Touched by the devil, p.6
Touched by the Devil, page 6
part #3 of Boys of Preston Prep Series
“I know. I agree. It was a one-time deal,” I assure her. “But, back to my problems—”
“You mean your dirtiest, most shameful secret, showing up right here on campus?”
I cut my eyes down the hall, feeling my face darken. “Yes, that one. When did you know?”
“When she told me about the asshole at the garage and how she originally met him. It was after we got back to the dorms.” She pulls out her books, sliding me a knowing look. “This was, of course, following an interesting phone call from the mechanic, who’s apparently offered to work on the car at a very reduced price. Know anything about that, slugger?”
I frown. “Don’t.” If Georgia had felt the weight of the hit, seen her laying there motionless on the ground, heard her screams...
No.
Hitting that girl isn’t a joke.
“Listen, Bass,” she says, slamming the door and spinning the lock with a quick twist. She levels me with a look. “I don’t know what you’re doing with the car, but take my advice here. There’s a vibe going on, and it’s screaming ‘leave her alone.’ Sugar seems like a troubled girl, and if I’m reading things right? The last thing she needs is to deal with you any more than necessary.”
I clench my jaw, knowing that she’s right, but also knowing that I’m going to fix that damn car. I’m already balls deep in the thing. It might be her car, but a part of it, in some way, is already mine, too. “Wait,” I say, doing a double-take, “I’m sorry, did you say her name is Sugar?”
What kind of fucking name is Sugar? More importantly, who names a girl like that Sugar? Do her parents even know her?
Sugar and spice and everything that wants to cut my fucking balls off.
Georgia presses a hand against my stomach and winks. “Good thing you don’t have a sweet tooth, right?”
She’s gone before I have a chance to respond.
The bell rings and there’s no time to worry about it further. I have Dr. Ross next, and the last thing I need is to start the semester off on her bad side. I turn the other direction and stroll into her class with plenty of time to spare. I nod to Reyn, whose long legs are taking up half the aisle. I tap on Afton’s desk as I pass. She blesses me with a half-smile and her shirt is unbuttoned one less than is strictly approved by dress code. Thank you, Miss Cross. She has no use for high school dick, but she’s still a team player.
I lift my head toward my desk—last row, second to last seat—when my step falters.
Unlucky bastard, indeed.
The girl, Sugar, is occupying the seat right in front of mine. She’s dressed like every other girl in this damned place; black and red plaid skirt, crisp white shirt, and regulation white knee socks. It’s the shoes that stop me cold. Black lace-up boots with scuffed toes. My eyes flick up to her face and while her expression is stone, I see the flush of red on her cheeks.
Dr. Ross clears her throat. “Is there a reason you’re standing in the middle of the room with your mouth hanging open, Mr. Wilcox?”
“No ma’am.” I flash her a grin. “Just taking in all my classmates after a long winter break.” I pass Elana, grazing a knuckle over her jaw. “Hey girl, love the new scarf. Aubrey, you’re looking good.” I glance to the back, toward Reyn, who watches me through narrow eyes. “Reynolds, you’re looking extra glowy this morning. I see the holidays treated you well.”
“Wilcox,” he grinds out, “I swear to god—"
I’m doing everything I can to slow the inevitable, but Dr. Ross is not one to be trifled with. One more second and she’ll toss me in detention for the rest of the year.
“Mr. Wilcox…” Her voice conveys her annoyance, yet I still don’t stop.
“And you, Dr. Ross.” I peer at her, hand over my heart. “Is that a new brooch? It really matches your eyes. Mr. Dr. Ross is quite the gift giver, I see.” With that, I slide into my seat, hoping everyone is distracted and annoyed enough that the hostile vibes rolling off Sugar aren’t discernable.
The final bell rings and Dr. Ross jumps right into the lesson. I get out my notebook and pencil, flipping it open to a clean page. The rest of the class settles in, the muscle memory kicking in after a few weeks off. On the best of days, I struggle with staying attentive, but today it’s outright impossible. I lean back, stretching one leg forward, and flip my pencil through my fingers. Sugar makes a sound—this soft, yet somehow hard breath—and jerks to the side to yank her backpack closer to her desk, all protective and tense. What does she think I’m going to do, grab it and run off? No,Sugar, that’s my boy Reyn back there. He’d steal the shirt right off your back, if given half a chance. But thievery isn’t my vice.
I knew the girl, Sugar, was small. That had been entirely too evident when I decked her. But she seems even smaller now that she’s sitting right in front of me, so close. Slim, narrow shoulders that almost curve inward, petite little ears with tiny hoops slipped through them. I stare at the long, dark hair in front of me, wondering when she got rid of the blue tips, wondering why she moved here, trying to figure out how in the hell this little townie from the Briar Cliffs—my biggest sin—showed up at Preston Prep.
I’m not the one who doesn’t belong here. This turf is as close to mine as any other.
She shifts, making the ends of her hair drag along the top of my desk. I slide my pencil forward and cave to the desire—no, compulsion—to run the tip of it through the inky black fringe. Mesmerized, I slowly run the pencil from one end to the other, watching the little strands fall like a silky, dark, sweet-smelling curtain—
Whip!
“WHAT THE HELL?!”
Still holding my pencil, I look up into Sugar’s face—her blood-red, pinched, and totally pissed-the-fuck-off face. She’s looming in the aisle, having thrown herself violently out of her seat. Her eyes are an inferno, chest heaving in these sharp little jerks that make zero sense to me. It’s like she’s having a problem breathing. There’s this vein on her neck that I’m pretty sure I can see throbbing.
I sit here, stunned speechless as I look back at her.
Please don’t scream.
“Miss Voss,” Dr. Ross says, standing wide-eyed at the front of the room. “Calm yourself right now.”
“This guy touched me!” Sugar spits, thrusting an accusatory finger at me. I don’t miss the way it trembles. “He grabbed my hair!”
I gape, my baffled gaze pinging between her fiery eyes and Dr. Ross. “I did not!”
Dr. Ross looks more concerned than pissed. She takes a step toward Sugar, who reacts by grabbing her backpack and promptly sprinting for the door. It closes with a sharp click behind her when she flies from the room without a second look.
The whole class is stunned silent, although a few people are definitely looking at me. Aubrey, Elana, and Afton, for sure. I shrug, all ‘hell if I know’, and Afton narrows her eyes.
“I’ll go find her,” Afton offers, standing quickly.
“Take her to the infirmary.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Afton grabs her own bag and walks out of the room. This time, every guy watches her go.
I exhale and sink into my seat, tapping my pencil on the desk. I’m thinking that, this time at least, I’m wrong. Maybe everything isn’t about me. Whatever is going on with that girl, it has to be something else. I mean, that shit was straight up coconuts, wasn’t it?
For some reason, I look back at Reyn for confirmation of this.
He looks just as confused.
I shift my gaze to the front of the room and realize Dr. Ross is staring at me. “Mr. Wilcox.”
I straighten in my seat, pulling a polite expression over my features. “Yes, ma’am?”
She peers over her glasses at me. “I don’t know what you did to that girl, but make sure you apologize.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And prepare for two days of detention for interrupting my class.”
Annoyance flickers in my chest. Two days? What the fucking fuck? I don’t argue back. I know she’ll make it five in a heartbeat. Maybe longer. I bite back the anger and nod. “Yes, ma’am.”
6
Sugar
Keep your hands to yourself.
There’s one rule.
One.
Keep your goddamn, motherfucking hands to yourself. It can’t be that hard. Kindergartners grasp this shit the first week of school.
That’s what I keep saying to myself as I roam the hallways of this massive, godforsaken place trying to find the bathroom. I’d bolted from the room like a complete lunatic, running down two different halls before I came to my senses and realized I’m completely turned around. The halls are eerily quiet, void of the nonstop disruption at my old public school. Finally, I see a small marker on the door that says ‘women’ and duck inside. A quick look around makes it obvious that the higher quality of private school education extends to bathroom accommodations, too.
I mean, not one broken sink or mirror in sight, and every stall has a door.
Walking over to the sink, I drop my bag on the floor and stare at my face in the mirror. My nose and eyes are red, the tell-tale sign of my ultimate weakness. My hair is windswept from running down the hall, so my ears are exposed, showing off the little hoop earrings Georgia had insisted I wear. The uniform is still straight and pressed, and looking at myself, I can barely recognize the person staring back.
This isn’t the girl from the Cliffs, with her dark eye makeup and ratty jeans. This isn’t the person who walked through the docks with a fuck-you shield wrapped around her. This isn’t even the person I was a couple days ago, elbowing Doug and escaping the consequences.
Who are you? I mentally ask. Who is this person who looks like a schoolgirl and acts like a mental patient? This isn’t me. It’s jarring and disorienting, like at some point I’ve been knocked unconscious, and this whole experience is some very vivid dream playing out in my head.
Though, were that the case, my brain certainly wouldn’t put that asshole here.
Seeing him in the doorway had been startling. And not just his presence, his appearance as well. The two other times I’d seen him, he’d been dressed so casually, like any other high school shitheel. But today he looked like the other boys, dressed in his uniform coat with his red and black tie slightly askew. A wolf in sheep’s clothing. He looked both out of place and perfectly at ease.
I should have known he’d be a student here. Why wouldn’t he be? Only rich kids migrate to the Briar Cliffs in the summer, and this place is full of them.
It was bad enough seeing him, but then he had to make an utter ass out of himself as he made his entrance. Seriously, what an egotistical jack-off. Not just abusive, but an idiot as well. All easy smiles and swagger, the kind of guy who thinks he’s untouchable. Clearly, no respect for boundaries, the way he was touching everyone and everything. He even mouthed off to the teacher, who looks scary as hell.
I take a deep breath and take the earrings out. This won’t do—playing at being like any of the other girls here. I don’t want to be like them. Look at Georgia, so trusting and optimistic. If that’s ‘normal’, then I don’t want it.
Grabbing a paper towel, I run it under the sink water. I’ve just wiped off my face when the bathroom door opens. A gorgeous girl from Dr. Ross’s class walks in. She’s tall and thin, with perfect hair and a calculating expression on her face.
“Oh,” she says. “There you are. How the hell did you get all the way to the tech hall?”
I blink. “Me?”
She rolls her eyes and approaches the sink, checking herself out in the mirror. “Aren’t you the one who just ran like a bat out of hell from class?”
I lean back against the sink. “Yeah, that’d be me.” I give her a sidelong look. “On a scale of one to ten, how crazy did I look?”
“That’s relative.” She digs through her backpack and pulls out a makeup bag, unzips it and with sharp, glossy nails, extracts her lip gloss. “I’m Afton, by the way. And let me tell you, everyone here may look all nice and put together, but that’s what money is for—to cover everything in a shiny wrapper, bow and all, so it looks fully functional. The matching uniforms don’t hurt, either.” She swipes on a thick coat of pale red. “But crazy, along with dark secrets and deviant behavior, is pretty standard around here, and the first day at Preston isn’t easy. I think you’re fine.”
I exhale, feeling slightly better, although I’m still not sure why this girl is talking to me. “Well, at least I fit in,” I laugh sarcastically. “What an impression to make, huh?”
“So, what’d he do?” she asks, snapping back on the cap. She drops it in the bag and pulls out a hairbrush.
“Who?”
“Sebastian,” she clarifies. “He messed with you?”
Sebastian. Wilcox. A name to match the face. The anger wells up in me again when I bite out, “He was messing with my hair.” And then I have to pause, because that sounds… totally fucking pathetic. Who wigs out like that just because someone touched their hair? Afton flicks her gaze to me and I can see the doubt there. “Look, I know it doesn’t sound like a big deal, but I just… I really don’t like people touching me.”
I prepare for the inevitable. Questions. Skepticism. That look that says I’m a huge drama queen for having the gall to value my personal space to the degree of having random classroom outbursts.
But she just says, “Fair enough,” and runs the brush through her hair, creating perfectly shiny waves. Who is this girl? “I’m sure he didn’t mean anything by it. He’s not a bad guy.”
I snort. “That hasn’t been my experience with him.”
“You know Bass?” she asks, finally turning to me, eyebrows drawn. “What, from before?”
I pause, considering her. “You got any eyeliner in that thing?” I point to her makeup bag, and she looks surprised, but pushes it down the counter.
I choose her darkest liner and lean in close to the mirror to apply it. “We crossed paths last summer. He got in a fight with this guy at a party, and when I tried to break it up, he punched me.” I can see in the reflection that her gaze darts to my jaw, despite the fact I haven’t mentioned where he punched me. “It was a whole thing.”
She asks, “Like, an accident?” and I pause, nostrils flaring.
“Sure,” I say, moving to my other eye. “An accident—like a drunk driver hitting a car of random people is an accident.” I smudge the liner a bit before putting it back in her bag, sliding it down the counter to her. “Thanks,” I say, feeling a little more like myself.
Afton assesses herself one last time, then places her brush in her bag and slowly zips it up. She turns away from the mirror and looks at me. “Sebastian Wilcox is a hotheaded, temperamental, impulsive, sweet-talking charmer.”
I don’t know about charm, but, “Sounds about right.”
“But, he’s not a bad guy. His older brother, Heston? He’s a bad guy. Some of the other people around here? Total shitheads. But Bass isn’t one of them.”
I stop just shy of rolling my eyes at her. “No offense, but I sort of have this whole philosophy. When people show me who they are, I believe them the first time.” I put Georgia’s earrings into my pocket, real careful-like, so I don’t lose them. “He showed me who he is. Volatile, violent, selfish, dangerous… probably an abusive piece of shit.”
“He’s not…!” she starts, but instantly stops, her lips forming a tight line. “Bass is actually a good guy. He’s loyal and funny and incredibly hot.” She gives me a hard look, “And you can never tell him I said that.”
“I won’t,” I reply, wanting to argue with all of that, but not bothering. This girl obviously likes that shitbag—I won’t be changing any minds here—and I’m not trying to beef with one of Preston’s resident Scary Girls.
“Here’s the thing,” she says. “Bass is going through a lot right now. It’s not my drama to talk about, but just be aware that you’ve only been introduced to his worst shade. I’m not saying you should be best friends with the guy or anything, but there are a lot of people around here way more dangerous than Sebastian Wilcox. I’d suggest that you ignore him, but he’s like a fly to honey, and if I’m not mistaken your name is Sugar, right?”
“Yeah,” I reply, eyes narrowing, “but what the hell does that mean?”
She picks up her leather bag and slings it over her shoulder. “Well, just look at you. You’re different and pretty and look like you could shove that boot up someone’s ass. And I suspect that hitting you that night bothers him way more than he’d ever admit. The guys around here like to have control, and it sounds like he completely lost it that night. It’s probably driving him crazy, which would explain whatever happened in class today.” Her phone vibrates and she looks down, revealing a ghost of a smile. “I need to take this, but sit with us at lunch today, okay? Georgia will be there.”
I take a moment to consider this. “Will he be there?”
“Most likely.” She heads to the door, hair swinging behind her. “Oh, I’m Afton by the way.”
“Nice to meet you, Afton,” I say, although I’m not really sure what just happened. The offer of lunch is phrased like an invitation, but I get the feeling most people don’t turn this girl down, which is possibly why she left before I could agree. Even though I don’t decline, I don’t plan on taking her up on it, either. Afton may be the Queen Bee of this school, but I don’t intend on being in anyone’s hive.
The rest of my morning goes by without incident and is pleasantly Sebastian Wilcox-free. Well, for the most part. I have a study period before lunch and am assigned to go to the library to catch up on a long-term project. That’s where I inadvertently sit next to what I can only assume is the school gossip, which results in me learning more about everyone than I really want to.
I choose a seat, but I’m more distracted with how to feel about pulling out my laptop than who I’m sitting by. Part of me wants to feel embarrassed at the way it looks. The screen casing is held together by duct tape, a long, jagged fracture going down the corner, that I’ve tried to cover with stickers. There are three keys missing, and it doesn’t quite close right. A bigger part of me thinks, fuck it, and dumps it unceremoniously onto the smooth tabletop, mentally daring anyone to look my way. It’s an ancient, loud machine that whirs like a beast when I boot it up.
