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I don’t see Drake for the several hours that it takes to get the bathrooms clean. I can’t stop a pang of disappointment, even though it’s probably for the best. If anyone sees us together, it might become obvious that we’re not the sworn enemies we’ve been pretending to be.
The upstairs bathroom upstairs is worse. I have to get on my hands and knees to scrub the caked-on grime around the tub that has turned the normally beige tile a sickly green.
When the door suddenly slams open, I barely have time to react.
Nolan stands there with a vicious smile on his face as he takes in my position on the floor. “Now this is what I like to see, a girl who knows her place. But I guess this isn’t the first time you’ve been on your knees.”
I want to tell him I could place the toilet brush down his throat, but bite my tongue on the retort. As much as I would love to tell Nolan all the ways that he can get fucked, I can’t do anything that might jeopardize my position here, at least not yet.
“I’m doing this because I’m a pledge, not because I’m a girl.” I say, as pleasantly as I can manage through gritted teeth.
He takes a step closer, coming within a foot of me in the small space. “Keep telling yourself that, sweetheart.”
His use of the endearment gets under my skin more than almost anything else could. It hasn’t escaped my notice that he is standing between me and the door, but I refuse to show him any fear.
“If you need to go, the other bathrooms are already done,” I say, pointing with the toilet brush. I keep the thing in my hand in the hopes that he’ll stay out of reach. Nobody wants to be covered in used toilet paper and miscellaneous filth. “I’m almost finished.”
“Are you?” Nolan asks slyly. Without missing a beat, he picks up a can of shaving cream and proceeds to empty it all over the sink. He even presses the tip against the mirror and squirts a bunch on the glass. “It looks like you missed a few spots.”
Asshole.
I’d already spent the better part of half-an-hour cleaning the sink of all the beer stains, cigarette ash and gobs of toothpaste. Judging from the smug expression on his face, Nolan is well aware of that.
I lean back against the tub with a bored expression. Even though I know it’s a mistake, I can’t resist the urge to snap back at him. “You want to piss in the corner like a dog while you’re at it? I’d love to know if the rumors I’ve heard about your baby dick are true.”
Nolan’s cheeks turn a bright red as he glares down at me. “You don’t know shit, you little bitch.”
The joke about his penis size had been a shot in the dark, but now I’m wondering if I might have hit the nail on the head. “Not me, obviously. But you know how catty some girls around here can be. Personally, I think skill is just as important as size, but if you’re no good in that department either, then I could see how there might be a problem.”
Nolan takes a menacing step forward, only halting when I brandish the still wet toilet brush between us. He glances down at it with obvious disgust before his angry gaze returns to my face. “You’re going to break eventually, Pratt. I’ll make sure of it. Drake might not have been able to make it happen, but I don’t get sentimental like he does.”
A shiver of premonition rolls down my spine as I stare into his cold gaze, the cruelty in his eyes more than obvious.
But I can’t afford to let fear get the best of me. Not now.
“Then you’re going to need something better than shaving cream.” My voice is airy even though I continue to watch him for any sudden movements. “But if you’re done making idle threats, I’d like to get this finished.”
To my relief, Nolan puts his hand on the door as if he is about to leave. But then he hesitates before opening it.
“You might think you’ve seen the worst of what we can do, but you are very wrong.” His voice is lethal as he glares at me. “This is the last warning you’re going to get from me because you have no idea just how bad things can be.”
The intense hatred in his gaze gives me a powerful urge to flee. I tamp down on it, despite the fact that he’s blocking my only exit. Nolan wouldn’t be trying this hard to scare me if he thought it would be easy to get under my skin. The best thing I can do is make sure he knows that I’m not going down as easily as he seems to think.
If Olivia managed to survive everything that happened to her, then I can manage this.
“Duly noted. You would have been a good fit in Nazi Germany with all of this blind obedience. Let me know if you ever decide to try thinking for yourself.”
Nolan blinks once before suddenly rushing toward me.
I leap out of the way with an involuntary shriek, but he doesn’t attack me. Instead, he grabs the full roll of paper off the tank and tosses it into the toilet bowl then pulls the lever to flush it down.
Horrified, I can only watch as the toilet bowl slowly fills with water and then overflows onto the floor.
“Fuck.” I jump up onto the rim of the tub to avoid soaking my shoes and glare at Nolan as he backs away. “Was that really necessary?”
“Clean up this mess,” he snaps before stalking away.
More shaken than I want to admit, I carefully step around the growing pool of water to get to the towels under the sink. When Nolan had lunged in my direction, I really thought for a moment that he was going to hurt me.
