I can’t believe it’s already December. After that holiday break, we played in the championship game and lost. Liam was bummed, but a weekend with Emma would make anyone feel like a champion.
Grabbing my books from the passenger seat, I exit my Jeep and head for the building. I’m late, so everyone’s already inside. I was following a few leads Liam had on Madeline last night and overslept.
I grit my teeth. We haven’t gotten any viable leads on her or Elise. It’s been quiet- too fucking quiet. Maybe I should be happy that no more girls have gone missing and there haven’t been any more anonymous packages delivered to Emma, but it’d be foolhardy for us to believe this is done and over with.
Sighing, I scan my thumbprint and enter the building. I’m annoyed with this day, and it’s only just begun. Usually, I’d say Fridays are great days. However, I have another damn date tonight. The idea of sitting across from another Samantha crony is nauseating at best.
I make it halfway down the hall when I hear hushed whispers.
“I’m not going to continue to put up with this. I’m in charge, and your attitude hasn’t gone unnoticed. Get your act together, Miss Davenport. I don’t want to have this conversation again.”
Is that Vivian?
Sam comes storming around the corner. She’s not paying attention, too busy mumbling about stupid fucking people always trying to tell her what to do, that she doesn’t see me, and I have to step out of her way so she doesn’t crash into me.
I don’t move fast enough because she clips my shoulder.
“Hey, watch where you’re fucking- oh, Karl, it’s you,” Samantha’s snarly tone quickly smooths to coquettish. “I didn’t see you there.” She tries to raise her hand to touch my arm, but I fix my glare at the offending limb, and she wisely continues lifting it to brush her hair behind her ear.
I don’t respond, continuing to walk past her to AP Calculus.
“Why are you so late this morning? Class is nearly over,” Emma asks, leaning in once I take my seat. The fruity scent of her lip gloss wafts in the air.
I angle my neck to take her in as she shifts back into her seat. Her hair is in a messy bun, and today’s t-shirt is Bob Marley.
We really need to exchange playlists. “I woke up late,” I reply as the bell rings, ending class.
Emma stands, Shay and the guys following suit, then we all make our way for the door. “Hopefully, it wasn’t anything too bad that kept you up,” she states, and I detect an undercurrent of worry.
We’ve talked about the day in my room, what she did for me, and some of the reasons why I needed it. She doesn’t know all the details, but she knows just enough for her to understand my need for pain, mainly inflicted by a knife. I stare at her as we walk down the hall. I love how there’s no judgment in her eyes, only worry.
“No, Angel. It turned out to be nothing,” I respond, keeping my answers in the gray area of truth. I don’t want to lie to Emma, but we all agreed to keep her out of this as much as possible- that means skirting the truth. She’s definitely going to kick our asses when she finds out.
Emma’s strong. We know all about her Krav Maga training. She’s been working with her dad for years in hand-to-hand combat. I’ve seen videos of her shooting, and while she’s no markswoman, she can hit her target from a distance. It’s why we know her mom had her drugged to be taken. I’m confident she would’ve put up a hell of a fight if she wasn’t.
An image of her throwing knives with me threatens to make my dick hard. Inspired by the vivid scene playing out in my mind, I ask, “What are you doing on Sunday?”
We’re stopped at her locker. “Outside of some training with Dad, Mikhael, and Reign, nothing,” she replies.
Ah, yes, Reign. A background check was run on him the minute Mikhael asked for him to be able to move into town. He’ll be finishing his Bachelor’s at LWU after an incident at his last school, and he was asked to leave. He wouldn’t be Emma’s training anything if I didn’t know the incident was related to him stalking a particular female student. Why he’s stalking her doesn’t matter to me- what matters is that he’s so obsessed he doesn’t see anyone but her.
“Karl,” Emma’s hand on my arm jolts me back into the conversation. “What did you want to do this Sunday?”
A slow smile creeps on my face. “Good, keep your afternoon free. I want to take you somewhere.”
I’m about to say more when Rowan cuts in. “Emma, can I talk to you for a moment,” he mumbles, and I snort. The cocky fucker is nervous.
Emma’s eyes narrow. She’s still running hot and cold with him on a good day. Every attempt he’s made since Senior Night has been rebuffed. “What’s up?”
“Uh…” Rowan grabs the back of his neck and looks down both ends of the hallway before finally meeting her gaze. “I was hoping we could- I mean, I could take you out this weekend. I want to expl-.”
She holds up her hand, stopping his rambling. “I’m nowhere near ready to go on a date with you, Rowan, and now isn’t the time to try and explain away the fucked up way you treated me when I got here,” Emma states, grabbing Shay’s arm and taking off down the hall.
Rowan shouts after her but she flips him off and keeps going. He turns back to us, running his hands through his inked hair. “Fucking hell. She’s never going to give me the time of day. This is bullshit,” Rowan whines.
Fucking man-child. He turns to Liam. “How the hell did you slide back into her good graces so easily?”
We collectively snort. Of course he thinks Liam was just magically forgiven.
“I didn’t,” Liam deadpans.
Rowan looks even more perplexed. “But you’re close, aren’t you?”
August walks up next to Rowan and tsks, “Guy, he didn’t slide into her good graces. He’s continuously putting in the work. Have you learned nothing?”
“I don’t understand. What do I need to say to fix it? I just want to fix it,” Rowan pleads.
“You have to figure that out, but your effort should match your fuck up,” I tell him before we all head to our classes before the bell rings.
And with the way Rowan fucked up, he’ll probably need to do something meaningful.
* * *
I knew I should’ve just skipped this bullshit date. These girls always get their panties in a bunch over my date ideas.
“Are we seriously at the morgue?” Brittany hisses.
I smirk. “The cadaver in front of you determines that the answer to your asinine question is yes. I told you where we were going, and you still got in the car.”
Brittany stomps her heel. “That scrap of junk wasn’t a car. It was a death trap.”
My smirk grows, remembering the look on her face when I pulled up in my Dad’s ’91 Acura Legend. Like I would ever again let her or any of her other friends ride in the same car Emma’s been in. Shit, I already replaced the seats in Rubi so that Emma would never have to sit where any of them might have once upon a time.
“Hey, that car got you here. Keep it up, and you’ll have to walk back,” I reprimand, grabbing the scalpel and bending over the body. My hand lowers, and I begin to press into the flesh below me, and the asshole on the slab muffles a scream behind his gag as he wiggles, messing up my incision.
Digging the blade into the wound, I growl. “You fucked up my line work, asshole.”
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.