She tapped into her photos where she’d taken a couple screenshots of some texts. Frowning when she handed them to me, I watched her pale face a minute, wondering what could be so incriminating from a text.
Then I frowned. “He didn’t passcode protect his phone?” After my cell phone encounter with Shayla in high school, I’d always protected my phone.
She rolled her eyes. “Worse. His code was 1-2-3-4.”
“Ah.” Finally ready to see what she had to show me, I glanced down and read the bottom, most recent message first.
It said: Don’t forget, asshole. You need to provide proof before we pay you.
That made no sense to me, so I moved up to the one above it.
Have you nailed the cripple yet?
“What?” I breathed out, the air stalling in my chest.
Needing to start from the beginning, I found the first text and promptly became sicker and sicker from every post I read on my way back to the end.
Apparently, Sarah had been the object of a challenge. A couple of Seth’s buddies had dared him to ask her out and then sleep with her tonight. He hadn’t wanted to, but they’d kept picking at him, even offering to pay him until the price rose to over two hundred dollars. Finally, he’d been forced into it to save face.
“What the fuck?” I shook my head, unable to believe my eyes.
What...why...how could anyone do this to Sarah?
They didn’t even know her. They had no idea how amazing, and sweet, and spirited she was.
They’d only seen something to ridicule and...and they’d hurt her.
Those bastards had hurt Sarah.
I looked up, feeling as if a Mack truck had slammed into my chest. Sarah’s eyes grew big when she saw my expression. I wasn’t sure what I looked like; I was too dazed to care. But she gripped my hand and whispered, “Please don’t lose it.”
For some reason, those four words flipped a switch inside me. I went from hurt on her behalf to outright livid.
“Motherfucker,” I hissed, curling my finger around the phone that held such vile words about my Sarah until I swore I heard the plastic case crack.
That prick was going to hurt for this. He was going to bleed, and scream, and cry for what he’d done to her. And then he was going to bleed, and scream, and cry all over again. I couldn’t believe I’d left him in that apartment untouched. I was such a fucking idiot.
Winding back my arm to throw the offending words on her phone as hard as I could against the wall, I paused when Sarah cringed and ducked, covering her head with her arms.
Shit.
Freezing, with my arm raised, I said, “I’m not losing it.” I was in complete, utter, murderous control.
After placing the phone gently in her lap, I stood up, murmuring, “I gotta go.”
“No!” She leaped off the bed after me, and I had to catch her or she would’ve fallen flat on her face.
“Sarah!” Gripping her arms, I pulled her against my chest and then eased us back onto the bed. “What the hell?”
She clung to me like superglue. “Don’t go over there. Please. You could get hurt.”
When I sniffed at the likelihood of that, she said in a stronger voice, “You could get into trouble.”
That was more probable, but I didn’t care. “He can’t get away with doing this to you.” And neither would the friends who’d talked him into doing it. As soon as I beat him for his offenses against Sarah, I was going to beat the addresses of all his punk-ass buddies out of him next.
But try as I might to pry her arms from around me, my best friend refused to budge.
“Let go,” I commanded.
“No.” Shaking her head, she buried her face against my chest and wept, soaking my shirt with her tears. I swear, each drop that fell from her eyes felt like acid sizzling directly against my soul. I hated her pain. “Don’t leave me,” she choked out. “Please. I need you. Right here, right now. Don’t go.”
I closed my eyes and tilted my face in until my nose was buried in her hair and I could inhale her familiar scent.
“Damn you,” I whispered, gathering her up so I could lay us both down on the bed, me with my head cushioned in one of her pillows, and her plastered to my side with her cheek on my chest. Banding one arm around her waist and cupping the back of her neck with my other hand, I kissed her hair and prayed for her pain to stop.
I could always go back to apartment 5A on Locust Street tomorrow. Right now, Sarah needed me here, so that was where I stayed.
SARAH
I sobbed on Brandt so long I gave myself a headache. My limbs ached and my eyes were nearly swollen shut when I returned to the land of the living and rolled my face from his chest to look into his concerned blue eyes.
“Jesus,” he murmured, cupping my cheek. “Can you even see?”
I could see him, which was all I really wanted to see, so I was fine. But it must’ve taken me too long to answer because he sat up and started to scoot off the bed.
“I’m going to get you a warm, wet rag.”