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I can’t breathe. I can’t even see through my blurry eyes as I try to crawl backward, only to wilt under the horrendous shock of pain.
“Demon slut,” he hisses under his breath.
And then, he’s gone.
Tears drip down my cheeks as I try to sit up to assess the damage, but the agony is unreal. My ankle is already swelling like a balloon. There’s no doubt it’s fractured in multiple places. Whoever did this wanted to destroy me. They knew what an injury like this would do to a dancer. It’s the end.
I choke on my sobs as I fumble around for my phone, but I must have lost it when I fell. I can’t move. I can’t do anything. I’m not sure how long I sit there before another shadow exits the girls’ locker room. My body falls completely still when the person pauses a few feet away. I don’t know who to trust anymore.
“Oh, my god.” The soft voice whispers, and I recognize her face when she shines her phone light at me.
“Kailani?” Alexa approaches me carefully. “What… what happened to you?”
“Someone just came out of nowhere with a bat…” My voice breaks.
She clutches her stomach as though she’s going to be ill. “Again?”
Again? I don’t understand what she means.
“My ankle.” I point at the shattered bones. “Please, can you help me? I can’t find my phone.”
For a second, I’m not even really sure she will. She seems frozen, trapped in a different time and place, the same way she always is when I talk to her.
“Alexa?”
“Oh god, yes. I’m sorry.” She fumbles with her phone screen. “I’ll call for help.”23LandonI’m sitting in the parking lot at BMA when my phone rings. My publicist’s name flashes across the screen again. It’s the fifth time he’s called me, and that’s excessive, even for him.
Already, I know what’s coming. I’ve been waiting for it since I left Kail’s pool house. It took longer than I thought, but this must be it. This is the fatal blow.
I dial him back and watch the other students filter inside. I’m completely numb.
“Landon?” He answers breathlessly, and I can hear him punching buttons to slow the treadmill in his office.
“Yeah?”
“Hold on.” The phone shuffles around a bit, and the volume rises as he adjusts his Bluetooth. “We have a problem. Have you seen the headlines?”
I swipe a hand over my tired face and shake my head even though he can’t see me. “Nope. What is it this time?”
“Parties. Drinking. You going off the rails.”
“Is that it?” My jaw flexes.
“That’s not it,” he says carefully, and I know by the edge in his voice that I’m not going to like whatever it is. “There’s also a story about that night. You and your buddy with that girl.”
The phone nearly cracks between my fingers. “So much for the cash deal.”
Well fucking played, Kail.
“The tabloids didn’t leak any names,” Phil says, “but there are vague details. The story is about you waking up with an unidentified male and female at one of your wild parties. There are photos of your house, supposed witness accounts—”
I close my eyes and smash my fist against the steering wheel. How could she fucking do this to me?
“Just read it,” Phillip tells me. “I’m sending you the link.”
I pull up the message and follow the link. Beneath the bold headline that reads Trouble in Landon’s Paradise, there are an array of photos of me taken inside my own house. Photos of me drinking. Shots of me on the sofa surrounded by blurred faces. And then the worst of them. Photos of the guest bedroom. They couldn’t print the images of us in bed, but this is the next best thing, I guess.
I continue to read, and the golf ball in my throat swells to a basketball. The details are too close to home. The drinks we had that night. The game of Truth or Grope. Physical descriptions of my unidentified bed partners. And then I see it. The one piece of information that could only come from Kailani.
Our source tells us she was his tutor over the summer, and that’s how they met…
My cold, dark heart thumps one last time before every emotion I thought I had fades to black. This must be what death feels like. Flat and empty.
“I’m sorry, Landon.” Phillip’s voice drags me back. “I know it’s bad, but it could be worse. I’m worried this is an unspoken threat. A look what I can do, sort of threat. I’m sure she just wants more money. I’ll talk to her—”
“No,” I reply with more ferocity than I even knew I was capable of. My head dips, and blackness creeps into the edges of my vision as I lower my voice. “Just leave her alone. Let her do whatever she wants. Let her ruin me if that’s what makes her happy.”
