Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 101348 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 507(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101348 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 507(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
Acid bubbles in my stomach, threatening to come back up. Alexa doesn’t notice me clutching my waist. She’s so engrossed in the story she just keeps going like it’s opened up a volcano inside her. She can’t stop the words from spewing out now.
“I was just putting everything away when I heard you and Landon outside the door. I didn’t have anywhere to go, so I hid beneath the bed.”
My head spins, and I try to blink it away. “You were there the whole time?”
She’s staring at the wall, dazed. I’m not even sure she heard me.
“I heard you go to the bathroom, and then Landon sat down on the chair to wait. I could see his feet from where I was. You were gone for so long, and he was so quiet. I never saw him move. I think he passed out then. After a few more minutes, the bedroom door opened again. I heard Audrey, Wyatt, and Gavin dragging Carson into the room. They were laughing and telling him he had too much to drink. He groaned, and they dropped him onto the floor and just left him there. Then Audrey started telling everyone what to do. She made the guys drag Landon into the bed first, and she undressed him.”
Alexa pauses for a moment, releasing my hand to clutch the bedpan like she might throw up. When nothing happens after a few deep breaths, she goes on.
“I remember Wyatt opening the bathroom door. He said you were out like a light and asked if he could play with you. Audrey told him no. She had more important things to worry about than his dick. She stripped off some of her clothes and made them take photos of her and Landon together in the bed.”
“They took photos of them together?” I repeat numbly.
The image in my locker returns to the forefront of my mind. It’s all I can see. I knew that bed was familiar. Everything about that room felt so familiar, and I should have noticed it right away.
“That was just the beginning,” Alexa lowers her voice. “She tried to get him hard. Gavin and Wyatt watched the whole time, making suggestions about how to jerk him off, but it didn’t work. Audrey was pissed. I think she was going to try to have sex with him.”
“What the hell?” The words hurl from my lips like venom. “Why would she do that?”
“She wanted to use it against him later,” she explains. “To make him think they hooked up. She’s been obsessed with him since the first day she saw him, and it’s always burned her that he wouldn’t have her.”
“Did she do anything else to him?” I ask, needing Alexa’s confirmation. It isn’t even about my fragile heart anymore. It’s about Landon being hurt when he had no idea what was going on.
“No.” Brown strands of hair fall into Alexa’s face as she shakes her head. “There was no way she could that night. And before that, she tried at least a million times, but he never took the bait.”
“She left a pregnancy test in my locker this morning,” I confess. “I thought it was real.”
“She’s getting desperate.” Alexa frowns. “She feels threatened right now, and I think she’ll do just about anything she can to get Landon. But I know for a fact she’s not pregnant. She was just bitching about being on her period a few days ago.”
“She’s seriously psychotic,” I grit out.
“I know. But there’s more.”
“What is it?” At this point, I’m not even sure I want to know.
Alexa’s eyes move to the ceiling, focusing on the tiles there. “That night, I laid there under the bed, completely paralyzed as I listened to them drag you out of the bathroom. They put all three of you in bed together, twisting you around and posing you like dolls. She wanted everyone to think you were a slut, and I was too much of a coward to stop it. I wanted to do something or say something, but after what happened with Wyatt, I couldn’t face him. I knew what he was capable of, and I couldn’t go through that again. I’m so sorry, Kail.”
Her pleading words make me realize that somehow, in this fucked-up scenario, I was the lucky one. What happened to Alexa could have happened to me. All this time, I’d been so angry, blaming Landon and Carson when they were victims too. She wanted to have Landon so badly she would have done anything to get her way. She touched him. She touched him.
I’m so infuriated I could scream. Who the hell does Audrey think she is? She can’t get away with this. I won’t let her.
Alexa breaks down again, dragging me back to the present. She thinks I’m angry with her. God, I need to focus. This is just… too much.