Page 13 of Twisted Minds

“I just want to hang out. As friends. That’s it. Please.” Noah’s pretty lips purse. Today he’s wearing lip gloss, and I like the shiny pink on him and his give-no-fucks attitude. “I have to get to class. I’m definitely late now. You’re just lucky I love to make an entrance. If you want to hang out that bad, we can have breakfast on Saturday morning and go from there. If I like it, we can be friends. A frienderview.”

“A frienderview?”

“An interview for you to be my friend. Ten sharp. Marcie’s Diner down on the West End of town. Don’t be late. I don’t give second chances.”

“Okay, yeah. I uh, yes. Thank you.” Noah gives me one more sharp glare before he storms off. Okay, progress, right? This is progress. Step one in being less of an asshole. Adjusting my book bag, I’m too drained to go to any more classes, but I have software design in an hour, and I actually like that class.

Walking through campus, my body suddenly jerks backwards. I panic, thrashing, not knowing what the fuck is happening as I’m dragged into a tiny alcove.

The breath is knocked out of me as I’m thrown against the wall. “What’s the matter, Mark?” Derrick breathes on me, his fingers wrapped around my throat cutting off my air. I struggle but it’s no use. “Wouldn’t be avoiding me, huh?”

“Get the fuck off me!” I choke out, trying to shove him off, but Derrick has mass on me and years of lifting weights and athletic training. “Get off!” His smirk chills me to the bone as he throws his hands up and lets me go. I inhale sharply while clutching my neck. What the fuck!

“Just want to say hi to my good friend.” I hate him. I hate him so fucking much.

“What the fuck do you want?” Wasn’t bullying supposed to end in high school. What the fuck.

He pouts, which looks so ridiculous on a man his size. “I remember when you used to pretend to like me. What happened to that?”

That was before I knew you were a psycho and you started blackmailing me for a crime I know I didn’t commit!“What do you want?”

Derrick sighs, leaning against the opposite wall. Students pass us out in the courtyard, but we’re hidden here in the small alcove and they pay us no mind at all. I’m alone and helpless—which has been pretty much the theme since this summer. “I need you to do me a favor.”

Fuck.“What is it?”

“I need you to take out the captain of the hockey team.”

Um, what the hell?

“What?” While Derrick has always asked me for bullshit favors, they’ve never been violent. I’m not violent. It’s all just been stupid bullshit—doing his homework for him, taking his notes, lending him money. All of it was stupid bullshit in the long run. I can handle stupid bullshit. I cannot handle whatever the fuck this is. “I can’t just hurt someone.”

“Aw, don’t you remember? Kind of already did that.”

No one was hurt! No one. If someone had gotten hurt, innocent or not I would have turned myself in. “No one was there that night. No one was hurt. It isn’t fair to ask me to do this.”

“No, what’s not fair is a family who lost everything in a fire someone carelessly started.” He clicks his tongue, and I see red. “That’s what’s not fair Mark. Do you know the emotional burden of keeping your secret? It weighs on me.” Oh my god, I am going to lose my mind. I hate him. I fucking hate him with every fiber of my being. It’s in my goddamn DNA at this point.

I’m so tired of this bullshit.

“I don’t want to hurt anyone. You can’t ask me to do that.”

“I can, unless you want me to show my father this.” He takes out his phone and I already know what he’s going to show me. Without looking I know it’s the photo of me in the field behind the Blue Lotus, the Thai restaurant downtown behind the community field. I know the photo shows me, a drink in one hand and my watch around my wrist. I blink through the heat hugging my eyes and I don’t look at it, glaring right at him instead.

He’s taunted me with it enough I don’t even need to look at it. I can see the brilliant gold so damn clearly, and while it’s nearly half a century old it still looks like it was made yesterday.

Now it’s sitting in evidence at the police station.

If Derrick shows his father that picture, that puts me on the scene, and that would lead to questions. Then Derrick and his fucking goons would admit I was there, playing with the firework that set fire to the restaurant.

Only, I know I didn’t do it.

Derrick thinks I’m an idiot, but I’m smart. I know how fire and physics work, and I know the probability of that firework sailing over the trees and starting a fire that fast and intense is bullshit. I’m not sure how or even why he did it, but I know this asshole is responsible.

Why he wants to frame me, I have no fucking clue. That’s the scary thing about people like Derrick, though. They hurt people and don’t even need a reason. They do it for fun. It’s a sport, and a lot of the time they’re used to winning.

Not this time.

“There has to be something else. I don’t want to physically hurt someone. Please. That’s not . . . that’s not fair.” The thought makes me sick. Sure, I have a temper. I get frustrated sometimes but I’m not a violent person.

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