“I wasn’t really honest with you.” I hold my voice steady. “I did everything, Keith. I not only uploaded the videos but that box of dildos? The erotic magazine subscription sent to your dad? The pizza with dead flies—the fire on the Dean’s lawn—you get the picture, it was me from the beginning. Do you forgive me? Maybe we can start over? Caleb and I sort of have an open relationship.”
Mel physically has steam coming from her ears. Her mouth hangs wide. Her eyes bulge unnaturally.
“You bet, babe.” Keith leans in and offers a thump of a kiss to my lips, and it takes everything in me not to reprimand him. I’m not willing to go that far to piss Mel off. By the looks of things, I’ve already tipped her sanity, not that it was stable to begin with. “Maybe we can hook up later?” He offers. “I got pretty hot watching those old home movies. You really know how to shake those peaches, baby.”
“What the hell am I hearing?” Mel explodes in a fit of rage. “Are you two shitting me?” She breaks out in a high-pitched giggle, like a fool—like a psychopath.
“Shut the hell up.” Keith drops his hands from my waist and twists into her. “You don’t get to talk to me.”
That’s it. The show is over. Keith never could control his temper.
“I don’t get to talk to you?” Her head ticks back a notch. “Who are you to talk to me that way?”
“I’m your worst nightmare, honey.” Keith takes a few even strides in her direction, but Melanie doesn’t flinch. “I know all about the fucked-up games you’ve been playing. You think you can screw with me?” Keith wraps his hands around her throat and gives a firm throttle.
I leap onto him, trying to claw his hands off her neck, but he’s staunch, strong, and as immovable as steel.
“You can’t do this, Keith! Don’t kill her! She’s not worth going to prison for!” I manage to pry her free as Melanie coughs herself back to life.
She spits dark fluid from her mouth and gives a deep laugh. “So you know.” Mel looks up, bloodied tracks running down either side of her chin like fangs. “Poor little rich bitches got toyed with. Boo fuckinghoo! Kennedy is right. She loaded the videos—beat me by an hour—but she never had the balls to carry out the rest of it.” She glances to me, clutching at the divot in her throat as if it were her favorite pendant. “That’s what you have your house bitches for, isn’t that right?”
“I know who you are.” My chest heaves uncontrollably. My voice shakes with anger. Where the hell is Caleb? “I know what my father did to yours.”
“My father is innocent!” She leaps in my face, screaming. “Meanwhile, your father goes on to protect the assholes of the world and wins every single time! Your father took mine away. Honest to God, I couldn’t believe it the first time you told me who your father really was. It was during rush, but I suppose you don’t remember that. Why would you?”
“I do remember, Mel.” I needle into her eyes with mine, the hatred I have for her slowly melting to pity. “I remember because you are the only one I told.”
She winces as she gives an audible swallow. “You’re nothing but a shallow bitch who’s had the world given to her on a silver platter. I thought—what a fun game, take the platter away and see how she feels. Seeing you happy when I was so miserable was unacceptable. Your smile was acid thrown in my face. One by one, I bet drunk skanks that they couldn’t sleep with Keith Can’t-Keep-it-in-My-Pants Stearns, and, sure enough, he took every one of them up on their offer. And, even after catching him, youstillwandered back! You’re so pathetic.” She gives me a hard shove, and I stagger back a few feet.
Keith puts his body between us to ensure it won’t happen again.
“And then I made a game of pinning all of those petty grievances on you.” She gives a dark laugh. “The fun was just beginning.”
“How did you drug me?” Keith demands.
“Roofie. Oh come on, Keith, don’t look so surprised. It’s bought and sold right in your dorm as easy as a dime bag. I drove you down the mountain and rolled you into the biology building like a log. Nobody cares about you, Keith, certainly not me. But you”—she reverts her attention to me. Her wicked soul is fully revealed by the light of the pale witness in the sky—“it seems you can do no wrong.” She throws her hands up in the air. “Honest to God, the more shit I smeared on you, the more our sisters flocked to you like flies. You are their queen, and you can walk on water.” Her hand digs into the back of her jeans, and she pulls out a small pink capsule before spraying a jet stream of liquid into Keith’s eyes.
He lets out a harrowing howl, staggering while doubled over in pain. “Shit!”
Melanie pounces on me like a cat and lands me on my back, my head ricocheting off the knife end of a rock.
A dull choking sound emits from my throat as Mel and I begin to thrash our way into the lake. My body goes instantly numb as she plunges us into the frozen shallow end. My limbs hook around hers as I struggle to break free from her stronghold. Her hands rip from my shoulders to my face as she holds me firmly under water.
Panic. Can’t breathe. Every cell in my body is begging for respite. Her grip remains staunch, and I let out a cry, nothing but bubbles riding around my face in a fury as the world fades to gray.
My body writhes and struggles. My head pulsates like a bomb.
Caleb bounces through my mind. Need to get back to Caleb.
So cold.
So dark.
Mel’s face is the last thing I see as the world fades to nothing.
Caleb
Asharp bitingwind slices through the crowd as I struggle to keep an eye on Reese. I know Kennedy is somewhere in the vicinity playing coy, playing it up for Melanie the nut job that brought us to this circus in the first place. Every now and again Reese looks around unsettled, and then I see Kennedy’s dark hair bobbing nearby, and a swell of relief fills me.
