1
Laney
“You’re doing the right thing, Laney.” Camila Valmont smiled and offered her hand to me. “Come on. Let’s go to the clubroom. You can hide out in there as long as you want.”
I nodded shakily, my stomach full of knots. Then I looked over at Hunter again.
I didn’t know what I was expecting to see. Some sort of sign, maybe. Something to show me that this was all wrong, and my abject humiliation in the auditorium had nothing to do with him.
That was the effect he had on me. Even when I knew he was guilty, and he hurt me so terribly, I still found myself craving his touch and the sound of his voice. All he’d ever done was lie and lie and lie, and I fell for it every single time. And lord have mercy… I’d probably fall for it all over again if I gave him half a chance.
His brows shot up when he noticed me looking, and he called out to me over the top of Trina’s head. “Laney, come here!”
I almost did. The tips of my fingers and toes itched with the need to go over and hear him out. Surely there was some sort of explanation for why he did this. Some rational reason for him to have shown that awful video to the entire school.
Adam nudged my arm. “Don’t listen to him,” he muttered. “Don’t even look at him.”
I swallowed hard. He was right. I had to stay away from Hunter, because there wasn’t a single excuse in the world that could justify what he did today. Even if he genuinely felt bad about it after seeing my shattered reaction back in the auditorium, it didn’t matter. What he did was unforgivable, and whatever brief relationship we’d shared had died a fiery, irreparable death.
I took a deep breath and looked away from him.
Camila and the other Medusa girls started leading me out of the foyer, toward the hall which led to their clubroom. As we walked, Hunter kept shouting my name from behind us.
I turned and risked another quick glance at him over my shoulder, unable to help myself. Trina was still trying her best to block his attempts to catch up to me. When he called out my name again, I saw her lean in and say something to him with narrowed eyes.
After that, he stopped calling for me. His face darkened, and he stood and watched me leave, hands clenched in fists at his sides.
I tore my eyes away from him again, sickness roiling in my belly.
“I’ll stand out here and make sure Hunter doesn’t try to get inside,” Adam said to Camila when we reached the door with the golden snake emblem. “I’ll tell Trina to come too, when she’s finished yelling at him.”
Camila nodded. “That’s a good idea,” she said as she slipped a key into the door. She pushed it open and stepped aside, gesturing toward the lavishly-decorated room beyond. “After you, Laney.”
One of the other girls led me over to the dark mahogany table in the center of the room. “Take a seat,” she said softly, gesturing to one of the ornately-carved chairs scattered around the table.
As soon as I sank onto the plush salmon-pink cushion on the seat, a fresh set of tears welled up in my eyes. I did my best to keep them from spilling out, but the sadness engulfed me, squeezing my chest in a vise and firing spears of agony through the rest of me.
I leaned forward and cried into my hands. Camila patted me on the shoulder and spoke to me in a low, soothing tone. “It’s okay. Let it out.”
The tears kept flowing, and my words were barely coherent as they rushed out of me between sobs. “Why… why would he….”
“Shh.” Camila rubbed my back. “We can talk about it later. Just sit here for now and let it all out.”
“Trust me, it’ll make you feel better,” Kiri added. “By the way, can you give me your phone?”
I sucked in a deep breath and wiped my eyes. “My phone?” I croaked.
“Kiri is good with tech stuff. She’s going to do something to help you out,” Camila said.
I pulled my cell out of my blazer pocket and handed it to her, chest still heaving with sobs. Then I leaned forward again and closed my eyes, letting the tears stream down my face.
My body trembled as I blubbered, and snot started to slide out of my nose, mixing with the tears to form long, wet strings that slid through my hands and dripped over my lap. I knew I looked like a disgusting mess, but I couldn’t stop bawling. Bawling for the loss of my innocence all those years ago, the loss of the relationship I thought I was building with Hunter, and the loss of my life as I knew it just an hour ago.
My mind raged against the injustice of it all. Why did so many fucked-up things have to happen to me? Was I just unlucky enough to attract the wrong people into my world? Or was it all my fault for making such awful decisions?
Of course it’s your fault, an insidious little voice whispered in the back of my mind. You let Hunter seduce you so easily. You’re pathetic. So fucking pathetic.
I tried to tell myself that I couldn’t have known what he was up to—after all, he was so convincing when he said he was sorry for everything he did to me—but the voice kept whispering to me, drowning out everything else.
Don’t lie. You still had some doubts about him, small and quiet as they were. But you believed everything he said and slept with him anyway. You told him about the video, too. You brought all of this upon yourself.
After sobbing for what felt like an eternity, I drew in a long, harsh breath and opened my eyes. All of the Medusa girls were gathered around the table now, whispering amongst themselves. I could hear most of what they were saying. They were discussing what had happened to me and how horrible it was that someone could do something so ruthlessly cruel, especially considering the contents of the video and what it meant about my past. They were also saying that it had to be the work of someone who truly despised me and wanted me gone from RFA as soon as possible.
When they saw me looking up at them, one of them smiled gently and gestured to a box of tissues that someone had slid in front of me.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured, wiping my face. “You’re probably going to miss your first classes because of me.”
Camila shook her head. “Don’t worry. We have an arrangement with Sanders, so we won’t get in trouble for skipping anything. One of the many perks of being a Medusa girl.”
“Oh.”
She leaned over and patted my hand. “Trust me, it’s fine. You can take your time. You can even scream your head off, if you want. No judgment here.”
A fat teardrop rolled down my cheek, and I slowly shook my head, shoulders slumping. “I just don’t understand why Hunter would do this to me,” I said in a ragged whisper.
Kiri snorted as she played with my phone. “I do,” she said, glancing upward. “We all know what he’s like. His friends, too. They think they own the world because they’re hot and rich.”
“But they’re threatened by girls like you,” Camila added.
“Threatened?” I gawked at her. “By me?”
“Think about it,” she said smoothly. “Assholes like them feel entitled to everything. They expect everyone else to bow down to them and stay in the place they’ve deemed fit for them. But you refused to do that.”
“You refused to quit after Hunter blacklisted you,” Kiri interjected. “Instead you kept your head held high and stayed at RFA, even after all the horrible shit everyone did to you.”