Whispered

Chapter Four: Ryan

She stares at me, breathless, waiting for me to say something to confirm her suspicions. Yes, I do know of her old friend and his little group. I know that she went to Green Valley, though I can't figure out why a rich girl like her would attend the hole of the town. I know she had a reputation for hanging around the crowd that made old rich women clench their pearls. I know she stopped hanging out with them for a reason, which I don't know yet, and I also know it's a huge mystery as to what exactly happened to little miss Aubrey Pierce, the girl the whole town knew before she lost her smile and started spiraling.

I asked around, grocery stores, school, Jake's parties, everyone had a lot to say about her without really knowing anything at all.

"She's a bitch," one girl had told me while she emptied her stomach contents into a nearby trash can. I narrowed my eyes at her until she clarified. "She never hung out with any of us, she thought she was better than us, except for them,"

"Them?" I had asked.

She nodded, "You know, the old group, Caleb and them,"

I needed more, so I got names and adequate addresses for me to find them if need be. I assume Aubrey didn't expect me to find them, much less use them against her.

She looks at me like a deer in headlights, staring outside at the parking lot swallowing her dry tongue again and again.

Her eyes are wide, wild, racing with images I cannot detain. Her little chest rises and falls with her lungs and I watch it, mesmerized by the way she lives.

Her fingers play with one another, never sitting still, her entire body shaking like electricity is running through her veins and arteries instead of blood.

"You're scared of them," I mean to ask it as a question, but it comes out instead as a statement.

Her eyes flash to mine. Her bottom lip trembles, fear is all she is now. I know I shouldn't have gone this far, torturing her emotions for my selfish pleasure, but even I don't know the extent of what I will do to keep her near me.

"You don't have to be, not anymore," I tell her, trying to soothe the panic I see in her eyes.

She presses her lips together into a pout and her eyebrows lower. "Don't tell me what to be afraid of," she mumbles.

I clench my jaw, learning to be okay with her anger, learning to accept the fact that she will hate me for this, learning to know where her view of me lies.

Right now it lies in a bed of roses, in a shallow grave, any sweet feelings she had for me are fleeting. My threat did damage, but my selfishness tells me not to care for her feelings. To take what I want, to demand her affection, and if not her affection, her pure attention.

I rub at the slight stubble growing on my chin and admire her, trying to memorize the lines of her indifference.

It's not often I feel as though I could blush, but right now I feel my cheeks heating to match the tip of her button nose. Her anger and hatred only fuels me to save her.

"What do you want, Aubrey?" I ask her, licking my lips, letting her watch my tongue glide against them like a silent promise of what's to come.

She shakes her head, "I've made it clear what I want, what I need,"

"Not with me," I clarify, making her eyebrows furrow. "Tell me what your plan is after high school, after graduation,"

That word strikes a nerve in her, making her mouth shut tightly. She forces a swallow, staring at me quizzically, trying to figure something out.

It takes a moment for her to fully register my question, "I'm not doing this with you, I'm not pretending we're normal kids having a normal conversation,"

I shrug, "I can make other arrangements but you were the one who didn't want me to do that,"

She sighs, understanding now that I will hold that over her head for everything.

I smile, knowing she will never be able to escape me. It's sadistic, sickening, but the feeling of having her under my control is something I cannot describe. Almost euphoric.

She closes her eyes for a moment, thinking. "I want to go to college, somewhere beautiful and classy, and I want to major in english so I can read all the time and maybe open my own publishing company, I like literature,"

I listen, but I don't absorb a single thing she says. I'm too entranced watching her speak, watching the small light spark in her eyes at the thought of her own future. I watch her lips move, wishing they were moving along mine instead, wishing they were making their way down the lines of muscle coating my stomach.

I shake my head a little when she looks down to steady myself and try to calm the incessant urges racing down my body.

"Then what?" I urge her on.

She looks at me scared to continue, nervous she is making a mistake letting me get away with my threats and promises.

I want her to tell me every single little thing she wants to do in this life, I want to hear it in tremendous detail, because even the thought of her future excites me in a way that could only be described as mad.