Chapter 3

Nicole

“Why don’t we just skip our last class today and have some fun?” I asked Carter, twirling a finger around the end of his thick dirty-blonde hair, my other arm draped over his shoulder at his locker. Dad had given me multiple people to get friendly with this semester.

And, unfortunately, Carter was one of them. He was even stupider than Jace Harbor, but I only had a couple more months until football season ended and Carter wasn’t as important to Dad. I had been counting the days.

I dropped my arms around his abdomen and slipped my hands underneath his shirt to rub his thick muscle the way that I knew he loved. I had done it yesterday to seduce him in the locker room before Jace walked in on us.

Carter shrugged. “If I miss another class, Coach will sit me out for the next game.”

After standing on my tiptoes, I placed a lingering kiss just below his earlobe—right where he liked it—and slid my hand underneath his jean buckle. Then I wrapped my fingers around his hard dick. “Are you sure about that?”

While he eyed my tits, he blew out a low breath and pulled my hand out of his pants. “You know that I’d love to eat that wet pussy again, but it’s important that I kick Harbor’s ass on the field every day until he quits football.”

“Whatever,” I huffed, turning away from him to walk toward Anatomy and Physiology. I stared down at my heels and blew out a breath. I honestly didn’t care what kind of rivalry he had with Jace, nor about actually sleeping with him in the back of his smelly car.

Before walking into science, I popped off the top button of my shirt. Mr Woodard sat at his desk while scanning our textbook, gray wiry hair brushed back atop his head and thick glasses magnifying his eyes.

“Mr Woodard.” I placed my hands on his desk and leaned forward. Since I was twelve, Dad had told me that this was my best asset and that I should use it to get what I wanted. And now he thought otherwise, but I would prove him wrong.

“Yes, Nicole?”

“Last class, you said that we’ll be paired for a project.” I leaned toward Mr Woodward 

and curled my fingers around his tie, gently pulling him closer. “Do you think that you could pair Akio and me together for this one?”

Cheeks red, rounding, and blotchy, Mr Woodward giggled like a schoolboy, his gaze dropping to my chest, and nodded. My stomach twisted as another wave of guilt and disgust rushed through me at the thought of what I was doing.

As the class began to pile into the classroom, I straightened myself out and scanned the room to see if I could even recognize an Akio. But I didn’t know most of the students in my class, nevermind in the entire Redwood body.

My gaze met Willie, who smirked at me like he always did whenever I caught his gaze. I stiffened as a shiver ran down my spine. Out of a class of twenty-five, he was the only guy who I recognized. I could never get those piercing devil eyes out of my head.

Not since he watched his uncle rape me last year.

I reached up to tug on Hannah’s gold necklace that she had given me the night before she was murdered, then turned toward my seat. A nerdy kid up front peered at me for a moment, then he turned back to his open textbook with flushed cheeks.

After sliding into my seat, the bell rang and Mr Woodward stood up onto shaky legs with the help of his desk. “We’ll be working on a project that’s due by the end of the semester. I’ve chosen partners for you.”

Willie leaned back in his chair and placed his forearm on my table, flashing me a disgusting smirk. “Hope we’ll be partners, babe.”

Deciding to ignore him–which came off as me being a bitch to most people–I stared ahead at Mr Woodward and hoped that he’d actually follow through with his promise to me. Dad couldn’t be right, could he?

“Sarah and Willie. Harry and Winslow. Nicole and Akio…”

I released Hannah’s chain and straightened my back. See Dad, I wasn’t useless yet.

“I’ll be up front if you have any questions,” Mr Woodward said, sitting.

With big, goofy glasses nearly falling off his face, skinny arms holding a stack of textbooks, and a Dragon Ball t-shirt that had blood all over it, the same nerdy kid from earlier slipped onto the stool next to me, avoiding eye contact. “H-Hi Nicole.”

“You’re Akio?” I asked, staring at the assignment on my desk with my stomach in knots. 

Akio might’ve been Yui’s–Redwood mob leader’s–son, but I expected someone a bit more… bad boy-ish. Akio was one of the geekiest guys that I had ever laid my eyes upon with out-of-style glasses and pimples scattered across his forehead that he tried to hide with his hair.

How was I supposed to get any information out of a good guy like him? I didn’t want to corrupt this poor guy. He didn’t deserve it, and while I didn’t feel bad about trying to get information out of anyone else because of their history in Redwood, I did with him.

“Sorry about this morning.”

I furrowed my brows. “This morning?”

“When I got blood all over your jacket.”

My eyes widened slightly. “That was you?”

Well, that would explain the blood all over his shirt.

He stared down at his open textbook. “I couldn’t see where I was going.”

“What happened?”

“Poison.”

“Poison?” I asked, raising my brow. Maybe he was a bit more bad boyish than I thought.

“They kinda beat me up.”

Scratch that.

“Well, your Dragon Ball shirt is ruined. Use distilled white vinegar to get out the blood.”

He snapped his gaze up at me. “You know what that is?”

Fuck! Why’d I say that?! What normal kid knew how to get blood out of a shirt? Maybe Poison, but someone like me shouldn’t.

“What?” I giggled softly, twirling my finger around my hair.

“You know what Dragon Ball is?”

Oh, he is talking about how I know what anime is and not about the blood…

After shifting uncomfortably in my seat, I cleared my throat. “Sorta.”

Nobody knew that it used to be Hannah and my thing.

“Anyway,” I said quickly before he could ask anymore questions, “Let’s get started.”

“Right…” Akio adjusted his glasses and opened his spiral notebook that held all his notes from this entire semester. “Mr Woodward is letting us do the project on anything that we learned this semester. What do you want to do?”

Dad’s promise flickered into my mind. He had already made an appointment with a plastic surgeon for me, but if I proved to him that I could get information out of Akio and anyone else he had told me to, then maybe he would reconsider.

Maybe he wouldn’t make me get any surgery.

So, I leaned closer to Akio and placed my hand on his knee underneath the table.

He tensed. “We-We can do the musculoskeletal system or endocrine or…”

I moved my hand up his thigh. “Or maybe the reproductive system?”