“Are you going to physically hurt me?” I asked.
I waited to see surprise at the idea of it. There was nothing. That told me one thing: she’d already been thinking about it.
“No.” I shook my head. “You’re not going to take running away from me.” My tone was curt, and I felt shivers down my spine. They weren’t there because of her, or what she might do. They were there because of me.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know how far I would go to keep the one thing that had saved me.
Running saved my life.
She scoffed now, but saw my darkness too. And she blinked. I heard a twinge of caution in her voice. “Stop trying to claim I’m going to hurt you. You did it earlier, saying I was going to hurt your friend—”
Taylor surged to her feet, coming to stand beside me. She folded her arms.
Faith wavered; her voice hitched as she finished. “I had no plans of doing that, and I have no plans to hurt you either.”
“Here’s the rule.”
Faith looked at me, waiting.
“You hurt us. We hurt you. What you dish out comes back at you.”
Her lips pressed together, and her thin shoulders lifted up in a breath. She didn’t reply, but I thought I saw a slight edge of fear spark in her eyes.
Raelynn broke the brief silence with a mocking laugh. “Why do you think—”
“Shut up, Rae.” Faith grabbed her arm. “Let’s go.” She glared at Taylor and me, then swept her eyes to Logan. She spoke through gritted teeth. “We’re not welcome here.”
They left, and Logan waited two seconds before bursting out, “I either wet my pants, or I had the quickest release ever.” He waved his hands in a flourish, indicating us. “Well done, and you two together are fucking hot.” His hands fell to the front of his pants. “I’m still hard. Honey?” He winked at Taylor. “Quickie?”
She groaned, but her face was already flushing. “You’re the most romantic boyfriend ever. How have you stayed single all this time?”
Logan hopped up the steps and grabbed her hand. “With tenacity and battering rams. Those bitches try to break down my barriers, but fuck no. I got SWAT covering me. No bitch could shatter my protest line.”
She laughed as he swept her inside. The door shut before we heard her retort.
“Sam.” Matteo raised his beer to me. “I got new respect for you.”
He wandered down to the bonfire, followed by the rest of the guys who had been on the veranda with us. They nodded to me as well, and I felt an arm encircle my waist. I closed my eyes, feeling Mason’s hard body pressed up against me.
“Hmmm.” I moaned, feeling his lips settle on my neck. “Is this your version of asking for a quickie?”
His other arm slid around me, anchoring me in place. His lips moved up my throat and landed at the corner of my mouth.
“It’d be longer than a quickie, and I have to give my brother props. That was hot.”
“That’s my goal in life. To embody my inner she-devil for your viewing pleasure.”
He pressed up against me. “Consider this my thank you ahead of time.”
I laughed and turned to wind my arms around his neck. I looked up into his eyes. There was a lot of shit going on with me, but him and me? We’d never be on shaky ground.
“Maybe I can ask for a quickie?” I said. I pressed back against him, my ache deepening.
He breathed out, “I thought you’d never ask.”
He grabbed my ass and hoisted me up. My legs went around his waist, and he carried me back through the party to our bedroom. We remained there for the rest of the night.
The house was empty when I woke around four in the morning. That had been my normal time to get up for a run, and my body hadn’t adjusted to cross-country season yet. I didn’t want to wake Mason, so I slipped out into the hallway to use the bathroom there. Hearing talking from the kitchen when I finished, I grabbed a robe from under the counter and tiptoed the rest of the way. It wasn’t that I was hoping to be sneaky, I was just tired.
“Are you sure?” I heard Taylor ask as I came around the doorway.
Logan leaned against the counter in sweats. His arms were crossed over his chest, and Taylor rested against his side.
“Do they know what happened?” she said into the phone.
I mouthed to Logan, “Who is that?”
He mouthed back, “Her dad.”
I sat down on a chair that was already pulled out from the table and slid my hands under my legs to keep them warm. Then I waited.
Taylor nodded as she listened. After a few minutes, she sighed into the phone. “Okay. Thanks for letting me know. Yeah. I love you, Dad.”
She hung up and didn’t say anything at first. Her shoulders slumped forward as she continued to hold the phone in her hand.
She sighed again. “That was my dad.”
Logan frowned.
I frowned. My heart beat faster, and I wet my lips. This wasn’t going to be good.
She still didn’t look at either of us. “He wanted me to know there had been a car accident. Someone from campus called him.”
I expected her to say her friend Jason’s name, or one of her other friends. Maybe even one of her relatives.
Then she looked at me. “Raelynn’s in the hospital. A drunk driver hit her car.”
Faith wasn’t at Monday’s practice.
Courtney told me the girls from the team had gone to visit Raelynn on Saturday. Taylor and I hadn’t been invited, but I didn’t know what we would’ve done if we had been. Taylor still had PTSD every time she visited hospitals, since she saw her mom gunned down in one. I completely understood that, but I still felt I needed to show up. So instead of Taylor, Logan went with me on Monday afternoon. Mason was at football. I wouldn’t see him till that evening anyways.
“Is this wrong?” Logan was almost bouncing next to me as we walked down the hallway. Our shoes scraped against the floor, and the stench of bleach and chemicals was thick in the air. “I’m a little excited to see if she’s really hurt or if she’s just faking. My bet’s on faking. This whole thing is a scam. They want to pin it on you somehow.”
I stopped and stared at him. “Are you joking? Please tell me you’re joking. You think this is a huge ploy?”
He frowned. “Uh, yeah. That bitch is crazy. I wouldn’t put it past her to ask her friend to sit in her car, then pay a drunk homeless guy to ram a truck into her. I bet she didn’t tell the homeless guy her friend was in there either.”
“That’s horrible.”
“Have we not met before?” He held out his hand, much like he had when we were going to the career counselor. “I’m Logan. I’m a jaded son of a bitch. I can’t technically call my mom a bitch, but I know Helen is one.” He wiggled his fingers. “And you are?”
I knocked his hand aside. “This isn’t funny, and stop introducing yourself to me. That joke’s getting old.”
He twisted around, looking up and down the hallway. “Who’s laughing? Not me.” He stared down at me, long and hard. “People have done worse shit to us. Fuck. If she did orchestrate this, at least it wasn’t your car. Remember Nate?”
Budd Broudou had once cut Nate’s brake lines, thinking they were Mason’s. Nate pulled out of the school parking lot and was T-boned by an oncoming truck. His recovery took weeks.
I didn’t know if Faith or Raelynn had orchestrated this, but I didn’t want to walk into Raelynn’s hospital room with that suspicion in mind. Too late, though. Logan said it, and now it was in my head. I pushed it to the back. I had a feeling she wasn’t going to be ecstatic to see me anyway, but I still wanted her to know I felt badly. I was just being a decent human being.
“You’ve got to be kidding?”
The contorted, half-gasped statement came from behind us. We turned to see Faith in the middle of the hallway. She had a Styrofoam cup in her hand, and the blood drained from her face. She had bags under her eyes and looked like she hadn’t slept in days.
?
?Get out.” A mangled growl erupted from the back of her throat. Her eyes blazed, and she moved toward us. “Out! Now!”
I frowned. “Why are you reacting like this?”
She took another step toward us. The liquid in her cup spilled out over her hand, but she didn’t seem to notice. She could only glare at me.
“Because for all I know, you paid someone to hit her. Did you have someone follow us home and then get her as she pulled out of my driveway? Was that how it went down?”
This was ridiculous. I held my hands up, shaking my head. “Has it occurred to you that maybe someone hit her by accident? That it really was a horrible, horrible accident?”
“All I know is you joined the team and ever since then, my life has genuinely sucked.”
Logan snorted. “That sounds more like a case of bad karma than Sam’s agenda. I’m sure she saw you on the team one day, and thought to herself, ‘Hmmm. That girl looks evil. I should join the team after a chance meeting with my track coach where he insists I join, and yes, by golly, I’ll take that girl down.’” He rolled his eyes. “Hell yes. Samantha Strattan, my stepsister mastermind extraordinaire. That’s her, all right.”
Faith sucked in her breath. “You don’t have to make fun of me. The damage is done. My best friend is in the hospital, and the doctors say she may never run again.”
“Bullshit.”
“Excuse me?!” She glowered at Logan, perhaps wishing he’d never run again.
“Yeah.” Logan’s head inclined toward her. “I call bullshit. I’ve been in enough situations to know the chances of having an epic verbal smackdown at a party with someone and hours later, one of the people gets hit and is ‘never going to run again’ is highly unlikely. It seems to me like you’re the one with the agenda. I’m calling your bluff.”
She gritted her teeth and spoke through them. “What are you saying?”
“Call the cops. Tell them you think Sam was behind it. That is what you’re implying, right?”
Her neck grew red. The color crept up to her cheeks. “Are you—”
“I’m not joking.” His tone was dead serious. His eyes were calm. “Make the claim. Make it official. Don’t think you can play in our league just by saying you’re in our league. Actually do it, then sit back and see how we handle you.”
“Is that a threat?” It came out as a whisper.
“Not a threat. A fact. Do it.”
“You’re insane.”
I was tired of this. She was going to sputter and hiss like a broken record. Logan was going to continue to call her bluff. I had come to do one thing, and I turned around to do it.
“Where are you going?” Logan called after me.
“I’m going to see how Raelynn is,” I threw over my shoulder.
I hoped Logan would keep Faith distracted. I tensed, waiting for her to hurry after me with more threats, but I didn’t hear any yells or footsteps. I got to Raelynn’s door and looked back. Logan seemed to be still talking to Faith. I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to leave them alone, but he knew what he was doing. He wouldn’t give her any ammunition.
I knocked softly and looked into the room.
Raelynn was curled up in the bed, turned away from me. A sheet completely covered her shoulder, but I saw some bruising on her neck. I moved around the bed, seeing the steady rise and fall of deep breathing, and guessed she was sleeping. When I got to the other side and could see her face, I almost gasped out loud. My mouth fell open, but I covered it and stifled the sound.
Her entire face was black and blue. Her right eye had a bandage over it, and her mouth looked cut up.
This accident hadn’t been staged. It was the real deal.
Then her left eye opened, and she saw me.
I shot my hands out. “Please don’t get mad at me. I just wanted to see how you were.”
Her eye narrowed, and she rolled to her back. Grimacing, she sat up and pointed to a pillow on the chair next to me. I handed it over, and she placed it behind her.
She leaned back gingerly, still cringing. “Are you here to gloat?”
I sat down, my hand covering my mouth. I felt tears threatening. She was clearly in a massive amount of pain. “Faith thinks I had something to do with this. I did not.” I gestured to her. “I’m so sorry.”
Her mouth was stiff, and her words came out slowly. “The other driver was some drunk guy. He was going home from the bar. The cops arrested him already. It’s his third car accident. He’ll be in county jail for a while, and he’s supposed to get his license taken away. Unless you had someone proposition him, I doubt you’d know Jim DeLuca.”
“That’s his name?”
“He calls himself Jimbo.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I know you didn’t do this. You’re not like that.”
“Faith said the doctors don’t think you can run again?”
She groaned. “Faith is such a liar. That’s not true. I can’t run this year. I’ll be running next year just fine.”
“That’s a relief then.”
She looked away. “Not that it matters. Only two people from our team make it to nationals. It’ll be you and Faith now. I’d be out anyway. And Faith is going to milk my accident so she gets all the attention. Good luck with her. She’ll have everyone convinced you slept with Jimbo to try to kill me, and the cops were paid off by your rich daddy to keep quiet about the whole thing.”
“Are you serious?” I tensed.
“’Fraid so. It’ll be something like that. She’s going to turn everyone against you. She’s done it before. I’ve seen her do it since elementary school. She won’t stop either, not until you’re so bullied by the others—even other runners in our races—that you’re either in the room next to me or you quit out of self-preservation.” Raelynn looked toward the open door. “I should stop talking. She could come back soon.” She cast me a worried look. “You might want to leave. She’ll probably start yelling and get you banned from the hospital.”
I gestured toward the hall. “We already ran into her.”
“We?”
I nodded. “Logan came with me. He’s distracting her so we can talk.”
Her eyes darted to the doorway, but it was empty. She looked back to me. “Look, it’s over for me this year. I can’t run, and that means, I can’t be Faith’s backup. She and Nettie will become best friends now. Just watch. She’s here, but once she starts running again, I probably won’t see her until she finds out I’m coming back next year. She’ll reach out to me next May, I’m betting. She’ll want to run together over the summer. But I’m telling you this because you have to watch out for her. Okay? Watch your back.”
I nodded.
She moved her head ever so slightly up and down. The pillow crinkled from the motion. “Can I tell you something? Something no one knows?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m in love with her. I have been since elementary school. She knows, but it’s not something we talk about. She’s not gay. I know what I’m dealing with, but I still love her. I’m an idiot.”
I started to reach for her hand, saw how smashed up it looked, and changed my mind. “Why are you telling me this?”
“I’m not evil. She isn’t either. She’s just spoiled, and she’s never not gotten her way. I was going to try to watch her for you. I didn’t want her to do something that would jeopardize her future, you know? But I can’t anymore. I figured warning you is the best I can do.” Her voice grew shaky. “Thank you for coming to see me.”
“Yeah. Of course.” I was still taken aback by everything.
“I might try to sleep again.” She moved her hand until she could press the call button, turning back to her side. “The nurse will come in and give me something to sleep. Come back and visit, will ya? Faith will be around for another week, but she’ll drop me like a bad habit after that.”
“Of course.” I touched the edge of her bed and patted it. “I’ll see you in a week then.”
&nb
sp; “Thanks, Sam. Run fast, okay?”