Page 42 of Vengeful Rotten Casualties

I shake my head and pull my hands away from the railing. “No.” I turn and grab Avalon’s hand, pulling her after me as we head up another flight of stairs to a higher section as the ones down below quickly begin to fill with cheering and adoring fans. I don’t stop until we’re far above the rest of the crowd in what I suppose one might call the nose-bleed seats. That’s fine. I’m not here to watch the game. I’m here to lure that predator and to lure a predator, you need to be separated from the pack. Alone. Vulnerable. Noticeable.

Avalon takes a seat and crosses one leg over the other as she digs her cell out of her hoodie and starts typing away. I remain standing, turning my back and folding my arms across my chest. “Rylie’s on her way,” Avalon says after a moment.

I nod, turning my head as I watch several half-naked frat bros enter the stadium, screaming as they race up the steps, their bodies painted in the colors of Eastpoint University. It looks like something out of a high school movie. I stare at them with a sense of curiosity, wondering what it must feel like to be so free. To have their only worries be grades or whether or not mommy and daddy love them. Must be nice. Must be simple.

I think I would’ve liked a simple life.

“Micki?”

“Hmmm?” I look back to Avalon, realizing from the way she’s arching her brow at me that she’s been trying to get my attention for a while and I am only just now noticing.

Avalon looks at me and for a moment, she doesn’t say anything. Then after a beat, she puts her phone away and sits forward. “What’s your plan exactly?” she asks.

“You know what the plan is—”

“Not in detail,” she cuts me off as she folds her arms over the plastic chair in front of her and tilts her head my way. “How are you going to lure him away to get him where you want him?”

My spine straightens and instead of answering, I turn around and take a seat, casting my gaze out over the field. Eastpoint cheerleaders line up along the edges of the field, dressed in their short, pleated skirts and matching shirts that look more like sports bras than actual clothing. They brandish their pom poms as one girl seems to take charge of the rest, standing on a box and talking as the others gather around. Surprisingly, there’s no jeering or messing around. The girls all line up like soldiers to listen to their captain as they’re given their directions for the evening. Another thing I don’t understand about the real world.

“The less you know about my plans the better it’ll be,” I finally say, well aware that Avalon’s gaze hasn’t left my face since she asked her question.

Avalon is quiet for a moment. When she speaks, it’s not with any judgment or even a hint of curiosity. Just plain language as if she’s talking about the weather. “So, you’re just going to magically get some guy who used to fuck you to follow you somewhere, and what? Knock him over the head? You gonna carry him off somewhere yourself? Sounds like a plan to me. I’m guessing you don’t need my help.”

I cut her a look. “You’ve done what I asked,” I say. “I don’t need anything more than a reason to be here, a ticket, and an opportunity.”

Cool, blue gray eyes watch me. Not with caution. Not with curiosity. But with an unreserved interest that intimidates. I don’t care how intimidating she tries to be. I’ve been crushed under the boot of men twice her size and still lived to tell the tale. The two of us fall into a strange sort of silence. She wants answers from me, and I’m unwilling to give them in the event that they could be used to put her in harm’s way. Yes, even now, I’ll choose to protect her over myself the same way I did for Luc when I left. I could’ve run out of Thomas Kincaid’s office. I could’ve refused to even meet with him if Luc wasn’t present. Things might’ve turned out differently, or they could’ve turned out far worse.

At the end of the day, though, I made my own choice. I chose to protect what was important and take the shit end of the stick over and over again to make sure they were untouched by the taint of my life. And I’m still doing it. Protecting them both. Except now, it isn’t from the taint of my life. It’s from me. From what I’ve become.

I am unashamed, but I know what I am. A killer. A casualty of the wreckage of rich men who think they can slice through the lives of people they perceive as lesser than them. If it weren’t for my own innate ability to adapt and accept some things, to keep going in the face of true degradation, I would be just that—a casualty of the desires of the elite. A casualty of power. A vengeful ghost of a human they wrecked just because they could.

To them, I am replaceable. More than replaceable. I’m not even human.

“Micki, you need to be careful.” Avalon’s words aren’t cruel, but they are a warning.

I know she doesn’t want to hear it. I know she says them because she’s worried and she doesn’t want to lose me again, but the unfortunate fact remains—I’ve already been lost.

“Don’t worry,” I say. “I know what I’m doing.” I stand up as the speaker calls out over the field, introducing first the opposing team—at which onlookers begin to boo—and then Eastpoint’s team, which receives the opposite response of cheers and cries of joy. “I’ve done this before.”

Avalon reaches out and grips my wrist in her hand as Eastpoint University’s team rips through a banner held up by two cheerleaders as they storm out onto the field.

“I’m not the girl you used to know,” she tells me. “Icanhelp you.”

Without hesitation, I reach down and touch her hand, wrapping my fingers around hers as I pry her off of me. Despite the harshness of my actions, though, I give her a genuine smile. “I know,” I say. “You’re stronger now. You’re all grown up and whether you realize it or not, you’ve already helped me, kiddo.”

Avalon’s brow pinches, but when I release her hand and turn to walk away, she lets me go. She doesn’t call out or try to get me to stop. She lets me go because she knows better than most that I need to be the one to do this. I need to take it all back on my own terms.

19

MICKI

Money gives people power.I’m not talking about the kind of money people have to feel wealthy or to even feel ‘comfortable.’ It’s not a few thousand dollars or even a few million. The kind of money I’m talking about is something that normal people can’t even comprehend.

Rich people can buy things that regular folks don’t even know are for sale. Like time or life.

Andrew Bennington isn’t one of those kinds of people. He’s wealthy—trust fund wealthy—and while that puts him in the same universe as someone like Thomas Kincaid, he’ll never be on the same planet. He’ll only ever be able to take bites on the edges of Thomas Kincaid’s world. Of the world I wasn’t born into but somehow accidentally found myself in.

I was never meant to be in the world of the top one percent. That’s why they didn’t know what to do with me. That’s how I ended up taking the place of an object rather than a person. An object of little value can still exist around the rich, but a human of little value has no business even breathing within proximity of kings and gods.

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