ALEC
Eyes fluttering open, I squinted at the fire blazing across the room. Spencer sat in a large, cushioned chair in front of it, one ankle kicked up onto his knee and his arms crossed over his chest, as if he had been waiting for me to come back around.
My head pounded from when the baseball bat had collided with it earlier, and while I remembered blonde hair … I didn’t think I’d actually seen who it was. But it hadn’t been Spencer, which meant that he was working with someone.
A woman maybe.
“Let me fucking go,” Oliver growled from the opposite corner of the room.
I blinked again, my vision becoming clearer as he came into view. Large bruises covered his face, down his neck, and all over his bare chest. His hands and ankles were bound together so he couldn’t escape. Though … the skin looked raw near the rope.
“Finally coming around, are we?” Spencer said, ignoring Oliver’s pleas.
Deciding to annoy his stupid fucking ass, I glanced around the room to see Blaise lying in a different corner, completely passed out with his head swollen near his right eye. I closed my eyes and cursed myself for ever believing we’d be able to do something to Spencer.
I hadn’t been thinking in my right mind, and now, we were Spencer’s captives.
God, I needed to stop thinking off pure emotion. I had been good at it for a while, but seeing Carter with my father and thinking about Mom and Oliver and with everything that had happened so suddenly with the Glaciers … it was too much for a kid.
In the fourth corner of the room, someone sat in another chair, completely covered in darkness.
Spencer stood from his seat. “Wonderful.”
“What do you want? Money?” I asked, still refusing to look him in the eye. “I can give—”
Spencer’s chuckle boomed throughout the room. “I want you to break, lover boy. Again. And again. And again. And again. As punishment for ever thinking that you could replace me and love Maddie.”
“Maddie will never love you,” Oliver spit at Spencer.
“She will, if I make her,” Spencer said.
“You’d never make her,” I growled.
“If I let her watch you sleep with another woman again, I could.”
“I didn’t sleep with anyone else while we were together,” I snarled.
“Not even at Oliver’s party?” Spencer chuckled. “I know you did. Because I watched it happen.”
“He’s just talking shit, Alec,” Oliver said. “Don’t listen to him.”
“And I know who did it,” Spencer said.
My mouth dried, heart racing. “You what?”
“It’s just wonderful that she’s here tonight too,” he exclaimed, walking to a closet door and opening it up.
A young woman was slumped on the ground, as if she had been sleeping, and blinked her eyes open.
“C-can I go?” she whispered.
And I froze.
No … no, it couldn’t be.
“You got shit to do, bitch,” Spencer said, kicking her. “Get up.”
Piper scrambled to her knees and stared into the room.
I stared at her through teary eyes, still in disbelief. “It was you that night?”
“I’m sorry,” Piper whispered, squeezing her eyes closed. “I’m so sorry.”
My body jerked forward, and I tried desperately to escape my binds, rage rushing through me. “You fucking raped me?! You drugged me and raped me! And you acted like you didn’t know shit about it every fucking day to Maddie’s face!”
Piper’s lips trembled, but I wasn’t believing that shit. Tears burned my eyes, and I shook my head. Why would she do that? She had never once shown interest in me, never mind wanting to stab Maddie in the back.
When Maddie found out, she’d be crushed.
“My dad forced me,” she whispered. “I-I’m sorry.”
“Your dad didn’t force you to do shit, you fucking bitch!” I shouted, my voice breaking. “You made the decision to slip the drug into my drink, climb onto me while I was passed out, and then … then you fucking harassed Maddie?!”
“That might be true.” Spencer chuckled. “But tonight’s going to be a little different.”
“P-please, Spencer,” Piper cried. “Don’t make me do it again.”
Spencer held a gun to the back of her head and smirked at me from over her shoulder. “Why don’t you show Alec what he missed that night when you spiked one of his many drinks after he fucked my girl?”
I shuffled back, my heart pounding against my chest and fear running my blood cold.
Tears streamed down Piper’s cheeks. “P-please, Spencer.”
Spencer pressed the gun against her skull harder. “Do it, bitch.”
After crying out, Piper dropped to her knees in front of me. I scrambled back until I hit the wall behind me, memories of that night running through my head. I squeezed my eyes closed. My breaths came quickly. My throat drying.
Piper sniffled at my feet. “I’m sorry, Alec. I don’t want to die.”
“Please don’t,” I said, turning my head away from her and pressing the side of my face against the wall. My lips quivered, and I let my tears spill down my cheeks as I realized that I had failed Maddie again. “P-please.”
“I’m sor—”
Spencer shot a bullet straight through the wall two feet from my head. “Quit stalling!”
Once Piper crawled up my legs and straddled my waist, she unbuttoned my jeans with trembling fingers. I stared up at the ceiling, lips trembling and tears trembling in my eyes. I didn’t want to watch.
Maddie would never forgive me for this.
All I wanted was to have a life with her, but I … I couldn’t even stop her best friend from … from …
I bit my lip to hold back a sob. Why is this happening to me again? Who will be there for me this time?
“She’ll forgive you,” Oliver said from the opposite corner. “Maddie will understand.”
“Not this time,” I sobbed. “Not this fucking time.”
“You know how big her heart is,” Oliver said. “She loves you. She’ll forgive you.”
But all I could do was shake my head in disbelief. Maddie might love me, but I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself after this. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself after Piper—Maddie’s best fucking friend—did this to me. Again.
“The two best friends reconciling,” Spencer cooed. “How cute.”
“Shut the fuck up, you asshat,” Oliver growled, struggling against his restraints.
“Smile for the camera, you four,” Spencer said, glancing over at a camera he must’ve set up for this exact reason before we made it to his house tonight. “Maddie is going to see the whole thing. That pretty little girl is going to be mine.”