Page 14 of Dirty Tricks

She worries, and she blames herself for my disfigurement. Even though I wasn’t exactly drowning in offers of friendship before the scars.

“Maybe,” I hedge, then as thoughts of Lexa spill into my mind, I add, “There’s a girl I like.”

“Xander!” I can practically hear her salivating for information. “What’s she like? Are you going to the party together? What’s her name?”

“My battery’s about to die,” I tell her, desperate to abort the conversation I started. “Better go.”

“Promise you’ll tell me all about her on Sunday.”

“Sure.”

I hang up the call, leaning over to plug my phone into the wall charger before settling onto my back, hands behind my head.

There’s no way I’ll be able to pull off the ruse for long, maybe not at all, but I don’t mind flirting with the idea, letting my imagination run wild, visualising a party with the girl of my dreams on my arm.

Who cares if she’s there because she thinks I’m someone else?

She thought I was someone else the first night we met, and the memory of that occasion is my fondest treasure. Tomorrow could add another gemstone to the collection, maybe one that shines even brighter than the first.

CHAPTERFOUR

LEXA

The lube is greasierthan I’m used to, and thicker. When I smear it across the metal surface, it adheres in gummy streaks. Just the sight of it turns my stomach.

I lay the anal plug on the bathroom vanity and wash my hands, not able to rid them of the slippery sensation until I dry myself on the hand towel.

“Pick it up,” I whisper when my hands don’t want to obey my commands. “Five seconds and it’ll be done.”

But I don’t listen to myself more than anyone else does. I stare at the item, watching it grow larger by the second.

The ring of my phone is a welcome distraction. Until I lift the device and see my dad’s picture on the caller display.

An icy chill wriggles along my spine.

“Daddy? Is everything okay?”

“You’re coming home,” he says in a rough whine that means he’s upset and is looking for someone to take the brute punch of his emotions. “Pack everything and be waiting at the gate by midday, tomorrow.”

My teeth nearly bite through my bottom lip as I process his request. “But the school year doesn’t end till mid-December.”

“You can attend your old school. It costs me a bloody arm and a leg to keep you in that place.”

The place he insisted I attend when I was perfectly happy going to the local high school. Now I’ve gone through the upheaval of a change, and the strangeness of making new friends, of getting my first ever boyfriend?Now,he wants me to leave.

“What about—”

“I’ve made my decision, Alexandra. Be ready.”

The call cuts off and I feel emotions bubbling. I can’t go back home. I can’t go back to everything that means.

My hands shake as I pick up the lubed plug, tears threatening even though I’ve already applied my makeup so if I cry now, everyone will know. I stare at my image, freezing at the subservient little mouse I see there. Thinking of what my father has in store for me the moment I get home. Guessing his new wife made her escape and left me holding the bag.

A large crack appears across my reflection, jagged from corner to corner. My hand is empty and the anal plug spins across the bathroom counter, lodging in the corner where it joins the wall.

I threw it, I must have thrown it, but that doesn’t seem like me. Not something daddy’s favourite girl would do.

For the months I’ve been at Kingswood, I’ve put the thought of home far from my mind, locking it in an underground pit. But now, it’s loose again.

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