Page 112 of Soul So Dark

But it’s the sensation of Jordy’s fingertips massaging the back of my neck that finally draws me back, and I’m hit with an eerie sense of déjà vu. I study her face, gazing back at me with the same longing I saw that one night in Leland Wiltshire’s pole building, when she was so desperate for my attention.

Time with Jordy is cyclical, and we’re back to where we started. Desperation begets control, and control begets power. And that’s why I’m going to do what I’m about to do. After what happened, she’ll do anything I want, and that’s what I see in those eyes that drew me in the first time. She’s figured out what she needs to do, and she’s locked in.

Like a fucking snake.

A smile tugs at my cheeks. “Did you spend the last 10 months rehearsing that or did you just throw it together on the way out here?”

Jordy’s smile fades. “We’ve all made mistakes, Alex.”

“No,Ididn’t make any mistakes,” I lean in, getting in her face, “and grabbing my brother’sdickand putting it back inside you wasn’t a mistake.”

She averts her eyes, the veins popping in her neck as I recall her transgressions.

For the record, I don’t give a fuck about Jordy. I don’t like people thinking they’re entitled to what’s mine and I’m not about to be tricked into becoming anyone’s meal ticket.

“Listen closely, Jor,” I murmur, “I don’t want you.”

I enunciate slowly so maybe she’ll get it through her thick skull.

“Quit trying to make this happen.”

She clenches her jaw, her eyes darkening with each word as I speak hatred and malice to her.

“You sad…pathetic…desperatelittle girl.”

Baring her teeth, Jordy reels back and smacks me across the jaw so hard that it throws my head to the side. In an instant, my shoulder tenses and I raise my hand, ready to strike back.

But then I see it; the subtle flash behind her eyes that betrays her for a fraction of a second—the one identical characteristic that she and her mother share. She steels herself, ready to absorb the hell I’m about to unleash. She almost looks excited about it. And in that instant, the realization hits like a freight train.

I know what she’s doing.

She’ll take the hit, but I’m the one that’ll pay for it one way or another.

Slowly, I lower my arm and steady my breathing. Then I reach behind her and wrap my arm around her waist. For a moment she thinks I've changed my mind, but then I reach up and twist my dash cam around to point at the driver's side.

I grab the handle and throw the door open, lifting Jordy out of the vehicle with me, and take a few strides into the gravel. I set her down, still in frame, and then, without a word, I turn on my heel and return to the vehicle. She gapes at me as I grab her bag from the passenger seat and toss it at her feet before climbing back inside and slamming the door behind me.

Unlike her, the camera won’t lie. And I’m not leaving her in the middle of nowhere; her neighborhood is visible from the top of this hill. But this conversation is over. I know Jordy’s not finished. She’s never finished. And if I’ve learned anything about her, it’s that she’ll go to great lengths to get what she wants, even if it means torching everything in her path.

But the next time she comes at me with some insidious plan to ruin my life, she’d better be prepared to pay dearly for it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Dallas

“That was a nice touch,” Austin grins, “adding that picture at the last minute.”

“Don’t tell anyone, it’ll be an Easter egg for anyone who’s actually bored enough to look at it.”

Once Shelby fixed her broken links, our redesigned pages for the boys’ and girls’ soccer teams earned us an A in Web Design. Cassie Heeley, the captain of the girls’ team, who also happens to be in our class, asked if I could include photos from their team lock-in last summer. It was a cute idea, so of course I had to do something extra for the boys’ team, too.

They, however, didn’t have a team-building sleepover like the girls. Instead, I took it upon myself to trawl through my mom’s photos and find a few candid ones of the boys, and I might’ve included one of Colson, Mason, Alex, and Aiden from their freshman year. The team hosted a carwash fundraiser and the four of them are standing in a line being hazed by the seniors, with thick suds strategically placed on their chests to look like bikini tops.

They all look like a bunch of douches.

Austin turns at the double doors that lead to the senior lot, but I don’t follow.

“See you tomorrow,” I say as I continue on down the hall.