Alexia
Hours earlier …
Alexia eased away from Derek, whose muscular arm tightened around her waist as they grooved to Yung Bleu’s lyrics under the moonlight.
“Come on babe, relax,” the linebacker whispered against her neck as his moves went from casual to sensuous.
“We don’t know each other like that.” She put a few inches between them and pointed at the villa over her shoulder. “And isn’t your girl inside?”
“Chloe isn’t my girl. She’s …”
As a sheepish expression crossed his face, Alexia smirked. “Just a friend, right?”
He shrugged, his stringy brown hair falling into his eyes. “It’s not that serious.”
Howls erupted from the people dancing on the other side of the pool as Mateo fell in, still fully dressed in his Sunday finest. He floundered while they ignored him, dipping and rising with the studio-engineered rhythms. One girl held up a phone as Sancia flirted with the camera and swung her hips in a circle, oblivious to the drama being played out. Her brother, Jonathan—the more sensible of the two Jackman siblings—was nowhere in sight.
“Can someone get him out of there, please?” Alexia cried, breaking away from Derek and taking rapid steps toward where Mateo was now treading water. He’d been drinking, like most of the others, and now threw his head back and howled at the moon.
A muscular blond in a T-shirt stretched a hand along one side of the rectangular pool and Mateo grasped it. Instead of lifting himself out of the water, he let out a burst of laughter and pulled the other guy in with him.
Phil didn’t find being drenched amusing and punched Mateo in the face.
He fell backward and sank like a boulder.
The metal chair legs scraped across the deck, and Deja, a quiet sophomore who Alexia was friends with, rushed to her side. “What on earth?”
“Are you an idiot? Don’t leave him in there like that,” Alexia yelled, trying to be heard over the music.
“Who are you?” Phil asked, scowling. “Holy Mary?”
“No,” she shot back. “But you have me confused with someone who wants to be stuck in a room with a cop because you couldn’t be bothered.”
He stared at her, his pale face expressionless, then turned back to the pool.
Alexia exchanged a glance with Deja, who shook her head as she glared at Phil.
Mateo now floated with his arms spread wide, jabbering to himself. Phil poked him with his sneaker and hauled him up by his garish shirt, dotted with planets in a range of colors. He sputtered and dragged himself to the steps, then crawled out to lie on the lip of the pool where he swore at the sky and laughed at something only he saw.
At the other end of the deck, which stretched around the corner at a right angle, her other friends sat at a table with a glass top. A cluster of fan palms, arranged for privacy, hid them from sight. For a while now, they’d been hunched over their phones, the screens reflecting on their faces. Now and then, they sipped from the fruit punch that someone had laced with what Alexia described as thousand-proof rum. One sip and it would blow a hole through her brain, not to mention her stomach. Earlier, she ditched her cup inside the kitchen.
Backing away, Deja tugged the loose curls at the back of her afro, the way she did when off-center or irritated. “Talk about a total a-hole. I’m out. See you at the airport tomorrow, Lexi.”
“Sure. I won’t be here much longer anyway.” The party had thinned out, and only a handful of people who weren’t staying at the villa were still on property.
Deja marched toward the gate that opened onto the beach, slipped off her sandals, and disappeared onto the sand.
Two girls Alexia had never seen before joined them on the patio. They shouted hellos, then looked around for a place to sit.
Jason, a second-year student at the University of Miami, slid over to them. He’d been on the prowl since they arrived in Jamaica, and though they were scheduled to fly back to Miami in the morning, he hadn’t given up on scoring with any available female. He was good-looking with a bad-boy vibe—tall with jet-black, tousled hair and intense eyes—but desperation made him unattractive.
The slim brunette tipped her head back and glared at him, as though offended by what he’d said.
Over his shoulder, Jason scowled as he said, “Just so you know, I’ve got some good stuff.”
“What you got?” Phil asked, pulling off his wet shirt and throwing it on a lounge chair.
Lowering his voice, Jason shared details Alexia didn’t hear while removing an item from his pocket. The two leaned closer as they chuckled.
Derek had settled next to two young women who were giggling in the spacious living room. One was Chloe, a cheerleader with jet-black hair that extended to her waist. The other, Mia, had an olive complexion and sipped from a plastic cup between laughing and staring at her phone. When Chloe climbed into Derek’s lap and his hand slid under her tank top, Alexia figured it was time to leave.
She’d been there for several hours and didn’t see a reason to stay. Her boyfriend, Chad, hadn’t been able to make the trip because of work, so she was on her own. She wasn’t staying at the villa, but had borrowed her grandmother’s car to attend the party.
If Jason and Phil knocked heads, the party could go in a direction she didn’t like. Heading toward her friends, she moved past them.
Jason grabbed her arm. “Where you going?”
“To the other deck where my friends are sitting, then home,” she said, prying her arm from his grip.
“You’re too pretty to be such a nerd.” Jason held on tighter. “Why not stay and have some of this good stuff?”
“Thanks, but I’ll get along without it,” she said, twisting her arm. She’d never put anything harmful inside her body, except liquor. Truthfully, she’d had more than enough in the time they’d been on vacation. Plus, she was driving. On top of that, her mother would kill her if she wrecked her grandmother’s car.
He didn’t release her. Instead, his thick fingers cut off her circulation. “Hey, what’s your hurry?”
“My man’s waiting,” she lied.
“Awww, come on now.” Phil wriggled his eyebrows. “Be nice.”
“I won’t be for much longer, if your friend doesn’t let go of me.”
Jason sniffed, then leered at her. “I bet you’d loosen up a little if you stayed a while longer.”
An image of them forcing whatever poison they wanted to share down her throat made Alexia’s desire to leave more urgent. Stranger things had happened on these spring break jaunts, and she didn’t want to be a story or a statistic.
The new visitors wandered over to investigate, shaky on their feet and wearing brilliant smiles.
“We heard you talking.” The petite female with an hourglass shape and curly hair looked at Jason as if daring him to deny it. “What d’you have going on?”
“A little peyote over here.” Jason held up two transparent bags and grinned. “And some ecstasy on this side.”
“That does not sound like a good idea,” Alexia said, rubbing her chafed wrist when Jason finally released her.
“You were just leaving, remember, narc? This has nothing to do with you,” he spat.
“You’re right about that.” She stood straight and was about to tell him what she thought of him for manhandling her when Nisha walked into her line of sight.
“What are you guys arguing about?” Her words carried a slight slur, and her brown eyes were out of focus.
Alexia grabbed her arm. “How much of that rum punch have you had?”
“Nunya.” Nisha laughed at her joke and jerked her arm, which knocked Alexia off balance.
She grabbed Jason’s shirt to steady herself and the packet of white power landed in the pool. The bag containing the pink, blue, and green pills fell at her feet and she stepped on them, the heel of her shoe crunching the bag into the concrete.
“You little bitch.” Jason advanced on her and shoved her in the chest. “You did that on purpose.”
Struggling to stay upright, Alexia slapped him on the arm and shouted, “It was an accident.”
His face twisted and spittle flew from his mouth. “Accident, my ass.”
Jason prodded her a second time, and she stumbled. “If you touch me again—”
“Hey! Watch what you’re doing.” A shrill voice hit her ear, and someone pushed her toward Jason, who punched her in the belly. She bent over, retching. The contents of her stomach spewed over the feet of the female who stood closest to her, and she screamed obscenities at Alexia, who was still heaving.
“That’s it,” Jason hollered. “Time to take out the trash.”
A sharp jab to the spine sent Alexia crashing to the cement. As the skin of her knees scraped across the hard surface, a blow to the ribs put her flat on her back. The air rushed out of her lungs, and she couldn’t seem to catch another. A shower of blows rained on her, and she instinctively curled into a fetal position.
When a rough hand sank into her thick hair, Alexia screamed and clawed at the person’s skin. Clumps of strands separated from the follicles as she was pulled toward the yard. She bumped down the two steps that led to the mowed grass, kicking and screaming. Her hip and thighs struck the edges of the treads, numbing them instantly. Someone stomped on her knee and she was sure it was either dislocated or shattered. The battering continued from every direction as she jerked and twitched. Then bitter liquid spewed from her lips. Seconds later, she lost consciousness.
“What the heck?”
A warm hand touched her cheek, and a man hovered next to her.
“Why don’t you do what you really want to do?” A mocking female voice came from behind him. “What you’ve been dying to do?”
“What are you talking about?”
The voices faded, and the couple argued while Alexia tried to make sense of what was happening. She knew these people. Christian. Sancia. Need your help.
A light breeze wafted over her thighs, and she moaned as someone moved her from side to side, shifting her clothing and amplifying her pain. A weight settled on top of her. She shifted but couldn’t make it go away. Alexia pulled in a breath to protest, but no sound came from her throat. The crushing sensation brought her pain sensors back to life. Agony, like nothing she’d experienced before, shafted through her lower body and between her thighs. The darkness claimed her once more.
After a while, a cool draft of air replaced the unwelcome pressure.
A sharp object poked Alexia’s side, then the female said, “You’re not all that anymore, huh? Let’s see how you like this.”
A white-hot line marked Alexia’s forehead, leaving fire in its path, and she fainted.