Page 109 of Dare To Take

I throw my hand up. “Mr. Drake, I’m not feeling very well.”

“You seem to be making a habit of this lately, Miss Gray.”

Another wave of discomfort hits me, and I double up over my desk. “Please, sir. My stomach hurts.”

He sighs. “Go back to your room. If it gets worse, report to the nurse.”

I lurch up out of my chair and run for the door. Racing along the hallway, I dive for the girl’s restroom, and make it into a stall seconds before my bowels let go.

***

Curled up on the bathroom floor in my room, I groan as cramps ravage my abdomen. It’s clear now what Eli put in the coffee. I have no idea how long the laxatives are going to last. Nausea rolls through me, and I screw my eyes shut.

No one has come to check on me. No one has texted to see if I’m okay.

I’ve been waiting for Garrett and his friends to try and get into my room, but they’ve yet to turn up.

I deserve this after what I did to Eli. He has a right to be angry with me for what happened.

You could have killed him. You could have killed him. You could have killed him.

But it wasn’t me. It was my blackmailers.

The tiny protest is drowned out by my guilt. My emotions are running wild, and I don’t have the energy to get off the floor.

I must have drifted off to sleep because the next time I open my eyes, I’m shivering. I peel myself up off the floor and catch sight of my reflection in the mirror.

The girl staring back has hollow, empty eyes. She’s lost weight in her face, her cheekbones sharper, and her skin pale. I tear my attention away, whimpering as another wave of discomfort washes through my body.

I’m sure dinner has come and gone, and the thought of eating anything leaves me queasy. I reach for Sin’s phone, which is on my bed, and type him a message.

Me: Everything is out of control. Someone is going to get hurt. I’m trapped on a runaway train, and there’s no way to get off.

He’s just like everyone else. He doesn’t give a fuck about me.

I fling the phone across the room in a frustrated burst of anger. It bounces on the mattress of the spare bed. Despair drags me down into a swirling maelstrom of guilt, hate, and shame.

Chapter 67

Eli

I ditch classes all day in favor of working on my sculpture, claiming I’m still not one hundred percent healthy. The truth is I don’t trust myself in the same room as Arabella right now. The fear in her eyes is imprinted on my mind and, instead of the satisfaction I expected to feel after forcing her to take the extra-strength laxative, I feel strangely hollow inside. I can’t get the way her body shook when I held her against me out of my head, or how my hand had almost been able to wrap around her entire arm.

Has she always been that thin? That fragile looking? I don’t think so, but I can’t trust my memory. How much of what I thought she was had simply been my imagination or manipulation on her part?

I shake my head. It doesn’t matter. None of it matters. I’ve paid her back for the spiked drink. She should be thankful I didn’t use something worse than a laxative. Hopefully, I’ve put an end to it, and she’ll think twice before coming at me again.

Kellan isn’t happy with what I did. He hasn’t said anything, but it’s clear every time he looks at me. He wants me to just move on and ignore her. But if I do that, then someone else will try and bait me, and then another. What I’ve done is important to the rest of my school life. It sends a message to everyone.

I’m called the fucking Monster of Churchill Bradley for a reason.

Kellan turns up at some point with food and drink, and he leans against the wall watching as I work on a particularly intricate part of my design.

“I’m surprised you haven’t changed it.” He jerks his chin toward the half-finished face.

I shrug. “It works for the final piece.”

“I suppose. It’ll be interesting to see the reaction to it.”

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