Page 12 of Bedding Rose
GODDAMMIT.
* * *
That Night
A faceless guyin the shadows kicks Rose and when she stumbles, he knees her in the face.
No. Nope. I would have seen bruises. I tell my mind to take a hike, to go cool off, stop fanning the flames.
But it can’t. Or it won’t. I’m not sure.
Her mother comes up next, so uptight and proper. Ms. Dalton’s Botoxed face appears inside my head. She leans down with an ugly expression I’ve only seen her use on me and Quique when we’ve done something she considers uncouth.“Don’t embarrass me, Rose. Or I’ll have to tell people what a disappointment I have for a daughter.”
She only lasts a minute before a cocky jock, like the kind I saw on campus, materializes behind my eyelids. He grabs Rose and kisses her, one arm wrapping around her back and holding her to him as she tries to fight him off …
* * *
Two Days Later
That’s it.I’m giving in. After a week of sleepless nights, I’m officially the psycho that Rose believes I am. I’ve snuck over to see Quique on false pretenses and I’m here in the hall bathroom, perched on the granite countertop, hiding a battery-powered miniature camera at the bottom of the light fixture like a pervert so I can make sure that Rose doesn’t cut herself ever again.
The Alpha Tau party that Lily mentioned … goddamn her. That’s set off an entirely different string of nightmarish possibilities for me to deal with, ones that have led me to punch my speed bag until my knuckles bleed.
But … one thing at a time.
First, I’m going to make sure Rose is safe.
Then, I’m going to get her to confess everything to me.
ROSE
Present Day
The desert’s January night air creeps around me, cruelly cold and scratching at my skin so it peels, chapping my lips and drying my eyes.
I hate the eerie way the wind blusters through the canyon in the distance, the same way I hate everything that just happened. I can’t believe I just burst out like that and yelled. I never do that! Ever.
But what I saw at Daisy’s house shocked me to my core and hit on the very thing I’d been agonizing over in silence for days.
I wrap my arms around my torso, the chill seeping into me and mingling with the fire raging within, as I stomp down the hill at top speed, determined to leave Daisy’s house behind. The neighborhood is dark and silent, except for the occasional golden glow of a streetlight.
Bile singes the back of my tongue and I have to breathe steadily so that I don’t puke onto the nearest Spanish broom’s feathery green stalks.
I can’t believe Daisy was okay with her stepfather setting up secret cameras in their house to watch her. More than okay!It didn’t even fucking bother her that Gunnar violated her privacy, watching her get out of the shower without her knowledge.
Insanity.
She’s blinded by the fact that he’s a hot fucking surgeon and she’s pined after him for so long, not as secretly as she thought. She thinks it’s okay because they’re together now? Because he’s nottechnicallyher stepfather anymore? Because he only pity-married her mother so Darla could get cancer treatment, swooping in like some hero?
Bullshit. None of those things erase what he just did. What I caught him doing.
He watched herwithouther consent!
Videotaped her just like that bastard recorded my mom—
Rage curdles the pizza I ate earlier and my fingers curl into fists where they’re tucked close by my sides as I duck my head, winding with the sidewalk around a stunted tree someone didn’t have the heart to chop down, heading for the park at the end of the road.
I pretend I didn’t just blow my top in front of my three best friends since elementary school, the Wild Flowers. Just like I pretend I can’t hear one of them—Lily—calling out behind me.
