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“Okay,” he said. “If you ever need me, I’m sure you’ll be able to find me.” Sawyer, with his hands in his pockets, headed toward the door. He tossed a quick look back at me, giving me yet another half grin. “I’ll see you around.”
I watched as he left, leaving me alone in the dorm room. Once he was gone, I hurried and locked it up, feeling the need to take a shower for two different reasons. The first one was that I felt a tad slimy, like he’d been planning on using me or something. The second reason was because my lower stomach burned with a need I recognized; I needed a cold shower.
By the time I went for my hot pocket, it’d lost its warmth and I had to reheat it a bit.
Sawyer…I might’ve liked his face, but I didn’t trust him. Not one bit.
Chapter Six – Sawyer
I was thinking about her during my afternoon classes. Sabrina. I thought about her a lot—a hell of a lot more than I used to when she was still alive. Was it my penance? Was it my fault? If I’d been there for her more, would she still be alive? Maybe I would’ve seen the signs, been able to stop things from escalating to that point.
Sabrina was the best of us. She was kind, nice, generous—three traits the Salvatore family tended to stamp out. I had zero out of the three, and I was the golden child, the one each and every one tried to be. I was the heir, the one who’d take over the family business once my father got too old to do it himself. I was so caught up in being who I was supposed to be that I didn’t realize what was happening to Sabrina until it was too late.
Until she was gone.
Now Sabrina was gone and Declan strolled around campus as if nothing had happened. His room looked the same as it did last year. He was rooming in the freshmen dorms to try to steer clear of me too, but it wasn’t going to work. If I told everyone to make his life a living hell, they would, whether they knew the whole story or not. Everyone wanted to get on my good side. Everyone liked my money.
Fucking Declan.
I couldn’t believe we used to be friends. There was nothing likable about that prick. I didn’t know what Sabrina ever saw in him. He was nothing but a bastard who—
My thoughts trailed off when I saw the professor scurry to the front of the lecture hall. Or, more precisely, who came in directly after the professor. Declan himself. So we had a class together.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
Now I got to look at his ugly face for an hour and fifteen minutes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Although, maybe I could use this to my advantage. Tear down his grades, get him kicked out. Being the dean’s son could only get you so far…
I sat near the back, able to see most of what went on in the lecture hall beneath me. Declan chose the second row, an end seat. I watched him bend to his backpack and pull out his laptop. He took notes on the fucking syllabus. The syllabus. I could only imagine how furious he’d type once the professor actually started teaching.
God, I hated him. I hated him more than anything.
For years, it’d been me, Declan, and Travis. We were the three amigos, the three musketeers, the three boys who got into shit together, even after Travis was held back in third grade. We were supposed to be friends for life, but there was no forgiving what he did.
Blood was thicker than water. I owed it to Sabrina to make the rest of the bastard’s life hell, and I would be more than happy to do it.
I didn’t think I was cruel before. A player, yes, but cruel? I didn’t go out of my way to be mean to anyone until after Sabrina’s death. Now I had to be cruel. It was the only way to live in this horrible world. No one was nice to each other. Sabrina had been nice and look at what it got her: absolutely nothing. Worse than that, actually.
Dead. It got her dead.
I glared hard at the back of Declan’s head, zoning out as the professor droned on about what we’d be covering the rest of the semester. How in the world could he sit there and act like nothing happened?
He killed her. I was certain he killed her.
I’d voiced my opinions on the matter to Travis, and all Travis had said was that if he’d killed her, why would he write a note incriminating himself? Travis didn’t think it made sense—and I supposed it didn’t, but I didn’t give two shits. I blamed Declan whether or not he was the one who physically put the noose around my little sister’s neck. Even if it was a genuine suicide…he still killed her.
Declan had been an outcast ever since Sabrina’s body was found by my parents. I’d spent the weekend partying, lost in booze and drugs, so by the time they’d found her, she was hard. Rigor mortis had set in. There was nothing left to save.
The point was that I made him an outcast. We used to be close; everyone used to have Travis’s and Declan’s names on their tongues like they had mine, but now it was only Travis and I—and half the time I wondered whether Travis was really in it, or if he was just saying what he knew I wanted to hear. I didn’t want his help because he thought he had to give it to me. I wanted Travis to want to help me.
Everyone shunned Declan like he carried the fucking plague, which was exactly how it should be. He should have no friends and definitely no girlfriends. I’d spread the word at the local public college of what he did, so I knew he wasn’t getting any. He’d die never again feeling a slick, tight pussy around his dick.
I wanted him to suffer. I wanted him to suffer so badly that I was willing to suffer, too. I would take him down even if I brought myself down with him.
My mind drifted back to the girl. His roommate. I knew her name: Ashley Bonds. I’d made a stop by the administrative building earlier, asked about her. The secretary was more than compliant after I’d locked the door to her office and given her the best head of her life. It was a good thing she was only thirty, and not some old, ugly broad.
Ashley Bonds.
There was a strength in her, a spark, a fire that threatened to damper my plans for us. Travis and I were going to turn her against Declan, help her see how bad of a guy Declan was, and use her to break him until he was nothing. It was more than obvious the jeers and the notes taped to his door were affecting him, but not nearly enough.
