And yet, my anger is nothing next to the anxiety that throbs in my veins. “What happened to Lia, Damien? Is she okay?”
“Yeah,” he says curtly.
“What do you mean,yeah? Tell me the truth. Did something happen to her? I can handle it. Please just tell me.”
He sighs. “Fine. She walked into that bar and got deflowered. That’s all I know.”
With the way the evening devolved, it would have been crazyto expect a different outcome, and yet, hearing it still hurts like hell. But not so much that my brain doesn’t puzzle over the word Damien used. “Deflowered? She wasn’t deflowered.”
He smirks. “Does that mean you guys did it? Congratulations, man.”
“Shut up.” The last thing I need right now is to get teased by Damien. Especially when he’s got it so wrong. “I didn’t do a thing with her.”
“Huh?”
“I didn’t fuck her. But she wasn’t a virgin.”
Damien raises a surprised eyebrow. “How do you know, if you didn’t fuck her?”
I grimace, unwilling to relive those painful words again.
I’ve fucked about half the school. Maybe half the town, too.
“What made you think shewasa virgin?” I counter.
“Well…” Damien hesitates a beat, then mutters, “There was blood on his mattress.”
I blink up at him, trying to digest the few words that have just given me way too much information at once.Blood? Why? Whose mattress?
I settle on that last question.
“Uhm,” he answers, staring at anything but at me. I’ve never seen him look so uncomfortable. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen him look uncomfortable, period. “See, Vale’s friend, this idiot named Igor, was at the bar last night. He knows I hang with Vale now, and that you’re my best friend, so when he saw you getting beat up, he gave Vale a ring, and Vale called me. That’s how I realized what was going on, and I came to the bar just as those fucks were beating the shit out of you…”
“Okay, Damien,” I wince, trying to get into a more comfortable position. “I don’t actually care about that. What about Lia—”
“Has anyone ever told you you sound like a broken record?”he snaps, before softening his voice again. “I’m getting to that. Carmelo, you know, the don’s son, was inside. He came right out when he found out what was going on and he shot those five assholes dead.”
The realization that five guys just died on account of me is enough to momentarily distract me from my fixation.
“He killed those five guys forme? Why the hell is Carmelo Moretti siding with you over some mobsters? Come to think of it, why the hell does Carmelo Moretti even know your name?”
Damien shrugs. “Guess I might’ve done his daddy a favor or two. No big deal.”
“No big deal? You’re fifteen years old! What kind of favors?”
“Don’t worry your little head about it,” he says, giving me an affectionate cuff on the side of the head, then looking immediately regretful when I hiss in pain. “Just be happy Carmelo Moretti is on our side. He’s the most useful friend we can have.”
“Whatever.” I’m far too tired and in pain to make sense of Damien’s strange new friendship. Anyway, it would take a lot more than that to keep my thoughts on anyone other than Lia.
“So what happened to her?” I insist.
“Well, she came out of the back room of the bar a little later,” hedges Damien. “You know, that room with the mattress. She looked very upset. She’d probably heard what happened, or saw you on the ground. Or it was the five dead bodies that did it. Anyway, she was crying. And I guess she went home.”
“Youguess? Did she get home alright?” I ask, my head pounding.
“I assume so.” Damien shrugs. “I was kind of focused on something else. Orsomeoneelse. You were dead to the world, and for a while, I was worried you were…” He cuts himself short with a loud, strangled cough.
“Did you go check on her? Did you make sure she’s okay?”
