asher’s your b-boyfriend. Why would you want him to get exposed like this?You’rethe reason he’s off the team. I n-never planned on telling his coach anything,” I said.
“Yeah, but Asher didn’t need to know that. He never would have guessed it was me who did all of this. Of course he’d think it was you who got him kicked off the team.”
“You don’t care about him at all,” I whispered. “Do you care about anyone b-but yourself?”
“Look, Asher was always a pit stop to the person I really wanted. You know me and Evan would be perfect together.”
My fingers rubbed at my forehead some more. “This whole stupid scheme was so you could b-be with Evan?”
“You did it to yourself,” snapped Brie. “Like I said: you should have kept your secrets a secret. But as soon as you opened up that big mouth, I knew what to do. I told Asher about what I heard in the library that day. The whole check thing was actually his idea. He can be smart when he wants to be. He knew it’d make you look bad. But he didn’t know about the…arrangementsI was making behind his back. I came up with the idea when I found that card on your desk. He didn’t know thatIknew about Shelly. I knew when he got kicked off the team that he’d think it was you and lose his mind. That he’d wannadestroyyou and make Evan hate you. You kept making mistakes. You madeyourselflook bad, Daisy. Could you really not hold off on buying that laptop?” She rolled her eyes. “Come on. You must have known how that would look. I just took the opportunity.”
“I feel sorry for you,” I whispered.
Brie scoffed, eyeing me up and down. “You’re just mad you don’t know how to keep your mouth shut.”
“Did you really think Evan was n-never gonna find out?” I mumbled. “How long were you expecting to get away with this?”
“His stupid coach was never meant to show him the photos.” Voice like ice, Brie kept going. “Ispecificallytold that dumb, little journalist to say that everything was for Coach Murphy’s eyes only. Once Asher was off the team, that should have been it, and then Evan was meant to see that someone likeyoucould never be enough for him. You have nothing on me.Nothing.”
“But I still want nothing to fucking do with you,” Evan suddenly snapped to my side.
The sound of his voice made me jump. Where did he even come from? Now I had to deal with him too? Brie was already enough.
Evan approached us fast. He looked at me, eyes soft, but they darkened when they landed on Brie. Everything about her changed in just a second. She tucked her hair behind her ear, giving Evan a little smile that hadn’t been there a moment ago.
“Evan, wait. This isn’t… This isn’t what it sounds like,” Brie said softly.
“You did all this to fucking get me to break up with Daisy?” Evan asked with dark eyes. “So that I’d dump her and what? Get with you?”
