A Deal With the Devil (Boys of Preston Prep 2)

Her eyes are closed, mouth parted as she breathes evenly. She’s flaccid when I shake her, like she’s out hard, which isn’t like her at all. Nights of sleeping at her side have taught me that Vandy is a light sleeper, always on alert. I reach out to brush her cheek, warm and pale beneath my palm.

A curled tendril of her hair draws my eyes to the side.

And then I see it.

There’s a pile of pills. A shit-ton of them. They’re haphazardly gathered into a heap on top of her sheets, right next to where her loose fist rests.

“No.” Everything constricts and narrows before exploding into a panicked frenzy. “No, no, no.” I don’t even care about being heard. I take her face in my hands, yelling. “Vandy! Wake up!”

She doesn’t respond.

I try shaking her again, growling out, “V! Come on, baby, come on!” Nothing.

Without thinking, I shove my arms beneath her and wrench her limp body up into my arms. The journey from the bed to the bathroom is completely lost to me in a blur of velocity and my own flooded lungs. Her arm swings floppily when I push through the door, rushing to the bathtub.

I lay her in the tub, but when I go to turn on the water, my bruised fists are shaking so hard that I can barely keep a grip. Cold water bursts from the shower head in a hissing stutter, and I fight to pull my phone from my sopping pocket. But for some reason, the phone won’t turn on. I keep swiping and pressing, but the screen remains black.

Swipe, press. Black.

Press, swipe. Black.

Over and over again, nothing. I’m struck with the impossible notion that I’ve forgotten how to even work a phone. How long has it been since she left with Sebastian? Two, three hours? Long enough to make a stomach-pumping dubiously effective. Long enough to ignite a spark of resentful anger at Emory for holding me there, for fighting with me, when his sister was…

I hear a wet sputter and my eyes lurch away from the screen.

Vandy’s face is screwed up in a grimace, turning away from the spray of water.

I drop the phone, falling to my knees and cupping her cold, wet cheek. “Hey, hey, look at me! Wake up, V! Come on, look at me.”

She blinks against the water, cringing away. “Huh?”

“How many,” I demand, forcing her chin toward me. “How many did you take?”

Her bleary eyes finally fix to mine, a weak hand rising to block the spray. “Reyn? What?”

“Come on, V, focus!” I give her cheek a firm tap. “How many pills did you take?”

Something in her eyes shifts, growing a little more alert. When it does, her face falls. “Fireflies,” she mumbles.

My jaw locks. “Listen to my voice, V! How many!”

“Two!” she yells back, feebly shoving my hands away. “I took two! God…”

“Two?” My eyes dart back toward the room, to the pile of pills on her bed. “Are you sure?”

She wraps her arms around herself, shivering. “It was just my normal dose. Think it knocked me out.”

Reluctantly, I reach over to turn the water off. My hands aren’t trembling any less violently. “Jesus Christ.” I slump to the floor, my back against the tub. My heart feels like I’ve been running laps all damn day. My head is pounding, lungs aching. “Jesus Christ, Vandy. You don’t have a tolerance anymore. That’s how overdoses happen.” The words are rote, mechanical. I can’t even bring myself to look back at her. If I do, she’s going to see this wild, terrified thing that’s not letting go of me.

“What are you doing here?” she curtly asks. I can hear her teeth chattering and I should do something about it, but my limbs are just numb. “Why are you all bloody and—?”

“The plans I had,” I let my elbows dig into my knees when I press the heels of my palms into my eyes, pushing against them until I saw sparks, “were that your brother wanted to kick my ass.”

There’s a loud, horrible squeaking sound from the tub when she shifts, sitting up. Her voice is flat, lifeless. “Because of what you did with Sydney.”

“No, Vandy.” I finally crane my neck to meet her glazed blue eyes. “Because of what I did with you.” She’s shivering harder now—just as hard as I am—wrapping her arms around

her knees. “There is no Sydney. If you would have given me the chance to explain, I could have told you that it was all a dumb trick.”