Page 106 of Darkest Obsession

She keeps repeating the phrase while Thomas dials and begins talking to the dispatcher with one ear plugged. Molly manages the phrase one more time before Sylvia abandons her post at the door and does something that shocks me and Thomas both. She raises her palm and smacks the shit out of my roommate. Thomas gives the mansion’s address during the beat of silence in the slap’s aftershocks. 1… 2… 3… Then, Molly screams.

“You bitch!” she yells.

I step between them because there’s no way I’m letting Molly throw a punch at Sylvia’s concussed head without getting through me first. She put up a good fight on the dance studio floor, but without stolen advantages, I can take my damn roommate down.

“That’s for the concussion,” Sylvia hisses, darting around me like a riled up terrier. “Call me bitch again and you’ll find out just how much of a bitch I really am.”

“Sylvia!?” Thomas and I blurt her name out in confusion. This is a side to Sylvia Richards that neither of us have ever seen. She doesn’t let up. Hands on her hips, Sylvia keeps telling off Molly.

“So you thought you could beat my ass and give me a concussion, huh?”

Thomas shakes off his surprise at Sylvia’s outburst and keeps giving the cops details on the phone. He doesn’t bother to mention to the cops that Kola’s missing. I don’t know why I think she’s missing. It’s probably not worth mentioning to the cops that she’s been absent for thirty minutes. She could honestly just be downstairs, but I have a weird feeling about her conspicuous departure.

Without waiting for Molly’s response, Sylvia keeps going off on her. I pull out my phone and shoot off a quick text to Kola.

“You threatened Clover and Thomas, got all freaking weird. Why the hell would you do something like that?”

“I don’t have to answer you,” Molly says haughtily. When Sylvia lunges, I stop her and Molly smirks as if she’s won something. I don’t understand this. Molly never liked Sylvia, but enough to attack her? And what about Thomas? Why the hell would she care this much?

Thomas is still on the line with the police. I don’t think they’ll allow him to hang up until they’re here. He covers his phone’s microphone and addresses Molly. “You’d better answer her.”

“Or what? You’ll do to me what you did to Amelia?”

Thomas glances at me and then at Molly. Who the hell is Amelia? What’s Molly talking about?

Our school isn’t very big, so if there was someone in our grade named Amelia, I think I would know, wouldn’t I?

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Thomas says. “This has nothing to do with Amelia. She’s no one to you.”

“She was my friend,” Molly answers. “I knew her and I knew she shouldn’t have gone anywhere near a psychopath like you.”

Thomas seems bored.

“Psychopath? You stalked me for months – Clover and Sylvia too. Look in the bloody mirror, Molly.”

Molly lunges forward and spits on Thomas. Her spit lands on his bare chest. Thomas doesn’t even look down with disgust. His eyes harden and a shudder of terror runs through the room. He can control the room’s energy just with the change of his face, the shift in his jawline or the tightening of his muscles.

“Careful, Molly.”

“Threatening me? You’re on the phone with the bloody police and you’re threatening me. I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t, I swear. They were just pranks!”

“Show me your arm,” I snap.

If she wants to prove herself, she can show me her arm. When I attacked that person in the dance studio, I swore I got a slash in. If Molly really wasn’t the person who attacked me, her arm would be bare. She scowls at me and turns red.

“I’m not showing you a bloody thing. Sick psychopath you must be, running around with him.”

“I am so tired of your whining,” Sylvia interrupts. “Show her your arm and give us some type of explanation. Now.”

“I’m not explaining anything,” Molly snaps.

Thomas gets tired of waiting. He sets his phone down and hurries over to Molly who squeals like a pig as he rips the sleeve of her arm up and exposes bandages. My stomach lurches. I don’t know how she kept those covered up from me, or if I just never expected that my quiet, nerdy roommate could be the same person stalking and threatening me.

Molly might have been strange and troubled by several bouts of the flu, but she didn’t exactly seem like the type of person to cyber-stalk someone or attack someone either. Still, the slash on her arm proves otherwise, doesn’t it? Thomas glances at me and then back at Molly’s arm.

“You almost killed Clover,” Sylvia yells once she has proof.

“I did not! I was teaching all of you a lesson. He’s not a good person. Thomas Bainbridge is not a good person.”