Meg:I’m your only gal.
A strangled choke escapes me. I don’t know if Meg is being territorial or if she’s insulting my lack of a social life. The former, it’s definitely the former.
Thi:Well now I know you’re alive, I’ll let you get back to your studying then. Eat something.
Meg:I’ll eat when you get some fresh air.
Rolling my eyes, I rock myself upright and leave my bedroom. Puta merda, it’s cold out here. The sudden chill sinks into my body, and I double back for a hoodie. Given all the software running twenty-four seven in my bedroom, it’s constantly humid, and I live in tank tops and shorts. It’s completely dark in the house, the floorboards creaking beneath my footsteps. The staircase shifts and groans, perhaps forgetting that someone actually lives here. Since I put the mini fridge in my room, there hasn’t been much need to venture to the kitchen.
Dust sheets cover all of the living room furniture, creating eerie shapes across the open-plan lower level. It’s all my mom’s stuff that I couldn’t bring myself to sort and dispose of. I just left it, preferring to hide myself away instead. I don’t need the constant reminder of what I’ve lost, of how lonely I really am. Sitting in front of my screen, I have a life. I have friends. Even if they are only virtual avatars.
I push my feet into a pair of sneakers from the shoe rack and open the front door. Crisp air fills my lungs as I inhale and briefly close my eyes. I stay like this for a moment, smelling the remnants of a dying barbecue in the distance, listening to the static air falling over a sleeping neighborhood. But despite the rest of the residents being asleep, there’s someone far too nosy to rest.
Old Woman Rosa is sitting on her porch directly opposite, fanning her hand in the air at me. A few cats stir on her lap. I give a small, tentative wave back, and then turn to head further down my own porch. A motion-censored light flickers on, which will have also tripped the surveillance to start recording and tracking heat signatures. As if my house wouldn’t have a security system to rival the Pentagon.
Holding my phone out, I lean back over the wooden railing so only the lawn can be seen behind me. I snap the selfie and shoot it over to Meg, rushing inside before Old Woman Rosa decidesto cross the road and actually talk to me. I’m back in my undies and back in bed before my phone vibrates with a response. My responding grin nearly splits my face in half.
Chapter Twelve
I shake my head at the selfie of me aggressively murdering a chocolate bar, clicking off my phone and placing it facing down on the table. Back to focus central. I lift the heavy book from the tabletop and lower it onto my knee, hunching over to keep reading.
I didn’t lie to Thiago, I am studying, but not necessarily for school. I’m reading whatever texts the library has to offer on lacrosse. Obviously, I know how to play, but this afternoon’s development has got me thinking about the differences between a joint male and female team. If I’m going to be forced to work alongside Everest and his team of bull-headed jocks, I need to understand their tactics, their formations, and their weaknesses.
Typically in sport, or just in general life, men rely so heavily on strength that they forget finesse. Whereas in my previous all-girls team, finesse was our specialty. We knew our weaknesses, and had carefully crafted ways to counteract them. Everest’s team will be too arrogant for that kind of training. It’ll be power first, strategy second on the pitch, and that isn’t going to cut it.
I shift slightly in the stiff wooden chair, brushing a strand of hair from my cheek and scribbling down a note about face-off positioning in NCAA rules, my focus narrowing as the world around me blurs into quiet mutters of whispered study sessions and the occasional chair scrape being pushed back.
It’s just past nine when I resurface to stretch my back, feeling it crack in several places before I reach for my water bottle. Getting back into shape for competing is going to suck balls, but I’ll do it. Stubbornness is my superpower.
Lowering my water, I latch onto a shift in the atmosphere. Shadows shift near the library stacks, but I quickly pass that off for students wandering through the quiet maze of shelves. Attempting to return to my textbook, two figures round the bookshelves at two ends and head directly for me. I frown, the alarm bells in my head blaring. Shoving my chair back, I’m stalled by another body standing behind me, and that’s when I know something is seriously wrong.
I know them in a secondary sense, or more like I knowofthem. There’s been no need for Danny, Mitchell or Samson to address me directly before. All three are wearing lacrosse uniforms, not that there is any evidence they’ve actually been training. It's all for show. Just as the matching smirks on their smug faces are, but my stomach tightens none the less.
“We’ve been looking for you,” Samson grins, his voice low and coated in amusement. Despite the tremor prickling beneath my skin, a cool mask of indifference washes over my features.It’s a defense mechanism that I’ve perfected over the years. Let them think you’re untouchable and they back off…usually.
“I haven’t been hiding,” I lift a brow and pretend to go back to my reading. The chair jostles behind me, followed by warm breath against my ear.
“Coach wants a word,” Mitchell adds, taking his time to look me up and down. I refuse to sink back in my sweatshirt and torn jeans.
“Unless ‘Coach’ is a new nickname for Dean Colt, I’m not interested.” Closing my book and standing, my stance steady even as my fingers itch toward my phone.
“We can do this the easy way,” Danny begins, reaching for my elbow.
“Touch me, and you’ll lose that hand.” I half shift out of his reach, attracting the attention of the other students at nearby tables. Most of them are silently packing up their belongings and ducking out, leaving less and less witnesses to whatever is about to happen.
Deciding I’m in over my head, I attempt to swipe my phone, but I’m too slow. It’s in Mitchell’s oversized hand before I can grab it. At least I’m quicker with my bag. I make it two whole steps before hands grip my shoulders. My foot slams against one of their shins, hard enough to make him curse, but I’m already being dragged backwards, my bag hitting the floor and scattering papers like confetti.
“Are you seriously kidnapping me from thelibrary?” I yell, twisting and landing an elbow somewhere solid. Danny grunts, but he doesn’t let go. My boots scrape against the floor as they haul me out the side exit like I’m a sack of dirty laundry.
The cool night air hits my face as we emerge into the courtyard. I’m wriggling and swearing and threatening everything from lawsuits to ancient curses, but they’re unfazed, leading me with brute determination towards a car with thetrunk already popped open. That’s when the first true tremor of fear slices through me like a shard of ice, reopening old wounds.
“No,” I gasp, the word tearing out of me as I plant my heels into the pavement, my boots screeching uselessly while they shove me forward. My spine arches as instinct takes over, my body remembering before my mind can catch up. I can hear Harrison’s laugh echoing through my ears. I can feel the dull metal of a gun pressed against my nape. I remember praying to a sky that stared back uselessly while the world was wiped out from beneath me.
Unsure if I’m even fighting anymore or if the debilitating fear has taken over, I’m shoved into the trunk and encased in darkness with a scream caught halfway between my lungs and my throat. The engine rumbles beneath me just as the car jerks into motion. I slide across the roughly carpeted floor, my shoulder slamming into the side with a thud that barely registers over the roar in my ears. Every bump in the road is like a personal attack as my mind fractures between then and now, past and present bleeding together until I can’t tell which terror belongs to which memory. I’m no longer in this reality, the confusion that barrels to the forefront of my mind as real as it was all those months ago. Why me, what did I do wrong, will I ever see my mom again?
“B-breathe,” I croak to myself, fighting for control against the rising panic.In for three, out for five.My nails are creating half crescents in my palms, my teeth grinding into my tongue until I can taste blood. Somehow, I manage to slow my heart a fraction just as the trunk is popped again. Through the haze of my spotted vision, it’s not Harrison I see dragging me out but these college idiots.
The panic doesn’t immediately fade as I’d hoped. It holds onto me with piercing claws. My pulse races out of control, aiding the dizzy sway of my head as bright lights blink ahead.
