callan
After the last bell rang, I pressed my lips together and shut off the lights in my classroom, and then I headed toward Principal Vaughn’s office. I scanned the hallways for Sakura, like I had done all last period while my class was working in the library.
When I reached his office, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Fuck.
I tapped on the Voice Memos app on my phone. I didn’t want to be here, but I had no choice. Whatever the mob had been doing behind my back, I needed to figure it out. I didn’t know how bad it truly was, but I knew I needed to stop it.
“Callan,” Vaughn said when I walked in. “I didn’t think you’d show up.”
I closed the door behind me, really wishing that I weren’t here. All I wanted to do was go find Sakura and apologize, force her to hear me out. But she wanted none of that. She barely wanted to even look at me.
He nodded to his desk, and I sat across from him and gulped.
“Who can I choose from?”
“We have plenty of girls,” he said.
“Plenty?” I asked.
“Whoever you’d like”—Vaughn smirked—“we can get them.”
“Who’s we?” I asked, playing dumb.
He chuckled. “You work for them, don’t you? Have they not told you about this?”
“The mob?” I asked, running my tongue across my teeth. “They’ve mentioned it briefly.”
Not to me, but to each other. I had to figure it out. They had been using me all these years to get in with the principal? Was that what I had been for? I fucking hated them. One of these fucking days, I’d end them too.
“Who are you into?” Principal Vaughn asked. “What’s your type?”
Swallowing hard, I dropped my gaze to the floor and clenched my jaw. I would have to tell him anyone but Sakura. I couldn’t pull her into this. He already knew too much about us from the way I looked at her and maybe even about the way I felt about her.
I couldn’t get defensive.
“So, who’s it going to be?” he asked.
“What kind of girls do you have?” I asked quietly.
“Ahhh, any kind you want. Student athletes, cheerleaders, emo goth girls with huge tits, and those nerdy girls. So, who are you into—besides Sakura? Are you sure you don’t want her? She’d be way too easy, judging by the way she looks at you.”
I gritted my teeth. “No, I don’t want her.”
I need her.
“Do you have a list?” I asked. “So I can take my pick?”
After unlocking and opening his bottom left desk drawer, he pulled out an iPad and turned it on. Once he opened the Notes app, he handed me the tablet. On the list, there were at least fifty names of girls at Redwood Academy, both past and present students.
Some were even freshman. Fucking freshman students.
Even the police chief’s daughter, Nicole, was on the list.
I scroll through each and every name, trying to remember them. I needed to help out however I could. I wanted to save these girls. Not only would it give me something to do other than sit around and sulk about Sakura not talking to me, but also because what was happening was wrong. So wrong.
What I’d done to Sakura in detention was wrong too.
But these girls … they were being pimped out for money. And most of them were underage. These men and women in Redwood were raping these innocent girls. It was hypocritical as fuck of me, but I needed to stop it.
“How do I choose?” I asked. “What happens if I do?”
“You don’t have to choose one right away. I can show you what they look like, see if you’re really into them before you go ahead and take one home.” He smirked. “I think you’ll want to see it.”
“See it? What do you mean? Do you have pictures?”
“Oh, Callan. We have something better than pictures.” He nodded me over.
When he opened a folder on his computer, a bunch of videos popped up of surveillance around Redwood Academy. While a few cameras were in the hallway, some were in the restrooms, locker rooms, everywhere.
He scrolled through a couple of videos of girls getting undressed, football players showering, people having sex in the locker room and in the fucking staircase. I stiffened when I realized Blaise and Vera were among some of the couples.
I balled my hands into tight fists. I wanted to fucking puke.
What the fuck was wrong with him? What the fuck was wrong with everyone in Redwood? I hated this entire fucking town. I wanted to leave, to whisk Sakura away as soon as she finished high school, and leave this place for good.
“These are fucking amazing,” I said, desperate to not seem suspicious.
My voice was stone-cold. I didn’t want him to know how disgusted I was by all of this.
Though I wanted to die on the inside. Thank God he hadn’t found anything on Sakura and me. I had been careful to fuck her in my classroom and nowhere else. But I wondered if he had cameras in the classrooms. Maybe he had seen us together.
And Blaise …
Fucking Blaise had already been accused of killing Skylar. Now, this?
I needed to tell somebody about this, somebody that I knew would take care of this mess. But I couldn’t get my toes too much into it. I was too close to the mob. If they heard that I’d found out about them, about this, they’d kill me.