I stared across the parking lot, listening to the loud beat of music inside, praying for this to end.
Spencer grunted behind me. His hands dropped away. I heard feet scuffle on the ground and the faraway sound of voices as they descended.
“Heaven!” I looked over the car and spotted Amber, fear etched in her face.
I couldn’t speak. My hands shook and I turned and saw a different kind of fear, this time plastered across Spencer’s face. Hayden, all muscles and height, held him back. Oliver unleashed, punching him in the gut. Anderson rushed to my side and Jackson paced like a tiger.
“Get his phone,” I cried. “Get his phone!”
Jackson retrieved it from his pocket and I took it, afraid to let go. Then he pushed Oliver out of the way and punched Spencer hard across the jaw. I buried my face in Anderson’s jacket.
“Babe,” he said, holding me tight. “I’m so sorry it took so long. Fucking Mark staged an epic commotion inside, blocking all the doors. Tell me he didn’t hurt you.”
“He didn’t…he didn’t hurt me.” Not physically, at least. Spencer fought against Hayden, struggling uselessly against his muscular frame. Rage consumed me. I stepped forward and spit on him.
“You’re pathetic,” I told him. “Weak. Disgusting. You think what we have is deviant, but you’re the one preying on people’s happiness all because you can’t handle a little fucking rejection.”
He opened his mouth to speak but a shadow stepped out from behind the nearest car. “Did you get it?” I asked, eyeing the camera.
“Yep. Every word.”
Spencer’s expression fell when Eric appeared holding his phone out, recording everything. It was my turn to be smug. “Guess what? The whole world is going to see a video—this video—and then they’ll know what a freaking creep you are.”
I lunged at him, but Hayden jerked him away and Anderson grabbed my arms. Good thing, I thought, as they carried him toward the school. He didn’t deserve anything else from me. Not my anger or rage.
“You’re amazing,” Anderson told me, cupping my face.
“We did it,” I said, leaning into him.
“No,” he replied. “You did it.”
Chapter 27
That was not how the plan was supposed to go down, not with me almost getting assaulted in the parking lot. My dress—Amber’s dress, was ripped. My hair was a ratty mess. I couldn’t imagine what my makeup looked like. Probably similar to a raccoon.
“Are you sure?” Oliver asked, taking the camera from Eric. Yeah, Eric was the guy behind the car, filming Spencer’s confession and downfall.
I nodded, pushing the phone into his hands. Jackson gave me a wary look. I glared back. “He has to be stopped.”
“Yeah but not at the risk of you still losing everything.”
“He threatened to send that to my mom, to the police, and everyone else that could do us harm. He’s right. They should see it but under our terms. It’s time we took back control.”
Jackson nodded and kissed my forehead before walking toward the school to finish what Spencer started.
Three days ago, Oliver figured out what Spencer had been doing to stalk me for the last several months. The school-issued laptops. When we signed the form accepting responsibility for the technology, there was a small box at the bottom. One giving away our rights to information and data on the machine.
We all checked it without thinking of the ramifications, including how easily the webcams attached to each device could be compromised.
Spencer wasn’t just a fucking pervert; he was smart too. He figured out how to hack into our accounts, manage the streaming and record the images. After Anderson and I were together in his room and he turned on the computer, Oliver got the surprise treat of watching me and Anderson together.
Was he mad?
“Are you kidding?” Oliver said during our bathroom meetup the next day. I’d almost melted on the spot from embarrassment.
“Watching you like that, with one of us?” The way he’d looked at me was enough to engulf my body in a different kind of flames, but there was something else, a tension in his shoulders. “It was incredibly hot, but it was also obvious neither of you knew the camera was on. There’s no way Anderson would do something like that without your consent.”
“So he called me,” Jackson explained further, leaning against the bathroom wall. “And I called Eric and we started to piece it together.”