Page 75 of Raise Hell

Dead wrong.

* * *

I’m allowingmyself to be afraid, but that isn’t enough to make me stop.

The Ducati still started up, thankfully, but I’m barely able to ride it. I can already feel the gigantic bruise forming on my thigh from where I hit the ground. Lifting my leg onto the bike and keeping my balance on this treacherous road is more than a little painful.

By the time I’ve limped back to campus, it’s past curfew. The gate guard that somehow didn’t hear the crash barely bats an eye as I drive past.

With a hoodie covering my hair and the leather jacket pulled over it, he probably thinks I’m Drake.

I leave the bike in the same place I found it, parked on the grass outside the administration building. I decide to leave the keys in the ignition. Drake is eventually going to figure out I did this, but at least I’ll have plausible deniability.

Anya is in our living room watching television, but she barely does more than wave as I slip in the door. If she notices that my jeans are torn or that I’m limping, she doesn’t comment on it. Whatever reality show playing on the screen is clearly more interesting than whatever I have going on.

For the first time, I’m relieved to have a roommate who doesn’t see much beyond the superficial.

“Oh my God, where have you been?”

So much for that.

I freeze with my hand on the knob of my bedroom door. It takes a second to fix a neutral smile on my face as I turn back to look at her. “Nowhere. Just hanging out.”

Anya has her arms propped on the back of the couch as she stares at me. “You look like you’ve been running through the woods. Is that a stick stuck in your hair?”

“I was walking on the trails around campus and fell into a ditch.”

A knowing smile crosses her face. “You don’t need to tell me how you ended up on your back in the woods.”

“Am I supposed to know what you’re talking about?”

“I saw Drake sitting with you at lunch. Havoc boys never leave their table, not for anyone. And then the shit that went down at the game. Ooh, girl. I know a watershed moment when I see one.” She waggles her eyebrows, a huge grin spreading across her face. “Just tell me how Drake is in bed, because I’ve been dying to know. I heard from one of the freshman who stocks towels in the locker room that he’s hung like a donkey with elephantiasis.”

His dick is impressive, at least based on the brief glimpse I got before I stole his keys and ran out of Havoc House. Though I wouldn’t describe it in quite the same way.

“That sounds painful, both for him and whatever girls he ends up with. But I wouldn’t know. Drake and I aren’t together.”

“I never suggested you were together,” she says drolly. “Drake doesn’t date, everybody knows that. I just want to know if it was good when he flipped up your skirt and bent you over a tree stump in the woods.”

The girl definitely knows how to paint a picture. “Feel free to find out for yourself.”

“Girl, I’ve tried. Shit, every chick here has tried to catch that boy’s attention in one way or another. The most anybody ever gets is a few hours. He won’t even let anyone stay the night with him at Havoc House. Drake Van Koch might as well be the sphinx for all anybody knows what he wants.” She collapses back on the couch with a dramatic sigh. “We made out once in sophomore year, just over the clothes stuff, and he didn’t even remember my name the next day.”

More than a little confused, I just stare at her. “I definitely saw you basically sitting in his lap in the cafeteria a few days ago. It’s a little hard to believe that you only hooked up once.”

“Please, if you think that was about me, then you’re not as smart as I thought you were. That show in the cafeteria was more about you than it was about me, fathead. Drake hasn’t spoken more than a few words to me in years. He only asked me to sit with them that day because he wanted to make a point. Don’t get me wrong, any girl on this campus would love to be with him, but he doesn’t do permanent attachments. You must really get under his skin.”

That definitely put a new perspective on things. Drake has been trying to mess with my head since I got here.

Ostracizing me makes sense. The juvenile bullying tactics have probably worked well for Havoc House in the past. But Drake had been trying to make me jealous by openly flirting with my roommate.

That makes no sense.

Unless he wanted me to get jealous because that was the emotion he felt.

I remember his face when I got playful with Cole in our weightlifting class, as if he would have happily killed us both. I assumed his anger was borne of his hatred for me, but now I’m wondering if it might have been something else entirely.

“Drake isn’t into me,” I assure her, even though I’m starting to wonder. “He’s just pissed about whatever happened last year.”

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