Page 28 of I Would Die for You

“Ow,” she wails, as two bobbies get on either side of her and manhandle her into the room where she’d left a party in full swing just ten minutes before.

The remnants of the good time everybody had been having are still very much evident. Empty beer cans are strewn across the floor, burning cigarettes are lying abandoned in ashtrays, and white powder residue sits on the glass top of the coffee table.

Cassie frantically looks around for Amelia, but all she can see are strangers’ expressions mirroring her own as they struggle to comprehend what’s going on. It’s then that she realizes that this is serious, and the dreamy effects of the hallucinogenic wear off fast.

“Keep moving!” yells a policeman, shoving her from behind.

“What the hell do you think you’re playing at?” Ben yells. She doesn’t dare turn around for fear that he might be talking toher. How can this be happening? He’d been about to make all her dreams come true; he was just seconds away from kissing her, she was sure of it. Yet now they’re being carted off by the police and he thinks it’s her fault.

Tears burn at the back of her throat as she rues the loss of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. But as soon as she sees the open doors of a police van parked alongside the back entrance of the hotel, she starts crying for an entirely different reason.

“I can’t,” she says, as the fear of god strikes within her.

“Move!” barks one of the officers flanking her sides. She tries to dig her heels in to create resistance, but it’s futile.

“If my dad finds out, he’ll kill me,” she sobs, her senses suddenly alert to the bigger picture.

The hold on her weakens a little. “How old are you?” asks the officer, his tone softer.

“I-I’m sixteen,” she whispers. Hearing herself say it brings home the enormity of the situation. If her father finds out about this, she’ll never be allowed out again, let alone to see Secret Oktober. “Wh-what are you going to do to me? Where are you taking me?”

“You need to come down to the police station,” he says as he hoists her up into the back of the van, a little more gently now. “You’ve got some questions to answer, and then we’ll no doubt have to give your parents a call.”

“Can you at least tell me what I’m supposed to have done?” she calls out, but her voice is drowned out by the commotion of Ben being thrown in after her.

“You’ve had it in for us from the start,” he shouts, banging on the van’s metal sides. “Are you so bad at your job that you need to make an example out of us?”

He falls back onto the seated ledge. “Fuck!” he shouts, manically running a hand back and forth through his hair.

“What are we going to do?” cries Cassie. “I can’t go to prison.”

He looks at her as if seeing her for the first time. “Listen to me,” he says, leaning forward. “You tell them nothing. You saw nothing, heard nothing, and took nothing.”

“But I did…” says Cassie. “I took a—”

Ben puts a finger to his lips. “We stick to the story. You and I werein the bedroom, doing what young people do. We had no idea what was going on in the other room. We hadn’t taken anything. We didn’t even know therewereany drugs at the party, let alone who might have brought them in.”

Cassie nods her head vigorously.

“We need to nip this in the bud,” he says. “I can’t have the papers knowing about this.”

“And I can’t have my dad knowing about it,” says Cassie, genuinely believing that he is the bigger problem.

“And he won’t,ifwe stick together…”

Cassie allows herself a small smile, knowing she’s prepared to doanythingif it means they get to stick together. “It’s ironic really, given the situation we’re in, but my dad’s wrong about you.”

Ben’s jaw spasms.

“He says you’re just some fly-by-night pop star who’s been blinded by fame and money, but I knew there was more to you than that. You really care about me, don’t you?”

“Sure,” he says hesitantly.

Cassie’s heart feels as if it might burst. Maybe this was meant to happen. Maybe if they’d stayed in that bedroom by themselves, one thing would have led to another, and she would have become just another notch on his heavily engraved bedpost. But this has brought them together, bonded them in a way no other girl could even begin to get close to. Heneedsher, and she’s not going to let him down.

14

CALIFORNIA, 2011

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