Page 96 of Rage

I've never been a fan of group projects in any capacity. I almost always end up doing ninety percent of the work and only getting half the credit, no matter who I'm working with. The professor calls names from my class in alphabetical order, and the other class in reverse alphabetical order. I get the shock of my life, and my heart rate triples when I hear, "C. Yarrow, and A. Covington."

My heart stops. There's no fucking way that Alistair Covington, my biggest bully from my prep school days, is a student here at Paramount, right? My fears are confirmed when the devil himself stands and makes his way to the front. I numbly grab my stuff and let my legs carry me the short distance between us, until I'm standing in front of Alistair. He holds out his hand for me to shake, and when I look at his face, he gives me a genuine smile.

"I'm Alistair."

He doesn't recognize me? I don't think I've changed that much, have I? I briefly debate between telling him my first name or my middle name. I could pretend to be someone else, someone other than the girl he treated as his punching bag for two years. Or I could own up to who I truly am and show him that I’m not the scared little girl I was back then.

My mouth moves before my head can decide, and I find myself saying, "I'm Lynette." I shake his hand as he gives me a confused nod, and I clarify, "I go by my middle name. I haven't used my first name in years."

"Ah. Well, Lynette, it's a pleasure to meet you."

He finally releases my hand, and our professor speaks again. "Each pair needs to find somewhere on campus to work on this assignment. It'll be due next week. You're dismissed." He shoos us all out, leaving me simultaneously grateful for not having tosit through one of his three hour lectures, and horrified about who I've been paired up with.

"Should we go to the library?" Alistair asks, pulling my attention back to himself.

"Huh? Oh, yeah." On the off chance he realizes who I am, I’m not willing to take any chances. I refuse to go anywhere private with this man, so the library sounds like the perfect place. It's well lit, always full of students studying, and it's quiet.

We walk silently to the university library. As we step inside, I take a deep breath to calm my nerves. He hasn't attempted any sort of small talk, and for that I'm grateful. If he asks where I'm from, I have no idea what I'll tell him. Maybe my mom's hometown?

Neither of us speaks until we find an unoccupied table and get situated. Alistair turns a chair backwards, and plops down onto it before dropping his bag onto the floor beside his chair. As I pull my laptop back out of my bag and plug it in, I notice him scrolling through something on his phone. I open up my email and see that the professor has already sent out the list of theoretical businesses for everyone. I open a new word document and stare at the flashing cursor for a few moments.

"So..." My head snaps up, and I realize Alistair is staring at my tits over the top of my laptop screen. I want to scoff and cross my arms in front of my chest, but I realize at the last second, that's what the old Calista would have done. This Calista though? She toys with stupid men like Alistair. This Calista plots the unexpected deaths of assholes like Alistair. So instead, I give him a coy smile and twirl a lock of my hair, pretending to be a vapid girl that has no idea the kind of person he truly is.

I smile and nod the entire time he lays out his basic ass idea for the project, not really hearing a fucking thing he says. He just assumes that because I'm a pretty girl, I'll go along with whatever his plan is. I barely manage to keep myself fromsnorting and rolling my eyes. He doesn't even try to hide the fact that he's flirting, and I pretend like I'm totally into it. I twirl my hair and bat my eyelashes at all the right moments. I don't even have to speak at all. Not that he gives me a chance. He really enjoys the sound of his own voice.

His hand reaches across the table, and one of his fingers strokes along the sleeve of my sweater. I have to force myself not to cringe at his touch. If it weren't for the years of therapy I’ve had since the day he and his friends beat me and left me on the side of the road, I'd be triggered as fuck by him touching me. He continues talking, oblivious to my disgust, and I force myself to keep my eyes on his face. Even I have to admit, he is attractive, at least on the outside. His forehead is smooth, his eyebrows are perfectly trimmed and maintained. His crystal blue eyes are still trained on my tits, and I'm lucky he doesn't have laser vision. Otherwise I'd have two extra holes in my sweater. His roman nose looks like it's been broken once or twice, and his short, thick beard accentuates his sharp jawline.

When he finally stops speaking, I surreptitiously glance at the time on my laptop screen and see that we've been in the library for two hours. There's an email notification flashing in the corner, so I click on it. The email opens, and I see that it's an entire outline from Alistair. My brows furrow as I wonder how the hell he got my email address. More importantly, when the hell did he manage to write this outline with all the talking he was doing?

He must notice my confusion, because he says, "I hope you don't mind, I pulled your email address from the professor's email."

At least he has the decency to pretend to look ashamed. I relax my face and paste a plastic smile onto my lips. "I don't mind at all, Ali." I throw in another hair twirl and he shoots me a cocky grin. Gag me with a huge wooden spoon.

"Can I walk you to your next lecture?" Again, gag me.

"I don't have another class until this afternoon. I really appreciate the offer though." Another fake smile.

"Can I get your number? That way we can make plans to meet up again in a day or so," Alistair says as he holds out his phone.

Every part of me screams no, but I take it, enter my number, and save it under my middle name, deciding to throw in a flirty emoji with it. I exit the phone app, then hesitate. "Do you mind if I send myself a text so that I have yours too, Ali?" My voice is sugary sweet, and very much not me. Alistair eats it up though, and practically drools as he nods. So I shoot myself a text before passing him his phone back.

Shutting down my computer, I pack it back into my bag before standing from my chair. My ass is numb from sitting in the same position for hours. I force myself to remain at the table as he packs up, otherwise my distaste would be obvious, even to him. For now, I need him to believe that I'm into him. At least until I've planned his death. No matter how I do it, I'll make sure he knows that it was me who took his pathetic life.

Once he finally stands from the table, he walks up to me. He leans in as if to kiss me, and I turn my face at the last minute so that his lips meet my cheek. I can feel myself turning red with anger, but he must think I'm embarrassed because he strokes a thumb along the cheek he kissed. I suppress a full body shudder at his touch.

"I'll text you later, beautiful." He winks at me, then walks away. I wait several moments before I leave the table, rushing to my dorm room, and nearly slipping on patches of ice, twice. When I finally make it into my room, I drop my bag onto my bed, my wool coat on top of it, and run into my bathroom. I scrub my face clean several times.

When I finally feel like my face is free of his touch, I strip out of my sweater dress and throw it across the floor. I refuse to wear it the rest of the day. My leggings follow next, and I open my closet, digging through for a comfortable outfit. My afternoon professor doesn't give a shit how we dress for her class, so more often than not I tend to wear a hoodie and leggings.

Going back into my bathroom, I remove my contacts and put my glasses on, throwing my hair up into a messy bun. Feeling more like myself, I grab a bag of chips from my mini-kitchen —another perk of my father's money— and refill my water glass. I sit at my desk with my laptop and catch up on the reading for my afternoon class. I also begin planning Alistair's death.

Chapter Three

Calista

My first kill was during winter break, my sophomore year of university. I'd decided to act like a normal college girl, and I'd gone out to a club that didn't card. I had one drink, and danced with a group of random girls. I had no idea who any of them were, but it didn't seem to matter to any of them, so I didn't let it matter to me either.

Some guy had started dancing up against me, and he was handsy. I would have panicked as his hands groped my ass and tits, but by then I'd been in self defense for over a year, and I decided it was time to SING. My stiletto met his groin and I was quickly able to pull away. I made a beeline for the bathroom, calmed myself down, then went back out onto the dance floor.

---