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20

Bianaca

Time trudged by, each second feeling like hours.

I glanced anxiously at my bedside clock, waiting attentively for the little red light to mark the time as 11:42. Why I trusted Aiden with something like this remained a mystery. Logically, I knew it was dumb to trust someone like him—a predator. A wolf not bothering to hide its predatory intent behind sheep clothing. He was a lion out for the kill, not merely the hunt.

Somehow, I had found myself as the helpless gazelle.

At 11:30, I heard the familiar scuttling of beetles just outside my door. The mundane sound caused my hair to rise on the back of my neck. I was coiled tightly, a snake waiting to strike. Lashing out with my venom.

The sound receded as the…monster…turned the corner. Still, I couldn’t quite calm my abnormally tense muscles or the pitter-pattering of my heart. No, not a mere pitter-pattering. It was pounding with the force of a thousand drums. Each one threatened to tear the organ straight out of my chest. Finally, when the clock struck the desired time, I climbed out of bed and tentatively ventured toward the door.

Was this going to be my life? Sneaking out of dorm rooms but not because I was afraid of getting caught by an RA, but by a monster?

Traveling to an abandoned shed to meet my bullies not a boyfriend?

After a quick glance in both directions, confirming the hall was clear, I crept down the hall now as familiar to me as my house back home. Fortunately, I remembered a jacket, so I immediately slid it on the second I was outside, the frigid air assaulting me instantly. Shivering, I burrowed my face farther into the soft fabric and made a beeline in the direction of the shed.

I vaguely wondered where Kelly was. Was she on the balcony again watching helplessly as students were fed to a monster? Was she safe in her dorm room? I didn’t know why I was so worried about the smaller girl, but I couldn’t deny that I was. Somehow, someway, she had weaseled her way into my heart, and I had taken responsibility for her. We had a kinship, her and I, forged by trauma we couldn’t articulate into words. For some reason, she had trusted me with a secret that could alter the world as we knew it. But why? Why me?

Was it because I stood up for her?

Shaking my head, I stopped in front of the dilapidated building dwarfed by trees. Voices reached me before I even entered.

“We have to tell her!”

I froze, one foot in front of the other. That voice…

Impossible.

“And what? She won’t fucking believe us.” Tanner. His growly tenor was unmistakable.

“She’ll believe me,” Beau said resolutely.

Beau. Beau talking.

Beau fuckingtalking.

A variety of emotions flashed through me, too fast for me to fully grasp onto any of them. Shock. Happiness. And then a blistering anger, red hot. It threatened to burn me from the inside out.

Beau hadn’t spoken a word in years, not even to me. To hear him finally speak sent chills up my body, goosebumps across my arms.

Then, the jealousy hit.

It clambered to life in my stomach, tangling with the giant ball of nerves.

He hadn’t spoken in years, and his first words were said to my tormentors? Anger thrummed through my veins.

Before I could stop myself, I stormed into the shed.

Aiden, Beau, and Tanner were all standing around the small work table. Kace sat on the ground against the wall, his eyes trained intently on his hands. He glanced up when I walked in before flickering his gaze back down.

“What the hell, Beau?” I asked, ignoring the other three men. My entire attention was on my best friend.

Combined with the jealousy and anger was something else, something that I had felt only this morning.

Betrayal.