Chapter 103

ZADIE COLKIN.

“Okay, is this going to be a thing? I love you, Zee but I don’t like jocks. Especially this one. Something’s going on with you and I’ll figure it out and God help you, Theodore, if it’s something bad-.”

“Hails, I’m fine. Umm where is Ria?”

“At the Old Maple Grill, same place I’m headed. You sure you want to stay here with Theodore than go to a party?”

“I’m sure”, I lie, the blood in my veins remaining just as cold as it was minutes ago.

Hailey, who has red streaks in her hair gazes at me then at the guy standing in our living room and sighs.

A few minutes later, the door is closed with a bang.

“What happened today? Did he hurt you?”

“He wants me to go to a party with him. The same party Hailey and Ria are going to.”

Theo scratches the back of his head, “That’s in North U. But knowing how he operates, he’ll walk into a fire just to add more gasoline to it. Did he say anything else? Anything that could explain why he is going to that party?”

“Theo, you don’t understand. Tris will kill me if I go to a party. I don’t even want to-.”

“What did he say to you exactly, peaches?”

He knows we kissed.

He knows you spent the night in my room.

“I don’t know… something about him needing me because only I, can touch him?”

“Touch him? Touch him how?”

He asks. I watch for a second as his good working eye widens and his face morphs into something I can’t decipher.

“Theo-.”

“You are going to that party, Zadie. I’ll watch out for you but you have to do this. Look Tristan is still recuperating, he’ll barely pay attention at some party on the east side of campus. He won’t know you were there.”

Is he serious?

The phone in my hand pings and I glare at Theo before averting my gaze to my screen.

Unknown: I’ve been waiting for hours, violet. You won’t come to me, so let me come to you. I’m outside. Two minutes. You either come down or I come up.

“It’s him, isn’t it?”

“He’s here. He’s waiting for me.”

Tell me to stay, Theo.

Fight my demons. Or in this case, fight the nutcase parked outside my dorm.

“Go. I’ll be with you.”

Theo leans down to kiss my lips but I evade it and his lips land on my right cheek.

If he’s sending me to hell, best believe I am not kissing him while he does so.

****

Dark hair falling on both sides of his forehead, dark leather jacket daubing over his taut muscles, black faded jeans and a white tee underneath that has some gothic necklace hanging on top of it, Sinnett wears his name like a badge.

Dark, menacing with a bashing charisma.

He leans against a bike as his eyes methodically takes me in and hits me worse than the cool night air.

I’m not wearing anything fancy.

The dark-blue high-waisted jeans I got from Shein for nine bucks, eat my waist up and bulge around my hips and ass.

The white crop top I have on shows my cleavage a lot more than the tees I wear on the regular.

Add in a crop fleece jacket and I look like every North U girl on campus.

Yet the guy looks at me like… like I’m special.

Sin stands straight and my eyes fall to whatever he is holding.

No. I’m not… wearing that.

“You don’t have a car?” I ask.

“No. Come”, he beckons like I’m his pup.

I walk to him because something about his voice takes away my inhibitions.

“I can’t ride a bike.”

“Good because I’m the one steering it, Violet.”

“No. I can’t literally get on a bike.”

“Because of your hair? I got that covered”, he slaps the violet helmet in his hands with a smirk and fear and something else rushes to my stomach like a smoldering blaze.

“Sinnett, bikes aren’t my thing.”

Riding with guys who are creepy and suicidal isn’t my thing either.

“We have protection.”

“I could fall off of that… that thing.”

“Not if I hold you.”

Fire knots low in my belly when he looks down on me, his six-two height overpowering mine, his heavy musk drowning me.

The only thing separating me and him is that helmet he has between us.

I breathe, he watches that breath escape me, watches the small hitch in my throat and the way my chest moves betrayingly.

“Sin”, his name comes out like a moan from me and that has him grinding his jaw.

Angry. Murderous.

“Get on the bike, Violet. I won’t ask nicely the second time around.”

I don’t get on the bike.

He doesn’t allow me to.

What he does however?

He makes me sit on his rangy thighs while he rides his bike.

I straddle him like a child.

My chest to his chest.

My helmet bumping his dark helmet on the side.

My hands holding onto his waist for dear life.

And the torture of knowing my life is at the mercy of this beast and his beastly vehicle.

The Old Maple Grill was a warehouse back in the day.

Some say, some employee was working a night shift when he got abducted and was never found.

They say at the stroke of midnight, you can still hear the ghost of the abducted worker begging someone to let him get back to work.

Standing behind the same warehouse right now makes that story look a little bit far-fetched.

The building is not exactly the finest piece of work but it looks good from the outside.

The floor-to-ceiling windows upstairs give a view of what’s happening inside from where I’m standing.

The fluttering neon lights leak to the outside as well as the music blazing from the speakers.

The rush of it all distracts me as Sin takes off my helmet from my head, walks back to his bike to strap it before he takes my hand and starts walking to the bulky men who man the backstage door.

They don’t ask me or him for IDs.

They barely look at Sin as they step aside.

This party is at North U.

Seth and his friends might have planned the party too so how is North U’s most hated enemy walking right in like he owns the place?

My thoughts, drenched in nothing but nerves, tumble as we walk into a small room with two chairs by the wall.

This isn’t the party.

What… Oh God… is he going to…

“You are attractive. Most guys would kill to have you in their beds but I’m not them, violet. The only thing you are to me is a bargain.

I keep you instead of keeping your boyfriend chained in my basement. I won’t fuck you and contrary to popular belief, I don’t force myself on things that don’t want me in the first place.

So to answer your thoughts, I’m not here to take advantage of you so sit.”

“Then what are we doing here in the first place? This isn’t the party.”

He lets go of my hand then walks to take a seat in one of the two chairs.

“It’s not. it’s something better.”

“Something like what?”

“Sit, Zadie and I’ll answer all the questions you have.”

Music blasts the walls of the room I’m in and I cross my arms on my chest.

“I’d rather stand, thank you very much.”

“You want to do this back-and-forth thing where you disobey me and I teach you how to fall in line?”

His voice drops to a deeply quiet timbre, “Because I’ll do so, violet.”

“I did what you asked! I… I showed up at your mansion, early! I cooked! Whatever games you are playing to make fun of me, just… just stop them because this is getting way out of hand.”

He chuckles.

“Way out of hand? Why you? Why do you get to be the one who can touch me of all the self-righteous Barbies in these two useless schools?”

I punched him once and he took that to heart like no one had ever done that to him.

I want to tell him I’m not self-righteous. I don’t even know what being a Barbie means.

My words die down as he stands up from his seat, walks to the wall I hadn’t noticed was nothing but a curtain and tugs the curtain down revealing a window that shows an empty room on the other side.

“What is this?” I whisper.

“Give it a minute, love”, Sin’s unabridged voice mocks.

It takes two minutes.

The door of the empty room that’s on the other side is jerked open.

A guy storms inside with two blonde females clinging onto him.

Kissing one of the girls on her lips, his right hand glides up between the legs of the other girl who’s kissing him on the neck.

The girls purr his name. I can see their lips moving.

But I can’t hear them. Same as how they can’t see me and Sin, or hear us.

Defeat and unshed tears crawl up my throat.

I watch as both girls strip for him.

I watch as he takes his clothes off… all his clothes off.

Then I watch as one of the girls falls on the bed and opens her legs for him.

Without a care, Theodore slams inside the first girl, fucking her in front of my very eyes.

Every thrust tears something inside me in pieces.

Every time he kisses them makes me feel disgusted that he took my first kiss.

I close my eyes, wishing I could unsee everything but the guy standing behind me now won’t let me do it.

“Open your eyes, violet.”

I can’t.

“N—No.”

“You called me disgusting well I wear my disgusting cloak with pride. That asshole however, he hides who he is in the shadows like a coward.”

I open my eyes.

Theo is still going at it with the next girl while his fingers disappear between the legs of the other naked girl.

“Y-You did this.”

“Showed you that there is no prince charming who is going to save you from the cave? Then yes, I did. I could have dragged him in that room but Theodore Archibald was more than willing to comply as soon as he heard pussies were on the table.

Next time you let him kiss you, I want you to picture that guy in there. Next time you let him in your bed, remember he was in another bed before he came to you.”

“You are no better than him!” I lash holding my tears back.

Sin’s voice skates across my right ear, “I’m much worse.”

My heart dragging on the floor, my tears fighting a losing battle, my first kiss stolen by an undeserving guy, I pivot for the door.

The bouncers who were at the door when we came in aren’t there and maybe that’s okay.

I’d hate for them to see the look on my face as I realize that well shit… Theodore Archibald the guy I have put on a pedestal since we were kids isn’t… the guy I fell for.

The guy I fell for wouldn’t kiss me then move on to fuck and kiss not one but two girls at some party where he’s supposed to be watching me.

“Violet”, Sinnett calls behind me but I walk as fast as my sneakers can carry me into the night.

“Violet.”

“I’m not going in there! You proved your point, okay? I’m dumb, I’m stupid, I’m… how could I think for a second that one kiss with a guy I’ve had a crush on for years could… could change anything?”

Sinnett holds my wrist stopping me in my tracks.

I don’t want to turn around.

If I turn around, I’ll cry and he’ll win.

He brought me here so he could crush me. So, he could win.

“Violet.”

“Don’t call me… that”, my throat wobbles.

When the first tear falls on my cheek, there is no stopping the waterfalls from taking it over.

I tear up and the next thing I land on a warm hard chest that smells of leather and bergamot.

Curse Ethan Volkov and his fucked-up mind.

Curse Theodore.

Curse…

They say that the calm before the storm is always eerily quiet.

So standstill that you never smell or see the storm coming.

The storm of my night hits me like a brick to the lungs.

One minute I’m hugging Sin and the next minute, the sound of wood hitting something hard earns a scream from me.

I’m yanked from behind.

Sin staggers backward before the guy who hit him with a block of wood hits his back again.

“I’m here, baby sister. Theo filled me in on everything and this bastard isn’t going to hurt you.”

“Tristan?”

I gasp.

My gasp turns to worry when five to six guys I recognize from Tristan’s football team circle Sinnett.