Page 38

Haven

I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it was not for Lucas to drive me to the house the Halloween party was hosted at. I glance over at him, sure this is a joke or something, but he pulls over and puts the car in park.

“Something wrong?” he asks.

“She’s… here?”

He nods.

“In the murder house?”

“Yep.”

“But—”

“Get inside before anyone sees you,” Lucas says sternly. “Or before I change my mind and haul you back to Colton’s.”

I scramble out of the car. “Thank you for the ride.”

“Message the group chat when you’re ready to come home.”

“I will.”

After shutting the door, I rush up to the house and ring the doorbell. Lucas is still parked on the road, and when I look back, I realize he’s waiting for me to get inside. I shouldn’t find it sweet considering he’s just upholding our end of the deal, but it makes my heart squeeze anyway.

When the door swings open, Wes steps out of the way so I can enter, waving at Lucas as he does so.

I skip all formalities and glare up at Wes. He may be much taller than I am, and his muscles may bulge from underneath his shirt, but if I find out he’s hurting Athelia, my rage will make up for the difference.

“Why the hell is Athelia staying with you?” I demand. “If you’re hurting her, I’ll fucking end you, you hear me?”

Or… maybe I’ll ask Colton, Lucas, and Xander to do it for me. Yeah, those results will definitely lean more in my favor.

Wes is about to answer when a familiar, comforting voice floats through the house.

“Haven?”

“Athelia!”

I push past Wes just as Athelia bursts from the kitchen into the front hallway. When we meet in the middle, I throw my arms around her. I’m so relieved to see that Isaiah hasn’t hurt her that I almost miss the fact that Athelia’s hair is dark green again.

“You dyed your hair. Oh my god, it looks so good.”

“Thanks,” Athelia says, barely pulling away. “God, I’ve missed you. So much has happened.”

“Um, yeah, I’d say. You told me you moved, but not that you’d moved in with him.”

“All three of us, actually,” Cal calls from the kitchen.

Oh, thank god. I’m worried for Athelia’s mental health if she’s constantly surrounded by these three demons, but I know they wouldn’t let Isaiah anywhere near her. She’s just as safe as I am.

Still…

“Are you okay?” I ask.

Athelia smiles. “I am, yeah. Are you hungry? Cal is making waffles.”

“I already ate, but thanks.”

“How’s your family?” she asks, and at the concern in her voice, guilt gnaws away at my insides. “Is everything okay?”

“Um, yeah. It took a lot longer to deal with than I expected, but it was nice to catch up with them. We can talk about that later, though. Tell me about you.”

Athelia hesitates. “Maybe… let’s take a walk.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Real quick, Athelia runs upstairs to grab a hat, and Wes follows her. I can hear them talking in hushed tones, but I can’t make out any individual words.

That is, until I hear Wes mention Professor Kammes. I don’t know why he brought him up, and I can’t hear Athelia’s reply, but it brings my suspicions to the surface again. Athelia’s relationship with her advisor has always struck me as odd. Maybe she’ll finally tell me the truth about him today.

When Athelia comes back down, she grabs my hand and pulls me out of the house. It’s not until we’re in the open and I realize Lucas is gone that I realize this may be a bad idea. We have no one to protect us if, somehow, Isaiah finds us.

But the boys said it would be fine, didn’t they? Why would Isaiah look for me this far off campus?

“Okay, I’m gonna start from Halloween night,” Athelia says as she drags me down the sidewalk. “First of all, that Halloween party? They’re the ones who hosted it.”

“What?” I sputter.

“Yep. I think it was a trap. For me, that is. And… well, it worked.”

“Wait.” I freeze, yanking her to a stop. “What did they do to you?”

“A lot.” She grimaces. “The guy who I went with when you headed off with Aaron was actually—wait, how did that go?”

“Fine.” I wave it off. “Keep going.”

“So that was Kellan. I fucked him without realizing it was him. God, I was so pissed, especially when Wes and Cal joined.”

“What?!”

“It’s pretty bad.” Her voice dips, and for a second, I think she might cry. “After that, they dragged me into the woods, tied me to a tree, and left me there for hours. I thought I was going to die out there.”

“Thelia.” My arms come around her, and I squeeze her tight when she sniffles. “Oh my god, Thelia.”

“I don’t—I don’t want to cry. I’ve cried enough.” She wipes at her tears.

“Are they forcing you to stay with them?”

I’m not sure what I’ll do if she says yes. Beg Colton to let her stay with us? It’d mean telling her the truth, which he won’t like, but I can’t leave her with those monsters if they’re hurting her.

“That’s how it started,” Athelia admits, “but now I want to stay.”

“You… you do?”

“That’s getting ahead of the story.” She tugs on my hand, and we start walking again. “I’m sure you heard that Professor Kammes passed away?”

What? Oh my god.

“Y-yeah,” I lie, “although I didn’t really hear much about what happened.”

“No one knows. Police think it was murder, but they don’t really have any suspects.”

I narrow my eyes. I can think of three—if I’m right about Kammes’s treatment of Athelia, that is.

“Did you know he was Wes’s stepdad?”

“What the fuck? No.”

She sniffles again. “Yeah, it caught me off guard, too. There’s been a lot of that going on lately.”

As we head to a small park a couple blocks away, Athelia keeps talking. She goes into detail about all the things Wes, Kellan, and Cal have done. They actually apologized for bullying her—something I never thought would happen—and they’re apparently trying to make it up to her.

She tries to explain how they’ve gone from tying her to a tree Halloween night to where they are now, but it doesn’t make much sense to me. I don’t think I could ever forgive them if I was in her shoes. I have no intention of forgiving Colton, Xander, and Lucas, that’s for sure. All I’m doing is using them until I don’t need them anymore.

As we cross the park to a picnic table under a maple tree, I eye a man walking down the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street. He seems to be minding his own business, his long black hair blowing in the wind. But then he holds his phone at an odd angle, and I realize he’s taking a picture of us.

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

Is this how the boys have decided to keep an eye on me? By sending out one of their “informants” to make sure I’m safe and reporting back to them? I almost send a text to the group chat telling them to fuck off, but something stops me. In case Isaiah does show up, I really do want someone watching my back.

Just let them do their thing. It’s part of the agreement, after all.

“… and that’s when I decided I wanted revenge.”

Shit. Athelia has been talking this entire time. Maybe that’s why things aren’t making sense. I’m too busy making sure we’re not being followed to pay proper attention.

“Revenge?” I ask. “You’re… sure that’s a good idea?”

“Positive, and my plan is foolproof.”

“Go on,” I say, and I can’t help how uneasy I sound.

“They keep saying that they want to make things up to me, that they never should’ve started bullying me, blah blah blah. They want to keep me, Haven. Like, forever. They even took me to my hometown hairdresser and paid for this.” She waves to her hair.

“You’ve got to be joking.”

She shakes her head as we sit at the picnic table. “Nope. They actually think they have a chance with me.”

I frown. “It kinda looks like you’re giving them one.”

“That’s the idea. They broke me, over and over again. Now it’s my turn to do the same to them.”

“W… what?”

“They’re already doing everything they can to get me to fall for them. All I have to do is play along and get them hopelessly attached to me.”

“And then…?”

“And then I leave, and I never speak to them again. It means moving back home, so I’ll have to switch over to online classes for the spring semester, but it’ll be worth it. They won’t know what hit them.”

“I… I don’t know what to say, Thelia. Wow. That’s one hell of a plan.”

I want to believe her, but she’s acting oddly nonchalant about this, and it feels forced. There’s no way she wants anything to do with Wes, Cal, and Kellan, so maybe it’s that she doesn’t want to leave me? Or Pemberton in general?

“They’re falling for it?” I ask.

“So far. What do you think?”

“I think they’re gonna be pissed, and that they might try to retaliate. I’ll also miss you.”

A lot. But if this is what she wants to do, I won’t stop her. Honestly, if it means moving back home, it’ll be a lot safer for her, too. Her parents live a good five hours from here, so she’ll be far out of Isaiah’s reach.

“If I can actually get them to love me, then by the time I cut them off, they’ll understand,” she says.

Maybe that’s true. They hurt her a lot, and if they truly care about her, they’ll have to acknowledge that nothing they do can really make up for years of bullying.

But…

“Love can be unpredictable,” I say slowly. “And hurting them that badly? They’ll be so angry.”

“Are you saying I shouldn’t do it?”

“No, no. Go for it. The assholes deserve it. I’m just worried, that’s all.”

“I’ll be okay.” She takes my hand and squeezes. “I’ll be completely out of their reach.”

“You never know,” I say uneasily, and I scan the area behind her, suddenly paranoid. “Just because you think you’re free of someone doesn’t mean you actually are.”

“I’ll be fine, Haven. Even when they were angry at me before, they never caused me that much physical harm. The same will be true this time.”

“I hope,” I mutter, glancing behind me.

There’s no one here. Isaiah isn’t going to find you. Calm down before you freak Athelia out.

“Who are you looking for?” she asks, practically on cue.

“What? No one,” I say, tucking my hair behind my ear.

She watches me closely, her voice softening. “I feel like you’re not telling me something.”

I feel like you’re not telling me something, I want to say back, but I don’t. Whenever she’s ready, Athelia will come clean, and I’m not pressuring her to do it a second before that.

“My family is just…” I shake my head. “I have it handled. I don’t want you to worry.”

“Well, I am worrying. What’s going on?”

“Nothing! Seeing them just brought back a lot of memories, okay? I feel… weird. Off. But I’m sure it’ll pass.”

Her expression morphs into one of guilt. “I’m sorry, I should’ve thought of that.”

“It’s fine. It caught me off guard, too.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No. I don’t even want to think about it.”

“Fair enough.”

Movement out of the corner of my eye catches my attention, but when I look, it’s just leaves blowing across the park. My anxiety doesn’t calm down, though.

“So you’re not gonna be back at the dorm?” I ask, needing the confirmation that Athelia won’t be crossing paths with Isaiah.

“Right. I’m sorry, I’ll miss you, but—”

“No, it’s good. It’ll help with your plan. And, uh, I don’t think they’ll let you leave, anyway.”

Athelia groans. “Yeah. They’re awfully possessive.”

“Hey, at least they’re paying for your shit,” I say, nodding to her hair. “That has to be nice.”

“Kinda,” she says with a shrug.

Right. Athelia’s parents are rich. She can afford to dye her hair whenever she wants.

“Do your parents know?” I ask.

“Not yet. The guys want to come home with me over Thanksgiving break, which shouldn’t be an issue. My parents’ house is big enough to fit all of us. You and I will have to share my room, but I figure that’s not too big of a deal.”

I hesitate. My assumption was that I’d have to stay cooped up in Colton’s house for Thanksgiving, no matter what the guys did. Hearing them say I could spend it with Athelia felt like seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I’ve been too afraid to go outside except for occasionally sitting on Colton’s back porch until I get too cold. Getting out of town would be nice.

But hearing that Colton will be spending it alone broke my heart. I didn’t believe him when he said holidays are overrated. If I didn’t know he lost his mother when he was young, maybe I could, but I do know.

He’s not my responsibility, and I shouldn’t care. If he wants to stay home and be miserable, that’s on him. But I find myself giving Athelia and apologetic smile and saying, “Julie and Ben invited me to Thanksgiving again this year. I’ve turned them down for so many years, so I figure it’s time I finally say yes.”

“Oh. Yeah, no, that makes perfect sense.”

Athelia is obviously disappointed, and I immediately wonder if I’m making a mistake. Spending Thanksgiving with Colton? Am I out of my mind?

But as we keep talking about it, I stick to what I said. For some stupid reason, I can’t stop thinking about Colton, all miserable and alone. God, I must be in PMS, because knowing he’ll be miserable should make me happy, not sad.

“They really don’t seem to have a clue?” I ask Athelia.

Maybe I could do the same thing.

The thought is shocking to me, and I shove it away immediately. I’m an expert at little fibs, but managing to pull off an elaborate scheme like this? Hell, no. There’s no way I could do it.

“No,” Athelia says. “I think I fought them enough in the beginning, and every once in a while, I snap at them. Not too harshly, just as a reminder that they still have to prove themselves. Which… they actually seem to be trying to do.”

“Oh?”

“Sometimes, it feels like we’re back in freshman year. They’re being so kind to me, Haven. It feels like it has to be fake, like they’re pretending or something, but then I look into their eyes, and they’re so… sincere.”

Yep. Something is definitely off.

My best friend is talking about her bullies wistfully.

Wistfully.

I’d shake her to get her to wake up, but her plan is to destroy them emotionally. Maybe I’m imagining things.

“But that’s what you want, right?” I ask. “You need them to actually be invested in this.”

“I do,” she says absentmindedly.

Nope. Nope, nope, nope. I’ve gotta keep her on track.

“I for one can’t wait to see how miserable they end up,” I say, mostly to remind her of her own goal. “I’ll text you updates every time I see them.”

She laughs. “I can’t wait.”

Much better.