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“Enough! SOMEONE TELL ME WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!” Damn. I didn’t mean to shout so loudly. On the other side of the fire, the guys, talking amongst themselves the same way we are, burst out into a hail of laughter.
“We have to pick one of them,” Ash says tightly. “And then that guy picks one of us. Those two people fuck in front of the rest of us. It’s just how it is. It’s fun. It’s hot. It’s a rite of passage. Now we’re running out of time. We need to pick someone, or they’re gonna pick their grossest virgin to rail one of us and we won’t be able to do a single thing about it.”
“Umm, we could say…no?”
The girls look at me like I’ve lost my mind.
“That’s it. I’m choosing for us,” Beth declares. Before anyone can stop her, she steps forward and yells, “WE PICK THEO MERCHANT!”
A collective cry goes up amongst the girls, but it’s weak, half-hearted at best. I get the feeling that Theo was going to be chosen no matter what. On the other side of the fire, a roar splinters the boy’s group apart—it sounds nothing short of a victory cry.
“I’m fucking out of here.” I step back, determined to peace out on this nonsense before it gets any more ridiculous, if that’s even possible, but hands grab at me from all sides, holding me in place.
“You’ve got nothing to worry about, Sorrell,” Mel says. “Like I said, no one knows you here. You’ve got no clout whatsoever and you look like a goddamn quaker dressed in that coat. Just stay the course. Let us handle this. It’ll be over in a minute, and you can go hide back in your room.”
It isn’t as if I couldn’t break free and bolt. On my worst day, that would be easy. But there’s a pleading light in Mel’s eyes. This is desperately important to her for some reason. It’s important to everyone else here, and it seems as if I’ll be making a lot of enemies if I bail.
I can’t think of anything worse than watching Theo Merchant fuck one of these girls, though. My memory of the night Rachel died is so spotty and fractured that I can’t even recall if she waswithhim or not, but I know in my gut that she was. She liked him. She flirted with him all night. Before things got really hazy and my recollection of that party starts to splinter, I remember her taking his hand and leading him up some stairs…
“Our boy Theo! Good choice, ladies! We all know how wet Merchant makes the lot of you.” Raucous laughter fills the air as the boys begin to filter around the fire, joining us on our side of the blaze.
Sebastian still leads the gathering. Even without the pallets to stand on he seems like a giant amongst the sea of seniors. He stands in front of the line of girls, unbuttoning his black shirt, shucking it off and hanging it from a tree branch, out of the way. His chest is packed with muscle, his stomach a wall of ripped abs. If I saw him on the street, I’d think he was hot; there’s no denying it. Right now, his cockiness as he struts up and down the line of girls makes me want to punch him in his throat.
The last guy to join us snatches the bottle of tequila out of Sebastian’s hand and holds it to his lips. I watch the amber liquid drain from the glass as Theo chugs. He doesn’t look particularly happy to find himself in this position, but he’s still here. Still resigned to following through with this challenge.
“Careful, son!” Sebastian jeers. “You’re gonna give yourself whiskey dick if you’re not careful. Wouldn’t wanna ruin the show for the rest of us now, would you?”
Theo grimaces at him, baring his teeth. “Fuck you, man. My dick’ll be just fine.”
“This is stupid,” I mutter.
“Shh.” Jessica comes up behind me and places her hand in mine, lacing our fingers together. She holds onto me tight, squeezing. She’s silent. She looks like she wants to speak now, but the time for that has passed, I think.
Theo begins to pace up and down the line, casually glancing at each girl as he goes. He stops in front of Mel, who visibly blushes under the scrutiny of his gaze. But he moves on. One by one, he works his way down the line. When he reaches me, he stops and glares at me dead in the eye. My heart surges like a piston.
No way am I screwing this monster.
No. Fucking. Way.
His eyes are twin burning coals as he lifts the bottle of tequila to his mouth again and drinks…
…and then continues down the line.
He assesses each girl in turn, but he doesn’t stop again.
He starts over from the beginning of the line, looking at Ash, looking at Beth, looking at another three girls, and then Mel, and then Jessica, and then me…
He stops.
Runs me through with a look so burning and intense that I can feel the heat and the anger of it down to my bones.
He raises the bottle to his mouth once more and drinks. The light from the fire plays over the back of his hand, highlighting the web of faint scars that mark his skin there. His eyes stay locked on me as he swallows again and again. I feel the blood rushing to my cheeks. Theo Merchant isn’t just some seventeen-year-old senior. No, he’s far more than that. He’s fire, and ice, and a maelstrom of chaos in between, and the way he’s staring at me makes me feel like the ground is cracking apart around me and everyone else is falling away… disappearing… vanishing into the void.
I hate him.
He is a monster, and I can’t look away. To look away would be to let him win.
He passes the bottle to me, and I take it without hesitation, draining the last few mouthfuls just to fuck with him. To spite him. To show him and everyone else here present that I’m not afraid of him. The liquor burns like hellfire itself as it races down my throat, setting fire to my stomach.
