“Mhm. Hey, yourself. I only have one thing to say.” She approached me to drop her voice down and put her finger to my chest. “I better not hear of her being put on Sloane’s hitlist through the fucking grapevine, do you hear me? If anything goes fucking wrong and she gets put into danger, I will not hesitate to put a fucking bullet in your head myself.”

​Chapter 25

Fallon

My plans for a normal life went out the window. I wanted to come out of my hermit hole and have a great semester, but that was long gone and I didn’t know what to make of it.

Trying to forget most of what had been going on, I took a shower, letting the warm water and steam consume me from the inside out. Brent was fast asleep in my bed and Kelly was in the kitchen preparing leftovers from last night.

Why was my life so fucking strange?

I asked for normal different–not this shit!

Using my loofah, I tried to scrub it all away to no avail. The soap cleaned my skin, sure, but not my mind of the absolute shit show that was unfolding.

My mental inventory of events was overwhelming. Getting a boyfriend over the summer was my first step to my normalcy feelings of sophomore year–going on dates like regular people had me hopeful. Somewhere along those lines, Brent decided to rain on my parade with hail like the reckless asshole that he was.

Don’t even get me started on those fucking texts, the scandal, and the dirty business practices of the elitist assholes who tried to run the world like they were illuminati wannabes.

I could handle the boy problems, but the other stuff? Nope.

Groups and cliques around us were imploding at insane rates, facades of niceties crumbling like a decaying building on its last leg. I watched someone get murdered in real time for God's sake.

The VIP room with the underground, shady deals was my new life. They expected me to play along or die.

My titanic hit the iceberg; I was sinking. My stomach threatened me again.

My company provided places for black market operations! The implications of that were insane!

Oh yeah, and the weird fucking texts I keep getting. What the fuck, right?

Alexander was a complete fucking weirdo and probably had plans to force me into having sex with him. He seemed the type.

And there’s my stomach acid in the tub.

My skin was rubbed raw with the thoughts stirring in my mind. The water went cold with how long I stood under the stream–my skin was pruny. Maybe I could drown myself in the hot tub later.

I tiptoed around my room in nothing but a towel because I forgot to get a change of clothes before jumping into scalding hot water, too excited to bathe all the nasty thoughts and Brent off of me.