He laughed, a high-pitched, evil cackle, and my knees started to shake. He was practically lying across me as I struggled and was held down.
The freaky mask sneered down at me even as he kept his body low, like he was afraid if he moved too much, the fog wouldn’t conceal us.
“Ask your boyfriend why he’s really with you. Ask him about initiation.”
I stopped struggling and looked up, not understanding what the hell was happening.
“A guy like him doesn’t date a nerd like you unless he has a reason. Maybe you should ask him what that reason is.”
I wanted to yell at him, but the stupid rag in my mouth made it impossible.
“Rimmel!” Romeo roared somewhere close by.
My eyes rolled toward the sound of his voice, and the creepy thing on top of me grabbed my hand and squeezed my jaw until I cried out soundlessly.
“Ask him about the initiation. About the rush. He’s only using you,” the masked person growled.
And then the weight on my chest was gone. The hands that held my ankles and wrists were no longer there.
I shot to my feet and ripped the rag out of my mouth. I gasped and fell to the side, knocking into some decoration next to me. It made a loud sound, but I barely noticed.
I was shaking so badly I could barely stand. My throat was burning and my eyes were watering. My jaw hurt where he squeezed me and my one wrist felt raw.
“Jesus!” Romeo cried and scooped me up against him. I collapsed into his arms and gave him every ounce of my weight. “What the hell happened?” he demanded.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and shuddered.
I was aware of him walking quickly, but I didn’t realize we’d left the house until I felt the cold night air against my skin.
I lifted my head and breathed it in gratefully.
Braeden and Missy rushed up to Romeo’s side. “What’s going on?” Braeden asked, his voice concerned.
“I’m not sure,” Romeo said quickly. “We got separated. Some guy jumped me.”
“What the fuck?” Braeden burst out.
“Rimmel got pulled into all that fog,” he said. Then I felt his head tilt toward me. “Are you hurt? Did you fall?”
I glanced up at him through watery, burning eyes. “I want to go home.”
His entire body tensed, but he only nodded. I sank back into him as we went to the car. No one spoke on the way back to the dorms, not a single word. I could feel Romeo’s concerned gaze on me as we drove through the darkened streets.
I only gazed out the window, my eyes not seeing anything at all.
But I could still hear that voice telling me to ask Romeo, to ask about initiation.
I had a very bad feeling I wasn’t going to like the answer.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Romeo
One minute she was plastered to my side and the next she was jerked away. I didn’t think much of it at first. I mean, I just figured it was her being adorably clumsy as usual.
But when I turned to help her, I was jumped. Attacked from behind. He almost brought me down out of sheer surprise, but in the end, I held my ground. He wasn’t that big. I must have outweighed him by a lot.
He clung to my back like a stupid spider monkey, and I almost laughed because it was obvious he had no idea he wouldn’t be able to take down someone twice his size.
I reached around my back and filled my fist with his costume. With one hard tug, I pulled him over my shoulder and drove him into the floor.
He rolled and moaned, but he didn’t get up.
I turned back to get Rimmel, knowing she was probably scared shitless and I’d never get her in one of these damn houses again, but she was gone.
At first I didn’t panic. I knew the fog made it hard to see.
But then seconds stretched longer and I still didn’t see her. I still didn’t hear her.
I’d felt adrenaline pump through my body more times than I could count. I was used to a rush, the fast pace of football… but this was different. I’d not felt this before.
Fear, dark and sticky, wrapped around my chest as I searched and searched and my eyes came up empty.
When she didn’t call out for me, I got scared. I punched out a couple guys and threw someone into the wall while searching through the fog for her.
And then suddenly she was there, stumbling around shaken and dazed. When I put my arms around her, she trembled so badly I knew she wouldn’t be able to stand.
She’d barely said two words.
That dark and sticky fear still clung to me. It seemed to get harder to shake the quieter she became. I waited until I dropped off Missy and Braeden at his truck near her dorm before I pulled near the back of the lot and shut off the car.
“Hey,” I said soft. “They scared you bad, huh?”
She nodded.
“I’m sorry, baby.” I reached across the seat and put an arm around her. She stiffened.
Something cold unfurled deep in my chest.
“Rimmel?” I asked.
She turned to me then. The moonlight reflected off her glasses and her eyes were wide behind the lenses.
“Whatever happened with initiation?” she said.
The random question threw me at first. I couldn’t understand why she would bring this up. “Initiation?” I asked.
“Yeah. The frat you were rushing. Did you get in?”
“No,” I said, caution in my tone. “Why are you asking about this?”
“They dragged me into that fog,” she said, her voice breaking. “They pinned me down to the floor.”
“Who?” I growled as the edges of my eyesight began to tinge with red.
“They were wearing masks,” she said. “I couldn’t see. He sat on me. The one with the scary mask, the one who tried to knock you over.”
“He sat on you?” I repeated. Anger so calm rose up in me that if I’d been thinking straight, I would have been scared.
She nodded. “He told me to ask you about initiation. About rush. About why you’re really with me.”
What. The. Fuck.
It was all almost too much to process at once. I went from thinking she was the victim of some stupid prank to realizing she was targeted and basically attacked. She was clearly beyond scared, and now she was looking at me like she didn’t know me at all.
“Why would he say that?” she asked, her voice small.
Because he wanted to get to me. To take something he knew I wanted. I would bet my Hellcat it was Zach behind that mask tonight. “I don’t know.” I lied as a new kind of fear came over me.
I still hadn’t told her about the initiation and that she was the chosen girl for me to get into bed. After she told me about losing her virginity, after everything she’d been through that made her who she was, I couldn’t. I was afraid. Afraid the truth would cost me. Afraid she would realize I was no better than the guy who stole her virginity.