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“No, she plows through everything we put in her way. Maybe it was your dad? I just don’t understand why your dad is so hell bent on getting her out of here. Shit, let the girl go and live her life.” Colt shrugs.
“Her dad killed my mother, Colt.” I shake my head. “How do I even just ignore that? I’m already confused enough as it is around her. One minute I want to tear her to shreds, the next I want to fuck her into next week. My dick is thoroughly confused.”
“That make’s two of us. Well, three if I include my dick. Wait, no, four if we include your dick. Colt, you want in on this?” Mason laughs.
Colt rolls his eyes. “But hasn’t she lost enough? I mean yeah, her dad fucked up, but then her mom offed herself too. I think she’s had enough suffering and that maybe your dad and us need to back off.” Colt sticks his hands in his pockets as he looks out at the campus. “Just let her be.”
“Don’t you think it’s a little weird that she’s here, at this campus? Where Daxon is? Why is she here? I mean her dad, her uncle, all ties to Dax. Your dad may have good reason to want her gone. What if she knows something? What if she’s a threat to all of our families? Part of some big takedown?” Mason runs his hand along the back of his neck and sighs.
“That girl part of a big takedown? She’s not that good of a liar. She wears her emotions on her sleeve. She doesn’t hide how she’s feeling. Get real, Mase. She’s a victim in all of this. I’m telling you we should just leave her alone. Tell your dad, Dax, that she’s got nothing. Because I don’t think she does.” Colton turns to me. He may be right, but I still feel like I’m missing something important here.
“My dad still isn’t telling me something. There is a bigger reason he’s after her. Maybe it has to do with my mom. I don’t know. I really need to talk to him. Maybe I’ll go make a visit if he’s in town.” I pick up my phone and text my dad.
Me: Hey, are you at the office today?
Father Dearest: Yes, I am. Come by after your classes.
Placing my phone back in my pocket, I look up at the guys. “I’m gonna go see him later. I’ll see what I can get from him.” We head into our dorm and toss our bags onto the dining table and then head into Colt’s room.
I throw myself down on his bed and sit back along the headboard. I mull over the death of my mother and the death of Phoenix’s family. She’s had to deal with a lot of it. Her aunt’s all that’s left in her life. Mom and dad both gone. I just don’t understand the link. What is missing? How does this tie to my family?
“How did her uncle, Ronald Trivits, die again?” I ask Colt.
“Just said natural causes. Autopsy didn't find anything, or they were paid not to find anything.” He looks at me out of the corner of his eye. He’s always suspicious, which is good. He questions everything.
“Who was the first to pass on in her family? I know her uncle is only by marriage, but who first?”
“Her uncle passed first, then her dad, then mom.” Colt swirls around in his chair as he regurgitates the information he has probably gone over a hundred times.
“Do we have any of the recordings from her sessions with the therapist?”
“We do.” He turns and types something in and with a few clicks, starts playback. “This is from last week.”
“Phoenix. Please, come in and sit.”
The man, we found out, is Dr. Justin Parker. Graduated, has his degrees, blah blah blah. He’s a boring individual who apparently thinks of Phoenix as a mental case if he agreed to continue treating here while she’s here.
There’s nothing but silence, and I look up at Colt confused. He holds up his hand and just nods.
“How are your studies going?” She just lets out a small chuckle. “How are things with your roommate?” Still nothing.
All three of us sit there quietly waiting for whatever comes next.
“You have to give me something, Phoenix. Tell me how your week has been going.”
“Fucking hell,” she says angrily. The therapist doesn’t say anything and just lets it sit for a moment. “Those three, they make my life hell.”
“Those three?”
“The kings. The precious royalty of Dark-fucking-wood. You would think I killed their goldfish or something. They have had me in their fucking crosshairs since I walked on this godforsaken campus. They set the entire school against me. I can’t go anywhere without being called names, food dumped on me, trash at my door. Oh, I get drugged at a fucking party, and somehow it becomes my fault. Itching powder shows up in my clothes and suddenly I have an STD. Pushed and made fun of. Everyday I’m on fucking eggshells waiting for the next attack. Just nothing but bullied. Fucking bullshit.”
“Wait, Phoenix, you were drugged?”
“That’s what you home in on? I’ve been bullied relentlessly for weeks, and you’re worried about the one time I was drugged?” she bites back.
“That’s pretty serious. Nothing to ignore. Did something happen to you?”
“Yeah, the fucking kings apparently carried me out of the party and took care of me in their castle in the sky.”