Page 19 of Wicked Games

I took another deep breath and began. “I wasn’t exactly honest with you guys about how I ended up here,” I said softly. “At this school, I mean.”

April’s brows rose. “You told us you got a scholarship through the Babylon Foundation. Is that not true?”

“It’s true.” I nodded bleakly. “But I was kind of vague on the details. I told you I got into trouble because I crashed intoMaverick Reinhart’s car. That’s only part of the real story. A very small part.”

“Okay, well… spill,” Zach said. “Like I said, no judgment from me. There’s obviously a reason you kept it from us.”

I nodded again. “It’s just… I was so ashamed. And scared. I was facing a real prison sentence. And I didn’t want you guys to look at me differently. People here already call me a criminal, and all they know about is the accident.”

“You were really going to go toprison?” Brooke’s eyes widened. “Just for a car accident?”

I swallowed hard. “Probably, yeah. You’ll understand when I tell you the whole story. But it’s super long.”

April glanced at her watch. “We have ages. It’s fine.”

I looked down at my feet. “Well… I’ll start at the very beginning, even though it’s not going to sound relevant to anything. My best friend at my old school was this girl called Mikayla. She was super sweet and pretty. Unfortunately, she was always a bit delusional too.”

“How so?” April asked.

“You know the town I’m from, right? Oakfield? It’s a real shit-hole. No point dancing around that fact,” I said. I paused to wipe my cheek again. “It’s nothing like Babylon. Might as well be two different planets.”

“Yeah, I know. People from that place have… um… a certain reputation around here, as awful as that sounds.” Zach’s thick brows knitted. “But what does that have to do with this Mikayla chick?”

“Like I said, she’s really pretty. She knows it, too. So she’s always had this idea in her head that she could use her looks to get out of our shitty town and away from her shitty family, if she just found a guy to rescue her. A rich, connected guy, I mean. Someone who could fall for her and save her.”

“Ah. The classic fairytale scenario,” Brooke said softly. “Deluding girls and women since the dawn of time.”

“That’s exactly what I always thought,” I said, nodding fervently. “I mean, it’s a nice idea. Suddenly having money, security, and real power over your life. Never needing to worry about anything again. But it’s a fairytale, like you said.”

“No shit.” Zach snorted. “Life isn’t a movie.”

“That’s what I tried to warn Mikayla about. But she didn’t listen. She’d still go to all these crazy Babylon parties that she managed to get invited to, and she’d always drag me along for moral support. Then I’d have to watch her get used over and over again,” I said bitterly. “Every time she met a new guy at one of these things, they’d be sweet to her and say all the right things. But it was just to convince her to open her legs for them for the night. They barely see girls like us as human. Just sentient dolls to fuck and toss away when they’re done.”

“Sentient dolls,” Brooke echoed in a low voice. “Ugh, that’s awful.”

“I know.” I sniffed back more tears. “That’s why I kept trying to convince her to stop going to these parties with all these toxic assholes. I knew some rich guy wasn’t going to swoop in and make her his girlfriend, let alone his future wife. It was pure fantasy. But at the same time, I kept going with her because I wanted to make sure nothing really bad happened to her.”

“Did something happen to her anyway?” April asked in a tentative tone.

I shook my head. “No. It happened to me,” I replied. My voice was starting to sound choked-up again. “It was all because of Hudson Calloway. I met him at the last party I went to.”

Brooke’s eyes widened. “Oh my god. Did he…”

I raised a palm and shook my head. “No. He didn’t. But he sure as hell tried.”

“That fucking asshole.” April’s face twisted with fury. “What happened?”

“Mikayla dragged me along to yet another shitty party at some mansion on the outskirts of Babylon. It was a birthday thing for some guy named Jamie Miller.”

“Oh, I know him,” Brooke cut in. “He’s friends with my older brother. Total douche.”

“Right.” I briefly nodded. “Anyway, I usually don’t mind having a drink or two at parties. But that night, I couldn’t drink anything at all because my stomach had been feeling bad all day. So I was one-hundred percent sober. All I had was a glass of lemonade that I poured from a brand-new bottle that I opened myself. Itdefinitelyhad nothing in it.”

“Until you met Hudson, I’m guessing,” April said. Her face was red with anger now.

I nodded and paused to clear my clogged throat. “Yeah. After a while, I started to feel weird. Really, really weird. Then several minutes of my life just disappeared. I have no idea what happened in those minutes. But when I opened my eyes, I was lying in a bed, and Hudson was on top of me. He was trying to take my jeans off, and he had this look in his eyes. A cold, dead look. Like a shark.”

“What a piece of shit,” Zach muttered.

---