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IMANI
“Where were you guys?” I asked, arching a brow at Allie and picking at my turkey sandwich that Dad had made me this morning. In the Redwood Academy cafeteria, I glanced over at Poison and hiked my thumb toward them. “I had to spend the majority of lunch with these assholes.”
“That must’ve been terrible,” Allie said sarcastically to me, cracking a smile. “Especially when Landon can’t stop touching you under the table.”
I sneered and pushed Landon’s hand away from me, scolding him to stop it because people could definitely see. It didn’t matter how hard they tried to hide it; the Poison boys weren’t the best at keeping things secret at Redwood either, especially when it came to touching me. We had barely escaped the principal’s office without anyone knowing they had fucked me.
“He’s not touching me,” I said.
“I’m claiming her,” Landon clarified.
Allie smirked at me. “And you think we”—she gestured to herself and Jace—“are messed up. You can’t even decide if you want them or not.” She leaned closer to Jace. “At least I know what I want.”
Jace unwrapped a sandwich. “To be fucked in the library.”
I laughed as Allie cut her 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 Allie’s thigh and squeezed. “And when I say move them along, I mean, by the end of this week. We can’t wait much longer. Redwood needs to burn.”
Nicole walked into the cafeteria, glancing from the cheerleader table to ours and gnawing on her cheek. Allie gave her a smile and waved her over, patting the seat beside her.
Though she looked nervously between Poison, Jace, and me, she sat on the bench. “Hey.”
“What are you doing here?” Jamal, one of Jace’s friends, 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 a video that might help prove myself to you.”
“You don’t have to,” Allie 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 … 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 I had enough problems with Akio’s family—Jamal cleared his throat. “You can stay at my place, but what’s on the video? Why do you need it?”
“It’s … a video of my father and me,” Nicole whispered. “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. “Fuck, this is worse than I thought.”
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. Just 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 Allie 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.
Allie rested her head on her shoulder. “Thank you, Nicole. You don’t know how much we needed this right now,” she whispered because it was true. Without this video and without evidence, we wouldn’t be able to get anywhere. “Jace and I are in your debt.”
She gave Allie 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,” I said, cutting my eyes to the rest of the table.
We hadn’t had many friends before, and I didn’t want to get them involved in our messy drama. We had other things to deal with and to worry about.
So, I pushed over to make room for them. “We were just waiting for you girls.”
