Page 70 of Revenge At Raleigh High
Jake’s nostrils flare. “You think you’re so fucking smart. Don’t worry about me. I’ve got this all taken care of. By the time I leave tonight, it’ll be like I was never here. My father won’t let Sheriff Hainsworth anywhere near me once your body’s found. He’ll have me relaxing, safe and sound behind so much red tape, it’ll take five years to get through all the paperwork required to even fucking interview me. By then, everyone will have forgotten you even fucking existed. It’s gonna be fucking beautiful.”
I’ve been skating on the surface of a black mirror, hovering above reality, not really here, trying to think of a way out of this nightmare, waiting, hoping against hope and my better judgement that someone is going to show up and save me, but this brings me crashing back into the moment.
Forget me?
Forget I even fucking existed?
Something about that rings true. People like Mallory Hawkins are still stalking through town, demanding to have Leon Wickman’s body exhumed and unceremoniously tossed into a landfill, but the rest of the people in Raleigh? The shops, the elementary school, the bars and restaurants…they’re all open and operating like it’s business as usual. How easily people have already moved on from such a horrific, monstrous event. Eighteen people died at Raleigh High the day Leon turned his gun on everyone…and that was only six weeks ago. I’m just one more meaningless student at Raleigh High.One. How long will people mourn me before it’s back to the status quo? A few days? A week at the most.
I don’t want to be forgotten.
I don’t want to think about what Jake plans on doing with my body after he’s silenced me. I don’t want Alex to grieve over me, only to recover and move on with someone else down the line. It turns out I’m too selfish, after all. I want what’s owed to me. I want my fucking life.
The cold water splashes down, mostly hitting me in the legs. Mercifully, I’m free to breathe. Jake looms over me like a sentinel, arms folded across his chest, his jaw working as his eyes bore twin holes into the top of my head.
“I never got it, y’know. I’ve never been able to figure out why you hate me so much.” I sound resigned to my fate. I’m anything but, though. I’m trying to buy myself some time to figure out what I should do next. There’s nothing in the shower room. Like, nothing. No furniture, no benches, no pictures mounted on the walls. There are the shower heads, the taps and the tiles. There’s nothing I can use as a weapon in here, which means I have to find a way to get out of here and fast.
I’ve never seen a sneer as spiteful as the one that flickers briefly across Jake’s face. “Do I need a reason?” he says. “Maybe you’re just really fucking easy to hate.”
I actually think about this. Over all the noise and chatter going on inside my head, I take a moment to assess his statement to see if I can find any truth in it. “I used to be a bitch. Before, when I was hanging with Kacey. I was nothing compared to her, though. And you seemed to likeherjust fine.”
“Pssshhhh.” Jake shakes his head, the veins standing proud in his forearms. He’s tensed up; the muscles in the column of his throat work, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “What does it matter, hmm? I fucking hate you and that’s all there is to it. I don’t need to explain myself to you or anyone else.”
“So thereisa reason.”
“Shut up, Silver. Just take your fucking clothes off!”
He’s teetering on insanity. He wants me to quake in fear before him. In his mind, he’s imagining fear dancing up a storm in my eyes, my shaking hands fumbling to peel my soaked pajamas from my body. I probably look terrified as I stand before him in his mind’s eye, naked, goosebumps from my ankles to my neck, arms wrapped around my torso as I try to hide the secret parts of myself away from his venomous eyes.
Unwillingly, my gaze dips, and I find the bulge in his pants that confirms my suspicions. His dick is hard. Heisgetting off on this.
Disgust churns in my stomach. I look away. “You want me in that uniform, youaregonna have to come down here and strip me.”
“Don’t you understand? If you don’t do it,I’m gonna fucking hurt you.”
I watch him, my gaze to roving over his features—features I once thought made him the hottest guy on the face of the planet—studying his face, trying to find any tell-tale sign that might have been a warning to me back then. There’s nothing. I let the silence grow heavier, stewing in it while I think. “It doesn’t matter how much you hurt me, Jacob,” I tell him. “I won’t trade in my dignity to avoid a little pain.”
“It won’t be a little. It’ll be a lot.”
I splay my hands out in front of me, palm up, wincing when I realize that the little finger on my right hand looks (and feels) broken. “And yet the fact remain the same…”
Jake grinds his teeth together, eyes narrowing into slits. I trap a frightened yelp behind my teeth, determined not to make a sound as he comes at me, his fingers digging viciously into my upper arm. “You wanna make things harder than they need to be, then so be it. You’re not as tough as you think you are, bitch. You’re gonna be begging on your knees for me within the next thirty minutes.”
I’ve seen people on morning television who can turn off their pain receptors in their brains. They can ‘mind-over-matter’ the shit out of their extremely painful medical diagnoses and go about their day. It must take a lot of practice. There’s no way I can turn off my pain as Jake punches me in my side. Bone grinds on bone beneath my skin, and a wicked, sharp white flare of light stuns me. I don’t know which way is up.
I’m numb, bent slightly forward, trying to pull in a breath that will never come, and I still don’t make a sound. Jake chuckles maliciously as he grabs hold of my pajama shirt and yanks it forcefully up my body. I pin my arms to my sides, twisting, determined to get away from him, but he locks a hand around my throat and shoves me back against the tile.
“You think this is some kind of game, don’t you? You don’t think I’m being fucking serious? You’re about to die. You should probably start treating the situation with the gravity it deserves.”
Fear me.
Show me that I scare you.
Give me your terror.
Give me your panic.
Let me revel in it all.
