Page 62 of Revenge At Raleigh High
Me: Get a life, Asshole. Leave me the hell alone.
I shouldn’t antagonize him. It was sheer luck that I managed to unbalance him and take him to the ground outside the locker rooms. He’ll never allow me to get the better of him again. The chances of me hurting him like that a second time are a big fat zero. I want him to slip up, though. I want to rile him just enough that he’ll confirm his identity in a text.
+1(564) 987 3491: Doesn’t look like Moretti and your old man are gonna be around for a while. Feel like playing me a song?
How? How does he know Alex or Dad aren’t here? I could be sitting on the couch with both of them right now, for all he knows. There’s only one way he can possibly be so sure, and that’s if he’s seen it with his own two eyes. He’d have to be sitting outside the house, spying through the windows, watching the place…
Oh. Holy. Fuck.
No, he can’t be. He wouldn’t be so stupid. If someone saw his car here, it’d spell disaster for him. He’d give my story credence and destroy his own credibility at the same time. He would never,neverdo something that stupid. He’s fucking with me. Screwing with me. Trying to mess with my head. Still, I should probably—
Bang.
Bang.
BANG.
The sound: a sledgehammer pounding on hollow stone.
It rings down the empty halls and abandoned rooms of the Parisi household like a death knell. It clangs off the rafters and vibrates deep within the bones of the home where I grew up long after the sound fades and dies.
There is someone at the door.
“No.No, no, no, no, no.”The word tumbles from my mouth, spilling out of me, rising up and overflowing from a deep well of fear. This isn’t real. I’m imagining it. I’m making a big deal out of nothing. This has nothing to do with Jacob Weaving.
It's not him. It’s not him. Just ignore them. Whoever They’ll go away if you don’t make a sound.
My phone, clutched against my chest, buzzes, and panic snaps through me like ten thousand volts. I choke on my own breath as I look down at the screen.
+1(564) 987 3491: Rude, Silver. Come down and let me in. Thought *I* was the coward?
Oh my god.
The time for lying to myself has come and gone. How did I not know this was going to happen? The texts stopped, Jake started ignoring me in the halls for one fucking day, and I thought that was it? The end of it? How fucking stupid have I been. Jake never gave up on his let’s-destroy-Silver-Parisi campaign. No, he’s been biding his time, waiting for me to be alone so he can come torment and hurt me inside my own damn house.
I can barely see the screen properly as I pull up my conversation with Alex and fumble out a message.
Me: Come to thehouse. He;s here. Q2ucik.
The words are jumbled. Full of typos. Legible enough, though. It’s going to have to do. There’s no time to fix the message before I hit the blue button and shove the phone into the pocket of my flannel pajama pants.
I need to move.
Dad’s room’s at the end of the hall. I have to pass the top of the stairs to reach the door to his bedroom, which gives me a perfect view down toward the frosted glass in the front door. Shit. There’s some there—a shadowy dark outline, lurking on the doorstep.
It's him.
Jake.
What the fuck are you doing, Silver? Call Dad. Call the fuckingcops!
I fly down the hallway toward Dad’s room and throw myself through the door, slamming it shut behind me. Heading straight for his closet, I’m shaking like a leaf as I duck down, pulling out shoebox after shoebox, trying to locate the gun I found hidden here a couple of years ago.
Only…the gun isn’t here.
A loud crash shatters the silence downstairs—the sound of breaking glass. My hands cover my mouth of their own accord, trapping the scream building in my throat behind my fingers.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I need Alex here right fucking now. Common sense kicks in, though; I can barely hold the phone in my shaking hands as I dial 911.
