Her Shame: A Dark Bully Romance (The Forgotten Elites Book 1) Read online

  “Damn straight,” Clark replies and we all clink glasses together. It burns like liquid fire going down but I stifle the urge to choke.

  No, I’m not gonna be that girl anymore. I’m gonna be this girl.

  That’s what they wanted, isn’t it? My parents.

  They wanted me to be a Ridgecrest girl.

  So that’s who I’m going to be.

  Chapter Nine

  It isn’t until the sun starts to dip low that the cars begin to pull up. Only a few at first, then all of a sudden, it’s as if people just keep multiplying. Soon every room is packed. There are people milling around on the porch and getting cozy by the lake, their bodies forming tight-knit packs as they amble up and down the steep side of the hill.

  “Only a few dozen people, huh?” Paris shouts to Alaska over the noise.

  “You know how it goes.” Alaska shrugs with a devious smile before turning to me. “How are you doing? Having fun?”

  That’s hardly what I’d call it. I’ve spent the better part of the last hour slowly moving the chips and dips further and further away from the door until I’ve found myself alone in a corner, an empty bowl of what once was buffalo chicken dip in front of me.

  Still, I nod, clutching my drink in my hand. “So long as you have more dip somewhere …”

  Alaska makes a sour expression at me. “Oh, come on. Loosen up.”

  Then she glances once toward the door and moves closer to me, her voice dropping to a near conspiratorial level. “I won’t have to play party host for long, everyone will be drunk enough soon. For now …”

  And here she trials off, her eyes leaving mine just long enough to rove around the room now swelling with noise. “For now, you should do a lap, see if anyone catches your eye,” she says with a wink.

  I’ll pretend like I know what that means.

  “For sure,” I say, and start to weave through the sea of bodies before she tries to get more explicit. The music pumping in the living room is disorienting. I vaguely recognize some of the faces of people from the quad or from classes, but they look like strange doppelgangers out of their uniforms, shiny earrings and watches flashing against the light.

  Is this really what parties are like? I imagined more … I don’t know … or maybe less.

  I suppose it might be different if I actually knew anyone.

  With the amount I’ve had to drink already, I’m sure to make some kind of fool of myself. If it weren’t for the giant bowl of dip I just ate, I’d probably have done that already.

  My wanderings carry me past one of the bedroom doors—something I immediately regret once I hear the sounds coming from the other side. It doesn’t help that for a moment, I wondered if the girl inside was in pain … only to get a bit too close to the still-cracked-open door before realizing my grave error.

  I get out of there as quickly as I can and only hope neither of the participants had the chance to get a look at my shocked face.

  I need another drink to forget that.

  The warm evening air hits my face as I step outside onto the porch, grab the tap of the keg, and pour myself another drink. I take a sip of the bitter beer and nearly choke as I see who emerges from the car that just pulled up in front of the house.

  The sort of people I shouldn’t be dealing with sober, let alone … not.

  Warren, Sterling, and Chase emerge from a shiny black Porsche. Sterling is sporting a black leather jacket and tight black jeans. Chase wears a fitted T-shirt with a band logo on it and brushes his light hair out of the way of his shiny designer sunglasses. Warren wears a crisp button down and flashes a large gold watch as he adjusts his shirt cuffs.

  I don’t have time—nor the coordination—to duck out of sight before I’m spotted, so it’s all I can do to remain planted to the same spot as they approach.

  They tower over me by the time they’ve stepped up onto the porch.

  I knew they were tall before, but here … now … outside of school, they dwarf me in comparison.

  “What’s up, Stoner Girl?” Chase asks playfully, leaning over a bit to try to get a look in my cup.

  I, in turn, snatch it away. “Didn’t expect to see you guys here.”

  Beside Chase, Sterling gives me a wink.

  “We’re full of surprises.”

  Not one to mince words, Warren pushes both of them aside and glances through the doors. “Where’s the liquor?”

  At least there aren’t any games with him.

  I point straight toward Alaska’s makeshift bar. “Just through there.”

  Warren and Chase disappear inside, while Sterling hangs on the porch and lights a cigarette. He eyes me up and down.

  “New look for you, never took you for a Nirvana fan,” he says as his eyes hit my chest.

  They linger there for more than a moment too long.

  “It’s Alaska’s. Most of my regular clothes are back at my parent’s house,” I say self-consciously.

  “Ah, that makes sense. You seem like the kind of girl who’s more comfortable in her uniform.”

  Ah, there it is. I knew there’d be a bite there somewhere.

  “Why do you say that?” I ask, trying to sound casual but pushing down the lump rising in my throat.

  “I told you, you’re not whatever it is you’re trying to pass yourself off as. You like a uniform because it anonymizes you, makes you match everyone else. That way you don’t have to own whatever it is that you are,” he says as he takes a drag of his cigarette.

  “Oof,” I say, glancing around to see if anyone else overheard. “And you’re not even drunk yet.”

  Sterling takes another drag of the cigarette without so much as smiling. “I, unlike you, don’t need a drink to tell the truth.”

  His words make anger flare up inside me. I cock my head to the side as I glare up at him.

  “Why are you so obsessed with whatever it is that I am? You say you tell the truth, but it’s not like you wear your heart on your sleeve,” I snap back, catching both me and Sterling off guard. His shoulders pin back as he stands a little taller and he looks at me with a mix of curiosity and menace.

  He too seems unlikely to back down tonight.

  “Because it’s bad enough that you bothered to lie about it, and that piques my interest. Life is boring. If I see something that interests me, I set my mind to it. And right now, you and whatever it is you’re hiding are what interest me.”

  He moves toward me as he speaks, until we’re just inches apart. He takes another drag of his cigarette and blows it out the side of his mouth, his eyes still locked on mine. I feel my breath catch in my throat. Then he drops the spent end of it and crushes it under his toe.

  “Stay sharp, Aubrey—the semester is long,” he says as he turns and walks away, breaking the tension.

  I feel my breath exhale in a rush and my knees go a little weak. I lean over the railing on the porch and try to catch my breath. No sooner do I start to feel the pounding in my chest ease than I hear a commotion inside.

  I walk inside to see Warren and Chase in the center of the living room, shot glasses in hand. They clink them together and throw them back.

  “Alright, let’s get some decent music up here,” Warren says, motioning to Chase. Chase walks over to the speaker and unplugs Alaska’s phone and plugs his in. Some awful auto-tuned monstrosity starts blaring in the living room, greeted by a mix of boos and cheers from the other students.

  Alaska emerges from one of the back rooms.

  “What’s going on?” she asks, suddenly spotting Warren and Chase. “Didn’t realize you two were going to turn up.”

  “Wasn’t anything else going on,” Warren snarks back. “Just trying to liven the atmosphere a little bit.”

  “With this trash? Come on,” Alaska says. A single one of her eyebrows arches up dramatically.

  Apparently, I’m not the only one who’s had enough to drink to no longer be afraid to speak her mind.

  “Trash?” Chase retorts.

 
“You heard me,” Alaska snaps back.

  “Look, you’re lucky we showed up. Makes your little Mickey Mouse Club party look like something legitimate,” Warren hisses.

  Alaska fixes him with a look, but it isn’t her voice that carries out through the space between them.

  “What, did you have somewhere better to be? Because from what I’ve heard, no one else would have you.”

  The words escape my mouth and instantly wish I could suck them back in again. I watch as every head turns toward me, their faces riddled with the same shock and awe that I can feel welling up inside of me.

  Who said that? That wasn’t me.

  All eyes are on me and Warren, watching, waiting to see what’s going to happen next.

  Warren slowly walks over to me, a vein by his eye twitching slightly. For someone so handsome, he looks eerily menacing.

  “I didn’t mean—” I start, but he cuts me off.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t come here to be jerked around by some spoiled little school girl brats. I thought you all might be cool, but I guess that answers my question,” he says with a sneer. “Let’s go.” He motions to Chase and Sterling, the latter of which just emerged from one of the back rooms.

  Warren pushes past me, Chase throws me a sideways glance with a shake of his head, and Sterling, on his way out the door, pauses next to me and whispers something in my ear.

  “Wrong move, girl.”

  And with that, the boys pile into the car and speed off as the entire party feels like it’s moving in slow motion. I feel sick. My heart is pounding. I don’t know who this girl is that took over my mouth, but I feel like she’s just painted a giant, red target on my back.

  But while I’m starting to spiral into an existential crisis, Alaska walks over to me, practically glowing.

  “Damn girl, where did that come from?” she asks. “I didn’t know you had balls!”

  Clark appears from the dispersing crowd as well and claps me on the shoulder, beaming.

  “Seriously though, I did not take you for the kind of girl that would lay into those boys.”

  “I dunno, just kind of slipped out,” I say as casually as I can muster.

  “Alright, enough talk, I want to get fucked up,” Alaska says as she tosses back a shot and cranks the music back up. Cheers erupt from the surrounding partygoers and Clark shoves another shot into my hand.

  He leans in close, his voice dropping so only I can hear it. “I think you need it even more than I do.”

  He doesn’t give me a chance to respond before he rears back and raises his voice loud enough to carry out above the growing din.

  “To what I’m sure will be a wild year,” he toasts and tosses his shot back.

  “Yeah,” I say as I throw my own shot back. It burns slightly less this time, and I immediately grab another beer, and another. Soon the party melts into a kind of loud blur of noise and lights. “To a wild year.”

  A year, it seems, that’s destined to start with a very wild night.

  The next thing I know, I wake up face-down on one of the beds in the back bedroom, still wearing my clothes. My head pounds and as soon as I roll over, the entire room feels like it’s a ship being tossed at sea. I reach over and grab my phone, which is miraculously plugged into the wall.

  I click the lock screen awake and 8 a.m. blares brightly in my face. Just under it is a text message alert from an unknown number. I open my phone and as soon as I read the text, I feel my stomach about to heave.

  I knew I made a mistake last night, but I didn’t know how grave that mistake would be.

  I should have been making allies, not enemies.

  I hope you’re ready to prove what a tough chick you are, because Ridgecrest just got a whole lot tougher for a girl like you.

  Because only enemies would send a message like that.

  Chapter Ten

  Groggy, hungover, and exhausted, the drive back to campus goes by like a blur. I debate whether or not to delete the offending text before handing over my phone again—and end up doing it against my own better judgement.

  Better to hide the evidence than have it somehow used against me.

  As it always is.

  Minutes later, Alaska and I collapse onto our beds as soon as we cross the threshold into our room with an echo of moans.

  “Remind me never to mix again … ever,” Alaska’s muffled voice pleads from deep in her pillow.

  “Mmmmhmmm,” is all I can manage to mumble back in agreement.

  A sudden knock at the door pierces through the air. It’s so loud—or maybe it just seems so loud—for a second I think it’s boring straight into my skull.

  “What? Who is it?” Alaska yells, unceremoniously.

  The door slowly swings open and Bridget flounces inside, a giddy grin on her face.

  Oh fuck, she’s the last person I want to see right now.

  I let out another groan and pull my pillow out from under my head to cover my face.

  “Oh, you two look like death,” she laughs.

  “What do you want, Bridget?” Alaska asks flatly.

  “Oh, just to admire the conquering heroes that pissed off my brother and his boys. I have to say, I’m actually a little impressed, didn’t think Aubrey here had it in her.”

  I pull the pillow up just enough to fix her with a single eye.

  “To be fair, neither did I,” I reply. “Just kind of happened.”

  “Well, given how both of you look, I can’t imagine you hold your liquor very well, so blame it on liquid courage and all that. I did want to warn you, those boys egos bruise like peaches, this year isn’t going to get any easier for from here on out, especially not for you Aubrey.” Bridget’s voice remains pretty upbeat, but there’s a dark undertone I can’t ignore.

  She’s just trying to mess with me, get in my head. A head that currently can barely hold itself together.

  Still, it manages to somehow put together one cohesive thought.

  “Was that you that texted me then?”

  To her credit, she looks genuinely confused. “You know we aren’t allowed to have phones here. Besides, I don’t have your number, why?”

  I wave a dismissive hand at her.

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  She narrows her eyes at me, then glances over at Alaska before she starts slinking back toward the door.

  “Well, you two have fun, drink lots of water,” she says, and with that she disappears out the door. There’s a palpable emptiness when she leaves.

  Say what you like about the girl, she has a tangible presence.

  “Ugh, what a bitch,” Alaska groans. “Remind me to put a dead fish in her room or something when the thought of that doesn’t make me want to hurl.”

  “I don’t think we should antagonize her any further, I mean, it seems like she’s pretty much on the boys’ side,” I reply.

  “You say that like there are sides,” Alaska says. “Either way, you know those boys would sell her out if they needed to, not that she realizes that.”

  Would they? Why?

  I stare back up at that ceiling, its cracks and bows coming in and out of focus as my head pounds away. I suppose they’re the type of boys who aren’t to be trusted.

  Just like the beating of my own racing heart.

  Monday morning comes too soon.

  First class of the day is with Alaska and Clark, thankfully shielding me from Warren, Chase, Sterling, and Bridget. I can see them at the other table, talking and laughing while shooting glances my way.

  Or at least I think they’re shooting glances my way.

  I try to keep what Alaska said in mind. There aren’t necessarily sides here. It’s not exactly like we’re at war.

  I just embarrassed Warren at a party. Surely, he’s not so immature as to let that consume him.

  Surely.

  My next class is with Chase and only Chase—but I hope I don’t need any shielding from him. Not when he’s alone. Before class begins, he silently s
lides into the seat next to me.

  “Hey,” I say, surprising myself with how nervous I am at forming the single syllable.

  “Hey, Stoner Girl,” he replies calmly, but there’s a long awkward silence that follows.

  Eventually I have no choice but to break it. “Look, about this weekend, I …” I slowly begin to say before Chase cuts me off.

  “Look, Aubrey, I don’t want any trouble, okay?”

  “I—”

  He cuts me off again, this time with the slightest whisper of a sigh. “But …” he starts, fixing me at long last with a determined stare, “at the end of the day, I’m Warren’s boy and he’s pissed as hell at you. You, you I can deal with.”

  He turns his head away and shakes it as if to clear it. “But I’m not about to get in Warren’s way.”

  I feel my stomach turn.

  I lean in closer, my voice dropping to a whisper.

  “But it was just a stupid comment,” I hiss at him. “I was drunk. It didn’t mean anything.”

  This time, he doesn’t turn to look at me. “Maybe not to you,” he says, “but Warren isn’t the type to just sit by and let people humiliate him like that.”

  My head reels further, but before I’m able to even open my mouth to try to get more out of Chase, the professor begins to drone on and Chase starts to set up the lab equipment. I begin working through the problems laid out in front of me since it at least gives me something else to look at.

  Something other than Chase.

  Though that doesn’t last long, not when we’re stuck as lab partners for the foreseeable future.

  A future that, given the tone of our conversation, doesn’t bode well for either of us.

  “What did you get for number five?” Chase asks after I’ve already heard him mutter to himself for a good three minutes.

  “Uh, thirteen grams,” I say, after flipping back to the first page.

  Chase raises an eyebrow. “You sure about that?”

  I quickly begin to double check my math. “Yeah, thirteen grams is what I keep getting.”

  He rolls his eyes. “Quit smoking before class. It’s twelve grams, you forgot to account for the weight of the beaker.”