Ariah’s strong. We know all about her Krav Maga training. She’s been working with her dad for years in hand-to-hand combat. I’ve seen videos of her shooting, and while she’s no markswoman, she can hit her target from a distance. It’s why we know her mom had her drugged to be taken. I’m confident she would’ve put up a hell of a fight if she wasn’t.
An image of her throwing knives with me threatens to make my dick hard. Inspired by the vivid scene playing out in my mind, I ask, “What are you doing on Sunday?”
We’re stopped at her locker. “Outside of some training with Dad, Mikhael, and Reign, nothing,” she replies.
Ah, yes, Reign. A background check was run on him the minute Mikhael asked for him to be able to move into town. He’ll be finishing his Bachelor’s at LWU after an incident at his last school, and he was asked to leave. He wouldn’t be Ariah’s training anything if I didn’t know the incident was related to him stalking a particular female student. Why he’s stalking her doesn’t matter to me— what matters is that he’s so obsessed he doesn’t see anyone but her.
“Owen,” Ariah’s hand on my arm jolts me back into the conversation. “What did you want to do this Sunday?”
A slow smile creeps on my face. “Good, keep your afternoon free. I want to take you somewhere.”
I’m about to say more when Wes cuts in. “Ariah, can I talk to you for a moment,” he mumbles, and I snort. The cocky fucker is nervous.
Ariah’s eyes narrow. She’s still running hot and cold with him on a good day. Every attempt he’s made since Senior Night has been rebuffed. “What’s up?”
“Uh…” Wes grabs the back of his neck and looks down both ends of the hallway before finally meeting her gaze. “I was hoping we could— I mean, I could take you out this weekend. I want to expl-.”
She holds up her hand, stopping his rambling. “I’m nowhere near ready to go on a date with you, Wes, and now isn’t the time to try and explain away the fucked up way you treated me when I got here,” Ariah states, grabbing Shay’s arm and taking off down the hall.
Wes shouts after her but she flips him off and keeps going. He turns back to us, running his hands through his inked hair. “Fucking hell. She’s never going to give me the time of day. This is bullshit,” Wes whines.Fucking man-child.He turns to Lev. “How the hell did you slide back into her good graces so easily?”
We collectively snort. Of course he thinks Lev was just magically forgiven.
“I didn’t,” Lev deadpans.
Wes looks even more perplexed. “But you’re close, aren’t you?”
Wyatt walks up next to Wes and tsks, “Guy, he didn’t slide into her good graces. He’s continuously putting in the work. Have you learned nothing?”
“I don’t understand. What do I need to say to fix it? I just want to fix it,” Wes pleads.
“You have to figure that out, but your effort should match your fuck up,” I tell him before we all head to our classes before the bell rings.
And with the way Wes fucked up, he’ll probably need to do something meaningful.
* * *
I knewI should’ve just skipped this bullshit date. These girls always get their panties in a bunch over my date ideas.
“Are we seriously at the morgue?” Brittany hisses.
I smirk. “The cadaver in front of you determines that the answer to your asinine question is yes. I told you where we were going, and you still got in the car.”
Brittany stomps her heel. “That scrap of junk wasn’t a car. It was a death trap.”
My smirk grows, remembering the look on her face when I pulled up in my Dad’s ’91 Acura Legend. Like I would ever again let her or any of her other friends ride in the same car Ariah’s been in. Shit, I already replaced the seats in Rubi so that Ariah would never have to sit where any of them might have once upon a time.
“Hey, that car got you here. Keep it up, and you’ll have to walk back,” I reprimand, grabbing the scalpel and bending over the body. My hand lowers, and I begin to press into the flesh below me, and the asshole on the slab muffles a scream behind his gag as he wiggles, messing up my incision.
Digging the blade into the wound, I growl. “You fucked up my line work, asshole.”
Brittany screams at the sight of the blood, reminding me why I set this “date” here.
I look back at the idiot on the table and then back at her. “Do you know what I discovered today?” I ask her, making another slice, a better one this time, into the man’s side. Brittany doesn’t answer— she won’t. She knows she’s screwed. “I learned that a certain group of spoiled-rich, snobby girls, following the orders of a vile cunt who doesn’t want to get their hands dirty, hired some idiot to pretend to stalk my girl.”
Brittany begins to walk toward the exit, but it’s too late for her. Wyatt walks in just as she turns to grab the door handle.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he snaps, and she runs back into the room.
