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ALLIE
“Where were you guys?” Imani asked, arching a brow and picking at her turkey sandwich that her father usually made her. She rolled her eyes and briefly glanced over at her three lovers. “I had to spend the majority of lunch with these assholes.”
“That must’ve been terrible,” I said sarcastically to her, cracking a smile. “Especially when Landon can’t stop touching you under the table.”
She sneered and pushed Landon’s hand away from her, scolding him to stop it because people could definitely see. Redwood was full of lurkers who nobody expected. Nothing was really private here, especially not with Poison.
“He’s not touching me.”
“I’m claiming her,” Landon clarified.
Rolling my eyes at him, I glanced over at Imani. “And you think we”—I gestured to Jace and me—“are messed up. You can’t even decide if you want them or not.” I leaned closer to Jace. “At least I know what I want.”
Jace unwrapped a sandwich. “To be fucked in the library.”
Imani laughed, and I cut my eyes to Jace and slapped his chest. “Thanks for the help.”
“Anyway,” Jace said, looking at João, “we need to move things along. My father is about to snap.” Jace placed a hand on my thigh and squeezed. “And when I say move them along, I mean, by the end of this week. We can’t wait much longer.”
Nicole walked into the cafeteria, glancing from the cheerleader table to ours and gnawing on her cheek. I gave her a smile and waved her over, patting the seat beside me.
Though she looked nervously between Poison, Jace, and me, she sat on the bench. “Hey.”
“What are you doing here?” Jamal asked, taking a seat across from her.
She pressed her red lips together. “I’m sitting with my … my friends.” After whispering the word, as if she didn’t know if we considered her a friend yet, she pulled her backpack onto her lap and rummaged inside of it. “I have something that might help prove myself to you.”
“You don’t have to,” I said, leaning closer to her. “They believe you.”
Nicole looked between the Poison boys and shook her head, giving them a flash drive anyway. “I spent all night trying to find it on my father’s computer. I’m not going to let all my hard work go to waste. I just … I need a place to crash for a couple nights. As soon as my dad gets home from work tonight, he’s going to know that I went in there.”
When nobody offered Nicole to stay at their place—I would’ve, but with Harlan, it wasn’t a good idea—I kicked Jamal under the table and narrowed my eyes at him. Jamal would probably be the only person who Nicole’s father wouldn’t check. For the most part, Jamal stayed out of trouble with the police.
“You can stay at my place, but what’s on the flash drive? Why do you need it?” Jamal asked.
Jamal knew nothing about what was happening behind the scenes. I didn’t even think that Jace had told him about Harlan killing his mother yet. He was behind, and I kind of wanted to keep it that way. I didn’t want to drag his family into this. His mother worked so hard for him to have a good life.
“It’s … a video of my father and me,” Nicole whispered, thrusting the flash drive into Kai’s hand. “If you can’t find anything incriminating on my father, use this. I want this to be over as quickly as possible. I don’t want any of you guys getting hurt anymore.”
Kai pulled out his computer and stuffed the flash drive into the USB port, eyes widening. Almost immediately, he snapped the computer closed and looked around the cafeteria to make sure that nobody had seen. “You’re not fucking with us.”
Nicole pressed her lips together and looked down at the table. “Please, use that. I don’t want any of the other girls to have a video of them leaked or … or something worse. If you can incriminate him with this, then do what you need to.”
Kai leaned closer. “Nicole, this is a video of your father mol—”
“I know it is,” she snapped. “It fucking happened to me. I don’t need to relive it. Do what you have to do with it and fucking destroy that fucking bastard, so he doesn’t hurt anyone else like he has me.”
Everyone at the table went silent, and I gently rubbed Nicole’s shoulder. I didn’t want to even see what was on that flash drive. By the mere way Kai—Kai!—had paled when he saw it, I knew that it’d sicken me right down to the very core.
I rested my head on her shoulder. “Thank you, Nicole. You don’t know how much we needed this right now,” I whispered because it was true.
Without this video and without evidence, we wouldn’t be able to get anywhere. Jace and I would be stuck in this situation for even longer, always worrying if Mom would be alive once we made it back home for the night.
“Jace and I are in your debt,” I said to Nicole.
She gave me her best smile. “No, you’re not. I did this so nobody else will get hurt or used by the Redwood Police or disgusting old teachers who have nothing else to do than jerk off to underage students.”
“Sorry that we’re late to the party!” Maddie said, approaching our table with Vera in tow. “Did we miss anything good?”
“Nope,” Imani said, cutting her eyes to the rest of the table.
We hadn’t had many friends before, and neither she nor I wanted to get them involved in our messy drama. We had other things to deal with and to worry about.
Imani pushed over to make room for them. “We were just waiting for you.”
