Page 90 of Fractured Fates

He stuffs it into my hand and releases me.

I want to rub at my face, my skin burning where he gripped me, but I don’t give him that satisfaction. Instead, I sit on one of the benches and unroll the scroll, reading the words as if I’m not surrounded by a locker room of leering and half-nude boys.

As I scan the list of chores I’m expected to carry out, it’s clear the dueling team want me acting as their own personal maid around practice and games. There’s nothing too horrendous on the list, although I groan inwardly when my suspicion about the jock straps is confirmed.

I glance up at Tristan. He has his back to me and he’s rubbing a towel through his golden hair. This is the official role. The one they’re prepared to commit to paper. The one signed off by the teachers. I know they’ll try to push it. I know Tristan, Spencer and the others will use this opportunity to torture me more than they already do. Well, let them try. I’m doing what’s written on the list and not a damn thing more.

27

Tristan

I’m fucked.

I knew that the moment this stupid girl crossed my path. Knew it instantly and completely.

Didn’t mean I was going to lie back and accept the freaking situation, though, was it?

Yet the more I struggle against this, the more I pull away, the tighter the noose around my neck becomes, the more entangled my limbs become in the rope.

She’s an addiction. An unhealthy one.

I didn’t have to tell the principal about her little night time escapade with the authorities’ enforcer. I sure as hell didn’t have to suggest she become the team’s helping-hand.

What was I thinking?

I was thinking I wanted her close. I was thinking I find the damn thing more and more fascinating. A thing I want to poke and prod just to see how she’ll react. A thing I want to provoke just to see how far I can push her before she breaks. A thing I want to rip apart.

I should stay the hell away from her. Far, far away. There is no need for our paths to cross.

But I can’t help myself.

I find myself lingering in the locker room, as the little thing starts work on her first chore, gathering up gym kits and dirty towels from around the locker room. Strictly she’s not allowed in here when it’s occupied, but it’s not like the teachers actually enforce those rules, and it’s become a ritual. We drag the helping-hand in, give them a fucking eyeful they won’t forget, one they’ll probably be dreaming about. Dan makes his crude fucking joke about the blow jobs and half the time our little helpers drop to their knees without a word of complaint.

She was never going to do that though. We all call her Pig Girl, but she’s more feline than swine. Like a scrappy little cat, hissing, claws out, fur flying.

“Are you coming, man?” Spencer asks me, slinging his gym bag over his shoulder.

“Yeah,” I say casually, “in a minute, I’ll catch you up.”

His gaze flicks between me and Pig Girl. He frowns. He had some choice words to say when I told him she was our new helping-hand. I didn’t tell him that was down to me. I don’t know if he suspects I have an infatuation.

Is that what it is?

I’ve never been infatuated with anyone before. Or anything. Girls have always been distractions. Fun. Entertainment. Nothing more.

The idea I, Tristan fucking Kennedy, could have an infatuation with a girl like her is laughable. Unthinkable. Ridiculous.

But it isn’t an infatuation. It’s more. And that is the fucking problem.

“Summer’s going to be pissed if you’re late.”

“Summer can kiss my ass.”

Spencer grins. “I hear she already has.”

I smile lazily. He wouldn’t be far off. That girl would do just about anything for me, would let me do anything to her, if it meant she could say she was ‘Tristan Kennedy’s girlfriend’.

Most of the girls in this school would do the same.