Page 17 of Nightfall (Devil's Night #4)

Emory

Nine Years Ago

“They have mac and cheese, burgers, turkey tetrazzini,” Erika Fane told some girl ahead of me in line, “and chicken pot pie today, but I’d recommend the chicken sandwiches. They’re good and spicy.”

No. They aren’t. The freshmen were the only ones who still hadn’t realized where those cramps in the middle of fifth period were coming from.

The other blonde who looked like she could be her sister-except Erika Fane didn’t have a sister-just stood there, not looking over the selections that Fane listed off.

“It all sounds fine,” she replied. “Whatever you recommend.”

Fane grabbed the chicken sandwich wrapped in foil and brought it to her. The other girl held out both hands, feeling for the item.

I narrowed my eyes, watching her. Slowly, and keeping her eyes focused ahead, she took the item and set it on her tray herself, albeit a little clumsy.

Like she couldn’t see.

Realization dawned. This was Winter Ashby. Bitchy Arion Ashby’s kid sister.

She was blind, I’d heard.

Well, hopefully, she was nicer than her sister. When did she start here? I rarely ate lunch and we weren’t in the same classes, so I hadn’t seen her before.

They moved down the line, but not before an attack of conscience hit me and I plucked the chicken sandwich off her tray, quietly replacing it with a burger without her or Fane noticing. She wouldn’t know who to thank, but that was okay.

I grabbed a burger and a banana before reaching over and taking a bottle of water, adding it to my tray.

An arm came around me and took my necktie, threading it through long, beautiful fingers, veins bulging through the back of his hand.

“Nice tie,” he whispered close to my ear.

My heart leapt, and I stopped breathing for a moment.

His breath tickled my hair. “Thank you for wearing it.”

I couldn’t turn around and look at him because I was sure my face was ten shades of red. He’d put his tie on me after the movies when he’d dropped me at home, and I wasn’t going to wear it, but…

He’d taken another bad day and made it good. I liked wearing something that reminded me of it.

He dipped down, slipping his hand around my waist and breathing into my neck.

“Emmy…”

Heat covered my body, hearing him say it just like he’d said it when I straddled him in the theater.

“Please,” I begged, throwing off his hand, “just…go back to your table.” I looked over to their regular seats, seeing Damon watching us while pretty girls loitered around. “Lots there to keep your attention.”

“That’s not what I want,” he taunted, squeezing my waist again.

I moved down the line, looking around to see if anyone else was watching us.

“Don’t worry,” he said letting me go and adding a brownie and chocolate milk to my tray. “All they see is me fucking with you. They’d never suspect-”

“That you were serious?”

He grinned to himself and dumped a bag of pretzels and some French fries on my tray. “No, that you like me.”

He reached around my other side, his cheek on mine as he reached for a pudding and fruit cup.

He blanketed my back, pressing into me, and my heart beat so fast. I turned my head, feeling his lips close to mine.

“Please, just…” Go sit down.

But the words were lost, and I didn’t finish the sentence. Sweat cooled my neck, and I finally clenched my tray, getting a hold of myself.

“Just go sit down,” I snapped and then blinked, seeing all the shit on my tray. “And stop putting all this food on here! You’re not eating with me.”

“It’s for you,” he told me, taking out his wallet. “You’re pale. All of that’s kosher, right?”

I growled, starting to put the food back, but he grabbed my tray and handed the cashier the money.

“I’m going to need my tie back,” he said. “Tonight.”

“I can’t,” I told him.

“You will.” He took his change and handed me the tray. “I’ll pick you up at the end of your block at eleven.”

“I can’t,” I said, louder this time.

But he came in closer, looking down at me. “And then I’m taking you to my house. Just us. I want to have a Mission: Impossible marathon with you tonight.”

A Mission: Impos …? I snorted, despite myself, and quickly looked away, trying to hide my smile. God, he was an idiot.

I wanted to go, though.

I stood there, shaking my head absently. “I can’t,” I mouthed.

Martin would find out.

My grandmother would need me.

We had school tomorrow.

I’d let things happen he’d only make me regret.

But he came in, taking his tie around my neck and rubbing it between his fingers. “You come to me,” he said, “or I’ll come to you.”

· · ·

I got an A on that Lolita study packet. Over a week late, and I still got an A. And the best part was, I didn’t even turn it in. I was tempted to.

I just couldn’t do it, though. Every educational success I would’ve had after would’ve been marred. The rest of my life would’ve been over.

A fraud. A cheat. A lousy example to my children.

All because I faked one English assignment. That was how neurotic I was.

Unfortunately, the long arm of Will Grayson stretched all the way into the teacher’s gradebook and changed my zero to a hundred percent, despite the missing assignment.

Not very inconspicuous. I would’ve been fine with a ninety-eight. Safe with a ninety-two, even.

I’d inform Mr. Townsend tomorrow that the grade was wrong.

If I didn’t forget.

I walked across the empty locker room and opened the shower curtain, stepping in and hanging my towel on the hook. Turning on the water, I dipped my already wet head under the spray, my skin breaking out in goosebumps at the feel of the hot water.

It was only four thirty in the afternoon. I still had hours before I was supposed to meet Will, and even though I’d spent the rest of the day-and my private time sneaking into the pool for a workout afterward-trying to tell myself I wouldn’t care when eleven rolled around, and I’d left him waiting at the end of my block, it hurt inside a little at the idea of blowing him off.

It shouldn’t hurt, right? I never agreed to go to his house tonight. He never even asked. Just another guy making you feel obligated to show him how grateful you are for his attention.

I pumped some shampoo into my hand from the dispenser on the wall and washed my hair, trying to hurry. I still had to make dinner, do homework, and I’d promised my grandma we’d watch a movie in her room tonight.

And I still wanted to get to the gazebo tonight to get some work done.

Will could come to me. If he found me.

I rinsed my hair and conditioned, pumping some soap into my hand and scrubbing the pool off my body. But I stopped, feeling the nubs on my legs.

Maybe I should shave again. I mean, if he found me, I…

Then I shook my head and stood up straight. For Christ’s sake. Get it together.

I finished washing and ducked my head under the water again, rinsing the conditioner out of my hair as I stared ahead.

But then a shadow moved on the other side of the shower curtain, and I froze.

It stopped, standing there, the dark form looming just outside.

My heart skipped a beat. Only the emergency lighting remained on since there wasn’t supposed to be anyone staying after school for any sports or band today, so I blinked as if that would clear my vision.

Shit, I needed my glasses. I could see okay without them, but I was nearsighted.

“Hello?” I called out. “Who is that?”

Forgetting to turn off the shower, I reached over and grabbed my towel, holding it up to my body.

“Martin?” I said.

The shadow peeled back the curtain slowly, and a lump swelled in my throat as Damon Torrance stepped into the shower with me.

“What the hell?” I barked.

But he just came closer, closing the curtain and approaching me with a towel around his waist, his smile coming into view.

“Martin?” he repeated. “Why would your brother be stalking the girls’ locker room?”

“Why are you?”

I backed into the wall, the shower spilling over my shoulders and drenching the towel I clasped to my body.

He shrugged. “Practice just ended. I needed a shower.”

“The team isn’t practicing tonight.” I shoved him in the chest, pushing him away. “You’ve been here. Were you waiting for me?”

But he just came right back in, pinning me to the wall. “Shhh…”

He stroked my hair, pressing his body into mine as he breathed down on me.

My knees started to tremble, and I clenched my thighs, suddenly feeling like I was going to wet myself.

I jerked away, pushing at him with one hand and holding my towel with the other. “What do you want?”

He pinned my wrist to the wall at my side as he smiled down. “I want to know what he sees in you. Maybe I’ll see it, too.”

My stomach twisted into a knot. I’d rather fucking die.

I looked up into his black eyes and smelled that shit he smoked, a scream lodged in my throat.

Just scream.

Scream.

There was no one here to hear me, and even if there were, Martin Scott wouldn’t believe me. I was going to pay for this either way.

“Get out,” I gritted through my teeth. “Get the hell away from me!”

“I thought you’d have more fight,” he said, studying me. “You’re kind of disappointing.”

What, you can only get hard if I’m scared?

I was scared.

“Leave.” I glared up into his eyes and then slapped him, but he shot out for my hands, trying to get a hold of them as I fought.

My towel fell, and he caught both my wrists, bending my arms at the elbows and holding my hands between our chests, using his weight to keep them pinned.

“Leave!” I growled.

“Then scream,” he demanded instead.

I locked my jaw, pretending I was tough, but I was breathing a mile a minute.

He looked into my eyes, the water falling over both of us as he searched my face. “Why don’t you scream?”

You wouldn’t understand.

I gathered it was new for him. He preyed, because it got him off, but it ruined all of his plans when he wasn’t the victim’s first rodeo, didn’t it?

Because it wasn’t the blood he was after, but the fear.

It wasn’t the sex, but the power.

His eyes trailed down my neck and slowly down my arm, narrowing.

I don’t scream, because….

“Because screaming doesn’t help,” he murmured. “Does it?”

My heart thundered in my chest, but I remained frozen, staring up at him as he looked at my body and the bruises in the shapes of fingers wrapped around my upper arm. The scrapes on my legs and the blue and purple on my shoulders.

“Because you get tired of being the victim,” he said, like he was thinking out loud, “and it’s easier to just let it happen.”

He raised his eyes, meeting mine again, and my throat stretched painfully as his words burrowed into me.

He loosened his hold, but I didn’t run.

“To just pretend we’re in control of everything happening to us,” he told me.

He blinked a few times, his demeanor completely changed, a troubled set to his brow.

My chin trembled.

“Until you can’t remember who you were before you started lying even to yourself,” he added. “Until you can’t remember ever smiling when it didn’t fucking hurt.”

Tears filled my eyes, and I ground my teeth to keep my shit together.

Abuse can feel like love.

I remembered his words from lit class.

Starving people will eat anything.

His eyes fell down my body again, his head cocking and taking the purple and red on one side of my torso and the others on my thighs.

He didn’t have any marks that I could see, but there were other kinds of pain.

“Will is like that,” he said, his voice softening, somber now. “Isn’t he?”

Like a smile that doesn’t hurt. I nodded.

“Easy, normal, peaceful…” he told me. “The only thing in my life untouched by anything ugly. Nothing has tainted him. He’s the one thing that’s still beautiful and thinks the world is beautiful and believes people are beautiful and all that shit.”

Yeah. But I couldn’t say it out loud, because it was hard enough holding back the sob.

“You can’t take him away from me,” Damon told me, stepping back and letting me go.

And in that moment, I understood exactly what his problem was. He didn’t dislike me. He resented Will liking me so much.

One day of wearing his school tie, because I loved the way he made me feel that I had to have a piece of him with me every moment, was nothing compared to the years Damon had relied on Will to be his little beacon of hope that the world was still a pretty place.

“You know it won’t work anyway,” Damon pointed out. “His family is one of the wealthiest in the country, Emory. His life is so far beyond your understanding, and vice versa. You know you have no place in Will Grayson’s Homecoming picture.”

I dropped my eyes, slowly sinking down and picking up my soaked towel, holding it over my body.

“I know,” he continued. “Hurts to hear it, but it’s true, and you know it. And what’s more? It’s pointless, because you know how you are. Even I know how you are. The whole school knows. He won’t fit, because you’re committed to being miserable and you’ll just drag him down.”

I fisted my hands, wanting to scratch him up good.

I was not miserable. I was…

My heart sank, and I looked away.

He was right. What had I done since the beginning but push Will away?

I knew how it would end, so I knew better than to let it start.

“He wore you down,” Damon went on, “and you need a release. I get it.”

He approached me again, water spraying over his body as he hovered over me, imposing in a different way now that still scared me, but didn’t frighten like before.

“So take it for what it is,” he whispered. “And release with me.”

My stomach swirled. Huh?

“His infatuation will end, so pretend you’re the one in control,” Damon taunted. “Call it for what it is, because it’s sure as shit not love. It’s a crush. Hormones. Instant gratification. Acting out.”

No. It wasn’t.

Was it?

I mean, was he right? Was Will just a scratching post? Would he ever be anything more? I knew he wouldn’t.

I could do it with anyone. I could do anything I wanted to. Will wasn’t the only person I could escape with.

“You feel it, don’t you?” Damon asked. “That need kids like us feel that Will never will? That need to destroy anything good, because every man for himself, and if you can’t beat ’em, then join ’em.” He came in and caressed my hair, and my chest ached, like something wanted to tear out of it, and I just wanted the pain to end.

Even for a minute.

I wanted the control.

“That tingle between your thighs,” he panted, “that’s telling you to just let it happen, because in the backseat of my car is where you’ll be in charge.”

I trembled, tears pooling, but when he pressed his body into mine, I gasped, my eyes falling closed.

“And when you’re done with me,” he breathed out over my mouth, “you’ll get to be the first to walk away from something that was never going to happen anyway. You can do that with me. Don’t play with his heart. Use me, instead.”

I’d be in charge, because I’d never love Damon.

I’d never be broken.

“I’m good,” he whispered, holding my eyes. “I’m really good, Emory, and I’ll make it worth it and save you the pain of him. As long as you quit now.”

I planted my hands on his chest, entertaining what it would be like.

What it would be like to feel him on top of me.

What it would be like to kiss that mouth.

I thought about what it would be like…for a moment.

And then I blinked long and hard, clearing my throat.

He was good. I’d admit that. No wonder he got as much ass as he got, because if all anyone wanted was sex, Damon Torrance was gifted at manipulating someone’s mind. Putting the right glasses over someone’s eyes to make them see the world how he wanted them to see it.

God help the woman who ever fell in love with him.

I was tempted. I was tired of myself, and it was alluring-the prospect of not being me for a night.

But Will liked Em. I’d rather live in that memory of the movie theater forever than ever make another one with anyone else.

I pushed Damon away. “And you call yourself his friend.”

He stood there, faltering for a moment, but then he chuckled, recovering. “His best friend,” he pointed out. “Maybe he sent me to test you.”

I rolled my eyes, wrapping my towel around me and shutting off the water.

“Or maybe not,” he said, and I looked over to see his eyes falling down my body slowly. “You would’ve liked it, you know? I think I might’ve liked it, actually. It certainly wouldn’t have been a chore.”

Asshole.

“Get out,” I said.

He nodded, turning around. “Well, I tried.” And then he looked back at me over his shoulder. “Has Will seen the bruises?”

I tensed.

“Be prepared for what’s going to happen when he does,” he warned. “And what can happen to him if he goes up against a cop.”

He walked out, and I stood there, my shoulders slowly slumping with the weight of his words.

Will could never see the bruises.

· · ·