honestly say you’ll feel comfortable sleeping in here alone? I mean, if you want me to start sleeping in here every night, that’s fine, but we’re going to need to order a new bed.”
I scoffed, thinking of Jackson moving in here when he had his shiny, new townhome.
“We’ll talk about it later,” I told him. “I’m starving.”
Jackson looked confident he would get his way, but he let me lead him out of the room and then to my favorite pizza place down the street from the academy, where I drowned my sorrows in greasy carbs.
“We should have grabbed the rocky road ice cream too,” Jackson complained as I got out my key to unlock my dorm room door.
I put the key in the lock…and quickly realized that the door was unlocked.
And I knew I’d locked it on my way out. My hand trembled as I clenched the key tightly.
“What’s wrong?” asked Jackson.
“The door’s unlocked,” I whispered, my words choking on my rising fear.
A grim look crossed Jackson’s face, and he pushed me gently behind him as he slowly opened the door and flipped on the light.
“Fuck,” he snarled.
I peeked my head into the room before he could stop me from coming in, and I cried out when I saw the ripped apart carcass of an enormous snake all over my bed. The snake’s red blood was splattered all over my bedspread and the wall behind my bed.
I plastered my hand to my mouth, trying to quell the urge to be sick.
“What’s with the snakes?” I moaned.
“We both knew you were scared of them,” Jackson absentmindedly responded, looking at a torn-out piece of paper that had been placed next to the blood and guts of the snake.
My gaze snapped to him. “You were responsible for the snake in my shower?” I gasped in horror. “I thought that was one of the things Melanie did.”
Jackson had the decency to blush as he brushed a hand through his hair, embarrassed. “I have immunity now, right? You’re not going to run away from me?”
I scrunched up my nose in disgust. “What else did you do? What about the night from hell in the storage shed?”
Jackson shook his head vigorously in denial. “I didn’t have time to do anything else before we started having sex. And I wouldn’t do something like that to you. Even as messed up as I was over you, I wouldn’t have gone that far.”
I huffed. “The snake was going too far.” My gaze flicked to the destroyed snake tarnishing my room.
I shivered.
“I’m sorry, little angel,” Jackson whispered as he came up to me and enveloped me in his arms.
“What did that note say?” I asked, ignoring his apology and vowing to get back at him someday. Maybe a spider. Jackson was terrified of spiders.
“I’ll deal with it,” he answered vaguely.
“Just let me see it,” I snapped.
Jackson reluctantly handed the piece of notebook paper to me.
For You LyLy, was all it said, in Caiden’s bold handwriting.
But it was enough to stoke the embers of fear inside of me that Caiden’s existence always kept present.
He was coming for me. I was never going to get away from him.
“You’re moving to my place,” Jackson said firmly.
I didn’t argue this time.
20
Jackson
I was done playing nice. Caiden obviously wanted to play dirty, and I could do dirty with the best of them. Especially after hearing Everly scream in the middle of the night as she came out of a nightmare starring Caiden.
I went hunting for Caiden the next morning. I stopped at his dorm first, but my teammates who lived there said they hadn’t seen him in a few days. It was the same for everyone else on campus that would have any clue where he was.
Caiden had disappeared.
On a whim, I called my parents.
“What do you need Jackson?” my dad answered, annoyed.
“Hello to you too, Dad.”
“Your mother and I are very disappointed. Your brother is here, and he’s told us all about your behavior at the school. Sleeping with Caiden’s girlfriend, harassing Everly. I’m regretting the day you were ever born!”
It took me a second to respond, because I was so fucking shocked at the words that had just come out of my father’s asshole…I mean mouth.
“You’ve got to be shitting me,” I finally said, in what I was proud was a calm voice.
“We’ve had to cover up a lot of your fuck-ups, Jackson. But enough is enough. This is too far. We’re cutting you off.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to