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"Please let me do your make-up," Darcy asked, pressing her palms together. "I just know my followers will love you."
She'd been pestering him to feature on her vlog since he got there. This girl who clearly had a crush on Kai didn't have a full-time job, though she did spend a lot of time and effort on her beauty vlog, and she had a surprising amount of followers.
"Are you wearing make-up?" he questioned her, knowing full well she was.
"Of course," she cried, checking her face in the mirror. "Why?"
"Oh." Damien inspected her face with a deliberate veil of disdain. "You haven't covered that huge pimple very well. I figured a beauty queen like you would have some secret trick for hiding blemishes."
After pretending to borrow her phone and hackinging her home computer, he had found out she was self-conscious about her pimples. That worrying about flare-ups kept her awake at night, and she'd googled ways to defeat the bacteria in her face so many times her search history was littered with homemade remedies and lists of 'best skin care products for acne.' She didn't even have acne, but she was borderline neurotic about it.
"Got any chips, pizza face?" Julian asked with a cruel grin, making her face crumble.
Making her feel bad gave him a thrill that was hard to describe. It was like a tingle in his fingers—exciting and relaxing at the same time. He knew it was wrong, but it felt so good he just couldn't care. Besides, she was hardly an angel. He thought about all the people she'd hurt over the years—all of the nerdy and not so pretty girls she'd jeered at—and decided he was simply dishing out free karma.
"Erm, there's some in the pantry," she muttered, frowning into her compact mirror and poking at her skin.
After trying to fix the non-existent problem, she decided to stay off camera, pointing it at Damien, which was fine by him. He liked to be the centre of attention.
Damien smiled and tried his best to look cute, making the occasional comment as Darcy applied badly done goth makeup to his face. Honestly, he thought she was transforming him into some hideous drag queen, but he pretended to enjoy the experience. After all, people were watching.
She'd just finished up when Ray let himself into her house and sat on the sofa without a word.
"Oh, will you let me do your hair? Please? We can make a video," Darcy asked him. "You are starting to look like there's a giant mushroom growing on your head."
Julian and Damien laughed as Ray grunted and shook his head. "I'm growing it."
"We can see that," Kenny sneered and giggled until Ray flashed him a sour look.
The group fell silent when the doorbell rang. They decided Damien should get it since it was his sister, though it felt odd answering Kai's door. She was stood there with a nerdy-looking bloke, the pair equally uncomfortable as he led them into Kai's living room.
"I still can't believe I'm helping Kai," Damien said with dramatic and quite deliberate flair. "Who would have thought?"
"You're amazing for doing this," Jenna cooed. The sheer gratitude made him shiver as she rubbed his arm and stared into his eyes. "You're so amazingly kind and forgiving."
Darcy was sat on the sofa, buffing her already perfect nails, when Damien nudged her and gave her a pointed look. She did not like Jenna, probably because she was jealous of anyone with natural beauty to rival her own. That, or she was jealous over Jenna and Kai's past.
"Oh," she uttered. "Do you guys want a drink?"
"Do you have tea?" Jenna asked, and her timid friend nodded. "This is Ben. He's the head of IT at the school and he's helping me gather evidence against Felix."
Ben took his laptop out and tapped away at the keys for a moment before turning the screen to face them.
"This is his dad's account, but it's Felix using it. Most of these are legitimate business transactions, but every so often he moves money into a company called AMS Ltd. Best I can tell, this is a shell company."
Damien looked at the figures but had no idea how any of this information could help them. His eyes narrowed as he noticed a sum of three thousand moving to a 'flex' account. This was his account type, and they were usually given to teens and young people.
"Who is Aisha Thompson?" Damien asked.
"What?" Jenna's face turned white. "Riley had a girlfriend called Aisha."
"Yeah?" Damien asked. "Would they use her account to move money, because Felix put three grand into her bank a few days ago?"
"She just had an abortion," Jenna explained. "They were planning to raise the baby together, but a couple of days ago she suddenly got an abortion without telling him."
"Wow," Damien chuckled. "Well, that's going to be the cherry on the cake. I think we have all the information we need to make sure these two go their separate ways if they don't end up in the same prison, that is."
"No." Jenna stood and shook her head. "We have to tell Riley now. He deserves to know."
When everyone gave her the same confused and questioning look, she breathed a sigh of defeat and sat down.
"Jenna... you don't... you don't have feelings for this guy?" Damien asked.
"No!" Jenna cried in a tone too loud and defensive. "I just... I feel like he's a victim of Felix as well. I think Felix is the one who is trying to mess us up, and he's using Riley."
"We are all here to help Kai," Damien said, looking over at the others for confirmation. They all nodded. "Riley isn't our friend or our problem. He's a thug who almost killed his own dad and let his brother take the fall."
"No." Jenna shook her head. "I refuse to believe he's all bad. I thought Kai was bad at one point in time."
She looked like she was about to put up more of an argument but eventually lowered her head and nodded in agreement.
"Kai is a bad guy," Ray, usually silent, decided to input. "But he's our bad guy, and we love him."
"Yep," Ste agreed.
"We do indeed," Darcy piped up.
Jenna nodded again, head bowing even lower.
The IT guy shifted nervously in his seat before coughing. "Erm... who is Kai?"