“Come here, Noah,” he said, tugging my arm till I fell in his lap. “Let’s have fun tonight. Don’t waste your time on that asshole.” His fingers stroked my hair and my shoulders, and I tensed up and then stood as fast as I could.
“I’m here for one reason.” I glared at him. I’d been wrong about Zack, it was obvious. “Thanks for bringing me.” I turned around and walked away.
I didn’t really know what to do here after giving the cold shoulder to the one guy who wasn’t so drunk he’d smash his car into a tree if I asked him to take me home. But I couldn’t stop imagining the confused look on Nicholas’s face when he saw me. Had Zack lied to me, though? Maybe he was just a crazy drunk trying to drag me to the worst place ever. Well, I was going to look, and if I found Nicholas, I was going to do what I came there for.
I went toward the kitchen, where there were fewer people, thinking I’d get a glass of cold water. I didn’t know whether to drink it or dump it over my head to try to wake up from this nightmare. This day seemed like it would never end.
When I turned down the little hallway leading there, I stopped.
There he was—no shirt on, just jeans, surrounded by girls and four muscular friends a little shorter than him.
I watched him for a few moments.
Was this the same guy I’d been having dinner with at a luxury restaurant just a little while ago?
He was, and so it surprised me to see him now. He looked like he’d just stepped out of a mafia movie. They were playing beer pong, but with shots of tequila. My dear stepbrother was killing it. He hadn’t missed once. That meant he wasn’t as drunk as the others.
Nicholas shot and missed on purpose. It was so obvious I couldn’t see how the others didn’t realize it, but they all jeered at him and cracked up laughing. He grabbed his shot and downed it fast.
When it was his friend’s turn, Nicholas went over to a hot brunette girl who was sitting on the black-marble countertop. She was wearing a sky-blue bikini top and shorts that showed off her sun-bronzed legs.
I was too dressed up—too covered up—for a party like this.
Nicholas buried his hand in the hair on the back of her neck, pulled her head back, and French kissed her in the most disgusting way I could imagine, especially with all those people there.
That was my chance. I’d catch him by surprise and quell my burning desire to tear his goddamn head off.
He hadn’t even bothered to see if I was okay. I could have still been stuck there, and he wouldn’t have lifted a finger for me. I was furious I’d let myself be treated that way, even more so for finding myself here in this madhouse thanks to him, so I walked across the kitchen, grabbed his arm to turn him around, and, shocking even myself, instead of slapping him as I’d planned, I punched him in the jaw, nearly breaking one or more of my knuckles. It was worth it, though, and he deserved it.
He was briefly disconcerted, as if he didn’t understand what had happened, who I was, or why I’d hit him. But that just lasted a few seconds, and then his face changed, his posture changed, and I found myself pinned where I was standing.
Everyone gathered around us. It was silent as a grave. All eyes were on us.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he asked, so furious I feared for my life.
If looks could kill, I was already dead, boxed up, and buried.
“You’re surprised I could walk here?” I asked, trying not to be intimidated by his stance, his height, and those terrifying muscles. “You’re a piece of shit, you know that?”
A dry, measured laugh erupted from his esophagus.
“Noah, you have no idea what you’re getting into.” He took a step forward, and I could feel the heat radiating off his body. “At home, you may be my stepsister, but outside those four walls,” he continued, so soft only I could hear it, “this is my world, and I won’t put up with any of your bullshit.”
I didn’t let him intimidate me. There was no way I’d ever allow him to see how much his words and his behavior scared me. I’d lived a life of violence. I wasn’t going to put up with it anymore.
“Fuck you,” I said, and turned around, ready to get out of there. A hand grabbed my arm and pulled, not letting me take another step.
“Let me go,” I ordered him, turning around so he could see I was serious.
He smiled and looked at everyone gawking and then back at me.
“Who’d you come here with?” he asked.
I gulped. No way I was answering.
“Who brought you here?” he screamed so loud I flinched. That was the last straw.
“Let me go, you son of a…” I started howling, but it was pointless. He was holding onto me so tight it hurt.
Then someone else spoke up.
“I know who it was,” said a fat guy with not a free inch of skin left for more tattoos. “Zack Rogers showed up with her.”
“Bring him to me.”
My stepbrother was acting like a delinquent, and I was really getting scared. I regretted hitting him, not because he didn’t deserve it but because I was afraid I’d provoked the devil himself.
Two minutes later, Zack appeared in the kitchen, and the circle opened to let him through. He looked at me as if I’d betrayed him.
What the hell was the deal with these people?
“You brought her here?” my stepbrother asked him calmly.
Zack hesitated and then nodded. He didn’t break eye contact with Nicholas, but I could tell he was scared.
Before I knew it, Nicholas had punched Zack in the stomach so hard he bent over in pain.
I shouted, afraid for him, with that same pain in my chest I always felt whenever I witnessed any type of violence.
“Don’t you dare do that again,” I said to Nicholas.
He turned around, grabbed by arm, and started dragging me toward the door.
I didn’t have the strength to protest. When we got there, he stopped. He took his cell phone out of his pocket, cursed under his breath, and waited for whomever he was calling to answer.
“Wait for me here,” he said, looking for a place where the noise from the people and the music wouldn’t bother him. He ended up just past the stairs leading up to the porch. He could see me perfectly, so there was no point in running.
“You okay?” some guy asked me.
“Honestly, no.” I was a wreck. I leaned against the window, unable to avoid certain memories that I’d kept buried in the depths of my mind and that were now resurfacing to torment me just then. “I feel faint.”
“Here, have a drink,” he said, handing me a cup.
I took it without even looking. My throat was so dry, it didn’t matter what it was. I closed my eyes and opened them once the cup was empty, only to see Nicholas flying up the stairs.
“What the hell are you doing?” he said, tearing the cup out of my hands.
I was going to respond, but he was already looking away from me toward the guy who’d given it to me. He grabbed him by his shirt and nearly lifted him off the ground.
“What the fuck did you give her?” he asked, shaking him around.
I looked with horror at the cup.
“Shit!”
6
Nick
“Shit!”
“What the hell did you give her?” I asked the dickhead I was holding by the collar.
I could see the terror in his eyes.
“Answer me!” I shouted, cursing the day I’d ever met my stepsister, cursing that moron Zack Rogers for bringing her to a party like this.
“Jesus, dude!” The guy’s eyes were like saucers. “Burundanga, okay!” he admitted when I slammed him into the wall.
Jesus. A date rape drug. It was colorless and odorless and easy to slip into a drink without a person realizing it.
Just thinking about what could have happened clouded my mind, and I couldn’t control myself. What kind of dirtbag would do that to a girl? When I finished with him, you wouldn’t be able to identify him from his license photo. My hands were going to look like hamburger by the time the night was over.
I lost count of how many times I hit him.
“Nicholas, stop!” a voice behind me shouted. I stopped my hand before it slammed back into that bastard’s face.