Stake You

Chapter Eight

My stomach churned with nerves on my way to school the next morning. Not only because of Sully, but because I had made plans with Base, too. Before, when I used to like him, we had spent months flirting together, but I hadn’t really spent much time alone with him, which was why it was so easy to believe Shauna when she told me about his bet.

I sat on the floor at my locker, putting the finishing touches to some homework, when Sully arrived. I felt him rather than heard him. Some kind of chill alerted me to his presence. He stood two feet away, a disturbing sneer on his face.

“All alone, are we?” he said in a threateningly low voice. “Maybe I should have some fun with you, Devlin O’Mara. Maybe I should teach you what happens to mouthy little girls who try to get the better of me.”

I jumped to my feet, feeling vulnerable on the floor. All I had was an act. “Why don’t you fuck right off? Psycho.”

He took a step toward me, and I backed away, unable to stop myself.

“Do you think anyone would care if I hurt you, Devlin? Do you think they would even notice? Your mother doesn’t love you enough to take care of you, or even stop her drinking. Your own boyfriend couldn’t stay faithful to you. Your best friend has deserted you. Even sweet little Aoife can’t stand you. You have nothing. You have no one.”

I retreated until my back was against the row of lockers, his words filling me with a cold dread and terror that crept all over my skin.

He planted his hands on the locker behind my head, his arms surrounding me as he leaned in closer. He knew everything about me. Everything. It was the sound of his voice that horrified me; it made me feel as though millions of little insects were crawling up my legs, eating away at my skin.

He took off his sunglasses, and as much as I tried to avoid his strange eyes, I couldn’t help myself. I had to look, had to see what was in there.

Darkness. Only darkness.

A memory wrenched itself from the place in my brain I hid them. My mother’s ex and his pet tarantula. Me screaming as he held me down and let it crawl across my neck. I could feel it move there, and I longed to brush it away, but my hands were trapped. I couldn’t help myself. Again.

Gasping, I was forced back into the present, back into Sully’s obsidian gaze.

“You’re so worthless that even I don’t want you anymore. You’re the most pathetic girl I have ever come across, Devlin O’Mara, and I have known many a wretch. You act like a bitch so nobody will see how scared and hurt you are, but I see it. I see everything in you. You’re so weak, so full of fear and self-loathing. How do you even get up in the mornings? Why haven’t you freed yourself from your own misery?”

I shook my head, my entire body shuddering at the effort.

“I might take pity on you, Devlin. I might let you come with me. After all, you have nobody else.”

Dazed, I nodded with an eagerness I didn’t know I was capable of, desperate for some love and affection, desperate for something other than the heart-wrenching pain I lived with. Tears rolled down my cheeks. Nobody wanted me. My friends feared me. I was nothing. He was right. He could make it better.

“She has me,” said a voice behind me, and the spell was broken. Whatever was holding my gaze to Sully’s snapped free, and everything came rushing back. How he had made me feel, how easily I had believed him, and how I had automatically become everything I had ever detested.

Gaping at Sully, I brushed the tears from my face, feeling safer knowing Base was there. Knowing I wasn’t alone. But the memory of what had just happened was a sucker punch in the stomach, and I struggled to catch my breath.