Richard

“Well, for starters, the two of you could get out,” Michael said, his voice filled with mocking cheer. “This is a house for the brothers of AEO, which neither one of you belong to. We pride ourselves on keeping out the garbage… though I could make an exception, if sweet little Jessica were willing to spread her legs a bit.”

Richard moved forward like a tiger about to jump in for the kill, his face a deep, dark red, his expression filled with rage. I barely had enough time to reach out and pull his arm back, stopping his just shy of slugging Michael right in the jaw.

“Don’t!” I shouted, looking right into Michael’s smirking face. “That’s what he wants.”

Richard’s body was so tense, each of his muscles ready to spring at a moment’s notice.

“He wants an excuse to leak those pictures,” I whispered, putting myself between the two of them. “We can’t give him a reason.”

“You are just so smart, Jessica,” Michael said, false admiration filling his voice. “You really should take her advice, Richard. After all, who knows how long something like fucking your own sister is going to follow you through life?”

“Let’s go,” I whispered, pushing against my stepbrother’s nearly frozen body. Slowly I felt him giving against my efforts until finally he moved back a step and turned. Richard didn’t say a single word, his jaw clenched shut the entire way out of the AEO house and out onto the street.

The silence was almost unnerving as I fell into step behind Richard, unsure exactly where either of us were going at first.

“You’re kinda scaring me, Richard,” I said, swallowing hard around the still present lump in my throat. “Are you going to tell me where we’re going?”

“My dorm,” he grunted, though he never turned his gaze back toward me as he walked.

“Why there?” I asked, my brow furrowing as I hurried to keep pace with him.

“We need to regroup and come up with some kind of plan.”

_ SIXTEEN _

Dick

“What now?” I groaned. “If we don’t get those pictures then we’re going to have that bastard looming over our heads for the rest of our time here. Those pictures are going to ruin us… especially if mom and dad find out.”

“I know,” she sighed, her head in her hands. “We are completely fucked.”

The two of us had gone back to my dorm after the confrontation with Michael at the fraternity to figure out what our next move would be. As it stood, Michael had the upper hand on us. The pictures themselves didn’t technically exist outside of his phone, though with the way things worked now, that meant that the pictures were also floating around in the Cloud, able to be retrieved regardless of whether that bastard’s phone was smashed. The only way to save ourselves was to find a way to delete those pictures from existence and hope Michael hadn’t been smart enough to make backups.

“There’s no way we can get those pictures,” I said, running a hand through my hair in frustration. “Not unless we suddenly learn how to hack into Michael’s phone. And I’m not sure if you noticed, but none of us are that good with computers.”

“I know that, Richard,” Jessica said, frowning at how upset I was getting. If these pictures got out, it would be the end of my football career, and I hardly believed that my dad would fund his son’s college if he knew what his step-daughter and I had been up to while we were away from home. “I probably know that just as well as you do.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, resting my face against my hands. “I’m just worried, that’s all. I don’t like being threatened, and I especially don’t like you being threatened, either. I just wish I had a solution, something that I could actually do to make all of this go away. But like I said, neither of us are that good with computers.”

I looked up from my hands just in time to see Jessica sit up suddenly, her eyebrows raised. It was like a light bulb had gone off over her head.

“What about Greg?”

“Greg?” I asked, frowning. “This is all Greg’s fault! Why would he help us?”

“I think we’re going to make him help us,” Jessica said, a smile creeping onto her lips. “Greg is a Computer Science major, and from what Becky kept saying about him, he’s like a Steve Wozniak-level genius. If we can convince him to help us, then we’ll be one step closer to being in the clear.”

“But the question is whether he will or not,” I pointed out again. “After what he’s already done? To us and to Becky? He’ll be lucky if I don’t beat the shit out of him when I see him.”

“You’ll just have to curb your violent nature,” Jess said as she pulled out her phone. “Becky ought to know what class he’s in right now. Once we know that, we can head straight over and persuade him.”

According to Becky, Greg would be held up in class for at least another hour, which gave us the time we needed to get ready and head all the way across campus and stake out the entrance to the building. It was late in the afternoon, the sun slowly sinking down toward the horizon when the time came for students to start streaming out from the doors to head off to who-knows-where.

I glanced down at Jessica’s phone to get another look at Greg’s picture. He was a mousy guy from what I could tell, with the typical nerdy look that I’d seen so many times back in high school. It was surprising a guy like that even had the balls to do what he did to Jessica and I. But that still left the matter of what had happened to Becky unattended.

“He should have been out here by now,” I said, arms crossed as the two of us sat on a bench near the computer science building’s double doors. “What if he didn’t go to class today?”

“We’ll stay for a little while longer, Richard,” she said exasperatedly, “then we can go look for him at his dorm. Becky was sure that he’d be here today.”

My impatience was beginning to wear on her, and I certainly didn’t blame her. I hated to wait on anything. I was the kind of person who needed to be moving and doing something to feel like I was making a difference, and sitting on a park bench sure as hell didn’t feel like I was getting anything done.

“I can go in and look for him,” I said, clenching and unclenching my fists anxiously. “Bring him outside and then we can talk to him more privately.”

“No,” Jessica said, waving the idea away, “we don’t want to start a scene in there. Let’s do this a little more subtly. If campus security sees you hassling some guy then you can kiss playing in the game goodbye.”

“Fine,” I muttered, turning my gaze back toward the entrance to the computer science building. “What if he runs?”

“Then we chase after him, obviously,” She said, glancing over at me as she took a drink from a bottle of water she’d stashed in her bag. “I don’t think that he’s going to put up much of a fight, especially by the looks of him. Becky said she he was a bit of a wimp.”

I nodded, glancing down at Greg’s picture again on the phone. Jessica was right, the guy barely looked like he could support his own weight, much less throw a punch. But I wasn’t sure that would stop me from making him regret drawing Becky into Michael’s clutches.

“I think that’s him,” Jessica said suddenly, drawing me out of my thoughts.

I looked up, scanning a crowd of students as they began flooding from the double doors. Class must have just let out and with the evening drawing closer it looked like everyone was eager to head back to their dorms. I almost didn’t see Greg at first among all of the passing faces, but it wasn’t until Jessica pointed him out that I finally locked my sights onto him. He had a dark red baseball cap on, pulled down over one side of his face, almost like he was trying to not be recognized, but doing a poor job of it.

“Let’s go,” I said, helping Jessica to her feet as we made our

way after Becky’s boyfriend.

Greg didn’t seem to know we were following behind him at first, his pace casual as he headed in the direction of the Student Union. I motioned for Jessica to get out in front of him while I stayed behind, hoping to catch him between the two of us, corner him before he got to someplace crowded.

Before long the crowd thinned and soon Greg was meandering along on the sidewalk, the street lamps flickering to life as he turned toward one of the on-campus dorms. This was going to be one of the only chances we’d have to get him alone. Jessica glanced back at me from in front of Greg, hoping for a signal—but only succeeded in drawing Greg’s attention behind him.

He might not have recognized Jessica from the back, but he certainly recognized me almost immediately. All at once his face flashed with both recognition and panic, freezing in place like a deer caught in headlights.