I have to ask around for a few minutes, but when people see the look on my face, no one hesitates to tell me if they’ve seen Jake.
I find him out in the parking lot, trying to coax some other girl to go home with him, and f**k fair fighting. I haul off and slam him back into his truck.
I look over at the girl he’d been with, but she’s already stumbling away back in the direction of the party.
“What the hell, man?” Carter says.
“I knew you were a f**king prick, but I didn’t have any idea you’d go this low.”
Carter holds his hands up. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He tries to shove me off, but I’m not f**king budging until I’m done. “I went in the room. The room you came out of. I found her. Stella. No f**king way I let you get away with this.”
“I didn’t do anything,” he swears, but this time he shoves me hard, and I stumble back a few feet.
“Did she go in that room with you?” I ask. “Was she even conscious or did you take her in there?”
“You can’t f**king prove anything,” Then he tries to leave, and I tackle him. He may be twice my size, but he goes down easy. We both scramble for a few seconds to get the upper hand, and he’s the first one to throw a punch. It lands hard just on the edge of my jaw, and my teeth bang together.
I throw my elbow back hard into his midsection, and he rolls off me, gasping. I take the opening to launch myself at him and get in another good hit to his face.
But he’s so much bigger than me, he shoves me off and I scramble to my feet.
“Just leave this shit alone,” Carter says. “You don’t want another fight on your record. We leave now, nobody gets hurt.”
Fucking ass**le.
“Stella doesn’t count?”
“Come on, man. You know how she is.”
I’m done hearing this shit come out of his mouth. I lunge again, and then we’re locked together, both trying to ward off the other’s hits, while squeezing in a few of our own. I get a good one to his nose, and I feel it crunch under my fist. He pushes me away while he cups his nose with his hand. Blood coats his fingers.
Sirens wail in the distance, and I see the panicked look on Carter’s face.
“I didn’t do anything wrong, man. I swear she was awake.”
“Bullshit. Then why was she passed out when I got there? Why hadn’t she fixed her clothes? If you didn’t do anything wrong, why’d you leave her there like that? Why’d you turn off the lights?”
He doesn’t say anything, but I can see it all unraveling in his expression. The closer the sirens get, the more desperate he is. He stops talking with his mouth then, and switches to fists.
I swing a solid blow into his stomach, and he doubles over. But I underestimate his stamina, and he comes back fast, swinging. His fist plows into my jaw, and the world jerks out of focus for a few seconds. I stumble back. Carter tries to leave, and I hurl myself at his back, sending us both down to the concrete. I can’t take him in a fight like this. He’s too big. So I just concentrate on holding on. I take a punch to the ribs, but I don’t f**king care. He’s not leaving.
My head knocks hard against the concrete a few times, but I hold on, sneaking in a few hits of my own. And we’re both bloody by the time two cops pull us apart.
My mouth is busted up and it stings when I speak, but I say, “He did it. The girl upstairs . . . it was him.”
Then things go a little fuzzy, and I pass out.
ONCE WHEN I was sixteen, I got knocked unconscious in a game for a few seconds after a particularly hard tackle. I remember coming to on the field, feeling like I had done nothing more than blink, and I couldn’t understand why there were so many coaches gathered around me.
This is not at all like that.
I feel like I’ve been out forever, long enough for my body to decay, and my mouth to dry out, and the whole world to move on around me, but when I open my eyes, it can’t have been more than a few minutes because I’m propped up against a nearby car, and there’s a cop and a paramedic kneeling next to me.
“His eyes are open.”
Then, just like that time in high school, more faces appear above me.
McClain. Brookes. Torres.
And Dylan.
I try to stand, but the world goes sideways, and the paramedic claps a hand on my shoulder to hold me in place.
“Easy. I think you might have a concussion.”
“I do,” I answer. I’ve had a handful of those in my life, and this feels similar.
“Stella?” I ask.
“She’s awake,” Dylan answers. “There’s a cop with her, too. And a paramedic. She . . .” She hesitates, then finishes, “She doesn’t remember what happened.”
“Carter?”
It’s the cop who answers this time.
“Mr. Carter is seeing a paramedic, the same as you.”
“Are you going to arrest him?”
The look the cop gives me makes me sick to my stomach. Or that could be the concussion.
“When both of you are cleared medically, we’ll get your statements and go from there.”
“He did it,” I say.
“Did you see him do it?”
“I saw him come out of the room.”
The cop just nods. “Okay then.” He nods at the paramedic and says to me, “Let this guy get you cleaned up and checked out, and we’ll talk about what you saw when he’s done.”
In all, it takes twenty minutes for the paramedic to clean me up. No stitches. Nothing broken. I have a mild concussion, but I decline the paramedic’s offer to take me to the hospital.
My statement for the police takes even less time, and when it’s over, I’m left with a sour taste in my mouth because no one mentions anything about arresting Carter. All I keep hearing is that Stella doesn’t remember, and Dylan and I didn’t see anything actually take place. I tell them what he said during our fight, about me not being able to prove anything, but they only nod and write it down. They don’t say he was wrong. The cops promise it’s all taken care of, but it doesn’t feel that way to me, not in the slightest.
Chapter 30
Silas
I sit on the bed and hunch over my knees after my morning run. I didn’t sleep well. Not last night or the night before. The bed dips, and I feel Dylan scoot up behind me and lay her cheek against my back. I’m sweaty, but she doesn’t seem to mind.
“You’re talking to Coach this morning?”