Page 68 of Dare To Take

Maybe it won’t be so bad. I’ll just act antisocial, and everyone will leave me the fuck alone.

My locker door swings open, and I jump back with a surprised gasp when a sea of foiled packages floods out onto the floor. Laughter erupts around me, the condoms in a pile at my feet. People crowd around me, phones out and recording. My heart sinks.

Guess I was wrong.

Chapter 43

Eli

“So, yeah, it rained condoms when she opened her locker.” Kellan’s voice echoes around the room. I have him on speaker, so I don’t have to hold the cell to my ear while I sketch.

“How many did you grab?”

“A handful. Not sure I’ll trust them though. Someone could have pierced them. I just helped pick them up. That’s not the only thing, though.”

“Oh?”

“When we walked into math, someone had left a dildo on her seat. You know the ones with the suction cups that you can stick to the wall? There was a note hanging from it saying it was to give her something to ride on during the class.”

“How did she react to that?”

“Threw it in the trash. I told her it was a waste of a good pretend dick, and that she should disinfect it and keep it because she wasn’t going to see any real dicks in school that big any time soon. She wasn’t amused.”

I snort a laugh.

“Seriously though, you need to come back. I can only watch her for so many hours a day before someone arrests me.” He pauses to chuckle. “Or she stabs me. I’m pretty sure she’s considering it. She gets this weird look in her eyes whenever I sit down.”

“Elena is working on it.” It’s weird how hard she’s fighting to get me reinstated at school. She’s adamant that she believes I’m innocent. I don’t even know why. “She has another meeting with Warren today.”

“That reminds me. Whoever took Arabella’s cell and logged into the cloud to get the footage and photographs knows what they’re doing. There’s no trace of them anywhere, so I have no way of tracking where they logged in from. Although, to be honest, it was probably from the school grounds, so even if I could trace the IP address, it wouldn’t tell me much.”

“I think we both know where to look.”

“We know the general direction. We just don’t know which specific person we need to focus on.”

“They’ll show their hand soon enough. We just need to push them.”

“And how do you plan to achieve that?”

“Not sure. I need to get back to school first. Keep watching Arabella. That might drive them to do something. What about Miles?”

“Ohhhh.” Kellan’s laugh is low and wicked. “That boy … He dumped Arabella, and yet is surprised that she’s angry with him. He doesn’t understand why it’s a big deal. He told her he wants to be friends in secret. So, now he has two dirty little secrets to keep.”

“You’re still fucking him?”

He sighs. “No. He still hasn’t let me. I think he’s a virgin.”

“Are you corrupting the poor boy, Kellan?”

“I’m trying to. He won’t even look at me in class. It’s hilarious.”

“Eli!” My name is accompanied by a tap on the door.

“Elena is calling me. Let me know if anything else happens.” I end the call and set my sketchbook to one side. “Door’s open,” I call out.

The door swings open, and Arabella’s mom walks in. She’s dressed in clothes that, for her, are subdued. Dark jeans, a pink blouse, knee-high leather boots, and a chiffon scarf draped across her shoulders. Her blonde hair is in some complicated style that holds it off her face. She’s actually quite stunning without all the thick makeup she’d been caked in when I first met her.

“I’ve just got back from my meeting.” She crosses the room and perches on the end of my bed. “Principal Warren has agreed to let you go back, with a few stipulations.”

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