Page 119 of Darkest Obsession

“They’re not sluts, Molly, and despite what you think you know about me, I only love one girl. I love her enough to kill anyone who hurts her without asking questions.”

“How romantic.”

She doesn’t understand.

“Yes,” I tell Molly, closing the distance between us and easily snatching the pillow out of her hands. “I think it’s very romantic.”

Then, I press down on her face and finish what I came to do.

Chapter Fifty-Three

Clover

TWO WEEKS AFTER KOLA’S RETURN TO CAMPUS

It’s December, and bitterly cold despite the fact there isn’t a single inch of snow on the ground. I have never missed California weather more. Kola spent days in captivity, never seeing the face of her captor, raped repeatedly. She doesn’t know if there was more than one person. She can’t remember anything except the pain. She’s had one surgery down there to help with everything and she’s supposed to have another over the holidays. Despite that, Kola refuses to quit dancing. I worry about her, but the school finally caved and agreed to pay for her parents’ flights out of the multi-billion dollar endowment.

Kola’s parents are coming up to campus to meet with the dean, see their daughter and receive assurances that a situation like this can’t possibly happen on their campus. We don’t know when exactly they’re coming, but Kola claims she doesn’t want to see them and they’ll only make things worse. I can’t blame her for that either. The school administrators will be quick to point out that she wasn’t on campus at all when this happened. Ugh.

I’m terrified my parents might be on their way up here too. My mom is exactly the type to plan a sneak attack, especially since her advanced social media stalking led to her discovering our dance performance tomorrow night. Ugh.

It’s not going to be the same. Kola, Sylvia and I are still dancing, but we’re all so worried about Kola’s injuries. She insists that she doesn’t want to end her life because of what happened, but it’s not her emotions I worry about. I don’t want her getting hurt again.

We haven’t heard anything from Spicy Freak and the police are super involved, but that doesn’t make the last few weeks of the semester any less horrifying. We’re having an emergency friend meeting to cope with everything soon. Thomas has been acting all weird — even weirder than normal for Thomas, and I can’t help but think he regrets getting so romantic with me in front of Sylvia.

Thomas comes to my room to walk me to the meeting, but he brings an unfortunate companion, who shoves my bedroom door open and saunters into my room wearing white shorts and a pink polo shirt.

“Threesome time, Clover! Take off your knickers.”

I grab my cricket bat and Kit shrieks as I lay into him and Thomas enters the room quietly behind him and shuts the door.

“I’ll let you kill him if you want.”

“STOP BEATING ME!” Kit wails like a baby walrus.

I smack him a couple more times.

“Stop making horrible jokes!”

I toss my cricket bat aside and Kit cowers behind Thomas, scared as hell. That cricket bat has taken me so many places… I grin and put my hands on my hips.

“Um, Thomas, why are you bringing Kit into my bedroom?”

“We’re your personal escort to the meeting.”

“How is Kit relevant?”

Kit gasps in mock distress and falls against my door. I swear he deserves a good kick in the nuts.

“I am indeed relevant,” Kit says, exaggerating his posh accent. “I’ve officially been blackmailed too.”

Thomas elbows Kit and rolls his eyes. “Unfortunately, he’s not lying. I found out this morning.”

“First thing I did was tell my mate Thomas. To my surprise, he’s an expert in blackmail.”

“I’m not an expert and can you stop acting like a cunt? Clover already hates you.”

“I have good reason to. Thomas, seriously?”