Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 176345 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 882(@200wpm)___ 705(@250wpm)___ 588(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 176345 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 882(@200wpm)___ 705(@250wpm)___ 588(@300wpm)
“Don’t pretend you don’t know,” she says, and she kicks him in the gut, knocking him to the ground.
“No, I don’t know!”
Then she pulls out her phone. “This!”
She turns the phone around to show me too, and my jaw drops the second I see us all in masks and her strapped to that chair the night at the Shack.
A picture sent straight to everyone’s email.
Fuck.
“You sent this! This was your picture! And now the whole fucking school knows!”
“What the f—I didn’t send this,” Nathan says.
She kicks him again. “Bullshit!!” She’s turning red with rage. “You promised me you wouldn’t send them!”
“No, I swear, I didn’t,” he says, holding up his hands.
She steps off him and snatches the knives out of the fountain.
“Lana,” I mutter.
She points the knife at me now. “NO. Stay back.”
“Nathan says he didn’t do it,” I say.
“And you believe him?” she retorts. “He had every reason. You just wanted to use me, and you got your wish,” she snarls. “After everything I gave to you three …”
It hurts to see her in this much fucking pain.
“I trusted you!”
Her voice is in as much shambles as my own fucking heart.
“Everyone saw me!” Tears well up in her eyes.
“Is it so bad everyone knows we’re a thing?” I ask.
“You don’t understand,” she says with a hushed voice. “That dead body is in the picture. They know I’m a killer now.”
I swallow. “We can fix this.”
“NO, YOU CAN’T!”
Everyone’s looking at us, but I don’t care.
They already know we’ve fucked with her in a disturbing way.
There’s no hiding anymore.
“Everything I worked so damn hard for, my reputation, my life, my family … it’s all destroyed because of you.”
“Don’t say that,” Milo mutters. “Your brother doesn’t know yet, does he?”
“He will,” she says. “It’s only a matter of minutes until someone shows him.” She sniffs, raising her murderous eyes up at me. “And then he’ll come for you.”
“I didn’t share that picture,” Nathan says as he crawls up from the ground.
“I don’t care. It’s your fault it got out,” she says, pointing the other knife at him too now. “I made a deal with you, and you broke your end.”
“Lana …” I warn, feeling my blood curdle.
“Don’t. That deal we had, it’s over.”
I raise a hand, trying to control my own emotions as well as hers. “Lana, think hard about the words you’re saying.” I look her deep in the eyes as her lip twitches with rage, but she doesn’t look away. “I think you know as well as I do there is no escaping us. Deal or no deal.”
“I should’ve left you all to die in that club,” she hisses.
Her words sting like a knife thrust straight into my heart.
“Don’t do this, Lana,” Milo pleads. “Please.”
“Too late,” she says.
“You won’t kill us,” I say, tilting my head as she pushes the knife underneath my chin. “You can’t.”
She grinds her teeth, clearly getting more enraged by the second.
Still, she retracts her blades and tucks them back into her pocket, then turns around and marches off.
“Where are you going?” Nathan balks.
“Away from you. And don’t even think of following me,” she yells back.
“It doesn’t matter where you go, Lana. I’ll always be there,” I say.
But instead of saying another word, she merely sticks up two middle fingers and struts off, right through the crowd of people who part just for her like she’s motherfucking Moses splitting the Red Sea in half.
Lana
I bury my face in my pillow and scream so loudly my voice box cracks from the sheer weight of my emotions.
I wish I could kill them.
I want to. So badly.
But I know I physically can’t. And it breaks me.
How could I let them get to me like that? How could I let them into my world, my life, my fucking heart, and crush it all up like it meant nothing?
That deal we made meant nothing.
I gave my body to those fuckers, and they betrayed me by throwing my secret out into the world.
“Fuck!” I yell, punching the pillow.
Someone knocks on my door, and I pause. “Lana? Brooke called and said you wouldn’t let anyone into your room so I thought I’d come over. Are you okay in there?”
It’s Crystal.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
I wipe away the tears and sit up straight.
She gently opens the door and peeks inside before stepping in and closing the door behind her. In her hair is that same rose from before.
“She told you about the picture?” I clutch the pillow against my chest.
She swallows and nods. “I saw it. I’m sorry. Can I sit down next to you?”
When I nod, she gently sits down and wraps her arm around my shoulders.
“It’s okay.”
“I’m mortified,” I mutter.
“It’s not your fault,” she says, sucking in a breath.
I glance her way. “Please promise me you won’t tell my dad or my brother.”
She places a hand on my knee. “I won’t. I promise, but I can’t guarantee other people won’t.” Her eyes travel off. “Most of the students at school already saw it.”