Richard

Becky glanced up at me again, her frown still as steady as ever as she swallowed. I knew that she wasn’t angry at Jess or me, but I also knew that she wanted control of her life—something she had felt like she lost after waking up drugged and taken advantage of. I didn’t even know how much of the rape she actually remembered, but hopefully it was enough to figure out who might have done this.

“I was at a party,” she said, swallowing again to try and remove some of the hoarseness from her voice. “I was with Greg.”

“Who’s Greg?” I asked.

“He’s my boyfriend… was my boyfriend,” she corrected. “He and I had gone to a party at one of the fraternities together. Greg’s not a big partier, but he wanted to go that night for some reason—it felt a little weird that he’d actually want to hang around a bunch of drunk frat boys, but he was really determined to go.”

“Which fraternity?” I asked. It was almost impossible to keep track of all the frats that were having a party on any given night—it was easier to find which ones weren’t partying, honestly.

“A__, I think. I didn’t really pay attention… there were so many people there,” Becky said, hugging her knees close to her chest. “We went inside and hung out for a while, but I didn’t really feel like drinking. Greg did, though. He looked so nervous about being there that I thought it was just his social anxiety kicking in. I thought the drinking would make him calm down a little bit.”

“What else did you do while you were there?” I asked, leaning back on Jessica’s bed as I listened to her recount that night. The fact that this Greg guy had dragged Becky to the party had me suspicious that he might have just been in on the entire thing. I made a note to find whoever this guy was and give him a piece of my mind.

“Mostly just sat and talked,” she said, her smile returning, if only slightly. “Greg and I started taking dumb pictures of one another after he calmed down. We were being so silly… And that’s when I start losing track of what happened.”

“But you weren’t drinking?” I asked.

“I had a Coke, sure,” she said, frowning, her brow furrowed in thought, “but I wasn’t like, drinking drinking. Y’know? I just started to feel really funny after we started taking pictures. I’ve gone over it over and over, and that is where things always start getting fuzzy.

“I remember Greg talking to someone, but it wasn’t to me,” she said, her eyes closed tight as though focusing on conjuring up the memory. “I… I think it was Michael.”

“Michael?” I ask, frowning. What the fuck was he doing there, and speaking to Becky’s boyfriend. “What’d he say?”

“I’m not sure about all of it,” she said, her frown deepening. “He asked about pictures—Michael did, I mean. I thought it was weird that he’d want pictures that Greg and I were taking… I think I said something, and Michael just laughed. Greg handed him something and then I felt someone grab my arm…”

Greg gave him pictures, I thought, my mind reeling as I realized the implications of what had happened at that party. That little shit must have been in the locker room with me and Jessica. Now Michael has them, and God knows what else.

I stayed quiet, letting Becky finish her story. She needed to get all of it out, to say it out loud and hear herself say the words. There might never be a time when she ever gets over what was done to her, but at least she could find a way to live with it.

“Michael looked at me and just kept laughing,” she said, her voice laden with barely held back sobs. “I couldn’t see Greg anymore, and I didn’t feel right… He’d left me there, alone with those monsters. I felt all these hands on me, touching me, pulling me up onto my feet. The world started spinning and they just sort of… dragged me upstairs. They took me into a bedroom. There were so many of them...”

My fists clenched tight as I imagined Michael’s smug face, remembering what he’d said after making it with Becky at the party. I wasn’t going to let that piece of shit get away with this.

“I don’t remember much after that,” she said, her voice strained as she held back more sobs. She glanced over at Jessica for a moment. “I just remember waking up outside of the dorms with you over me with some of the other girls… I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t understand until after those cops had gotten there.”

“You told the cops that nothing happened,” Jessica said, swallowing as she too fought to keep her emotions in check. “Why did you do that? We could have gotten them by now.”

“I didn’t want anyone to know, Jessica,” she said, a new wave of tears escaping from the corners of her eyes. “I just wanted to be left alone, to crawl into the shower and try and wash everything off of me—to wash them off of me. If I told the cops then I’d have to keep telling this over and over again… telling it once has been bad enough.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, glancing over at Jessica for a moment before returning my gaze to Becky. “You don’t need to tell us any more if it’s going to make you any more upset.”

“Thanks,” she muttered, her head resting on the top of her knees. “I just… I want to be alone for now, you two. Please. I appreciate you coming. I just don’t think I can handle being around people right now.”

“Sure, Becky,” Jessica said, motioning for me to follow as she made toward the door. “I’ll be back later tonight, I guess.”

Becky kept silent as my stepsister and I left the room, her head still resting on the top of her knees. I wasn’t sure, but I thought I heard a new round of sobs beginning as we closed the door and stood facing one another in the hallway.

“Michael has the pictures of us,” I said, flexing my fingers slowly open and closed. I wanted to wrap them around that smug bastard’s throat. It wasn’t enough that he was blackmailing us, he needed to add rape to his list of crimes. “We need a plan.”

“Is going in and kicking his ass not enough?” she asked, her voice tense. Those words coming out of her mouth almost made me do a double take. Jessica was always a level headed person, in fact it was a trait in her that I admired. I was always the hotheaded one in the family next to my father who would blow his top at the slightest provocation. Hearing my stepsister advocating to beat the hell out of someone gave me more than an idea of just how upset this had made her. “I’m not going to let my best friend go through college without the person who hurt her getting exactly what he deserves.”

“That plan always works for me,” I said as I headed toward the stairs with her in tow. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen, but I knew I wasn’t about to let Michael get away with this—not for a second.

_ FIFTEEN _

Jessica

“What is this even going to accomplish?” I asked, doing my best to keep pace with my stepbrother as we made our way across campus. “Do you know how many of them are in there? They’ve got you outnumbered, Richard! We need to be smart about this!”

“I’m not in the mood for smart, Jess,” he said, “and you shouldn’t be here to see this.”

“Why? Because of my delicate, feminine sensibilities?” I scoffed. “I’m not some innocent little girl.”

“No, innocent is certainly not a word to describe you, babe,” he grumbled. “Just stay behind me.”

The fact that my brother still saw me as some damsel was more than enough to get my blood boiling. He knew I wasn’t some delicate flower, and more than that he knew I was smart as hell. But when Richard was upset there wasn’t much I could do to really reason with him.

Once we’d found out that Michael was the one behind the pictures, my brother made it a point to head straight over to the Alpha Epsilon Omega house, despite my protests. Richard was just one man, but how he expected to face an entire fraternity of men was completely beyond me. If anything happened, someone needed to be there to make sure he got out safe—and apparently, that someone was going to be me.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” I said as the frat house came into view. The clo

ser we got the more my sense of dread seemed to grow until my stomach was a knot of worry. Out on the lawn, the brothers of AEO were loitering, the grass strewn with the remnants of a kegger they’d had the night before.

“Not a clue,” he said before walking up the walkway toward the front door.

The moment Richard stepped on the lawn, the brothers of AEO took notice, their heads turning and someone calling out for the rest to watch. Somehow I had gotten the idea that they’d been expecting the two of us.

“Halt!” came a voice from behind us, though it carried all the sneer and none of the seriousness of an actual command. “Who goes there?”

“Go fuck yourself,” Richard growled, reaching out to grab the doorknob.

Before he could even touch the brass knob, a hand reached out and grabbed Richard’s wrist. I watched, and in that moment I wasn’t sure who I should have been more concerned for, Richard, or the frat brother.