CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
PAYTON
I’m smiling to myself in the shower, the water and suds spiraling down the drain between my legs, my dick happily swinging like a dog’s tail. Lacey’s surprised me once again. She’s far more adventurous than I ever could have hoped.
I thought her pussy was tight, but her ass was even more amazing. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined she’d be down for something like that.
It just keeps getting better.
Better still, my grades are up, Lacey’s getting over her fears, and together we’re going to kick ass out there in the greater world. We’re fucking unstoppable.
I turn off the shower and step out, picking up my towel.
Jackson’s shaving, looking back at me in the mirror. “For a second there I thought I was looking at a three-legged man.”
I’m laughing, wrapping my towel around myself when something collects my shoulder.
I spin to find Fielding smirking at me.
“Watch it, Cox,” he says.
No. Fuck this. I grab his shoulder and turn him around.
The others stop what they’re doing.
Ryan throws his hands wide. He’s actually pretty cut for a dumb shit. “What are you going to do, Cox? Seriously? You waiting for your bitch to come save the day, is that it?”
Easy now.
I take a step towards him. “You’re skirting awfully close to an ass-kicking, my friend.”
Someone tries to grab me from behind. “Leave it, Payton,” they say. “It’s not worth it.”
I shrug them off.
Ryan takes a step towards me, smiling there smugly in his towel. He takes a second to eye me off before speaking. “The only thing I’m awfully close to is swiping that bitch right from under your nose. And you know what I’m going to do then?”
“What’s that?” I laugh.
The smile turns full span. “I’m going to bury my cock so far down her throat she’ll be coughing up cum for weeks.”
If he was looking for a reaction, he gets it.
Whatever thread of restraint I had snaps. I launch at his torso in a tackle.
The force is enough to lift him clear off his feet.
I drive him all the way into the tiled wall at the end of the bathroom.
He drops to the floor gasping, but he’s not down.
“Payton!” someone shouts in warning, but I’m too far gone.
I slam my fist into his gut and another into his stupid fucking mouth.
He manages to get a jab into my side, enough to distract me and get to his feet.
I yell and pick him up again, both of us thrown off balance, slipping.
We fall against a vanity, a chunk of porcelain crashing with us to the wet floor.
I’ve got him in a choke-hold, his feet kicking out uselessly on the tiles. We slide and writhe together. “How does that feel, motherfucker?”
The wormy prick manages to slip out and hammer an elbow into my chest, forcing my knees upwards.
The next blow comes right against my jaw, a bloom of pain firing down my shoulder.
I swing back, his nose bloody when he turns back to face me. He staggers to his feet and makes for the door, but I’m far from done.
I take out his legs, shrugging off another classmate who’s trying to pull me free. The water from the busted vanity is leaking out to flood the floor around us.
I manage to get on top of him, straddling him as I start to pummel his face—one fist and then the other.
Strong arms hold me from behind. I cry out in protest. “Let me fucking go!”
Two instructors pull me up, another two dragging Ryan away.
“I’m going to have her,” Ryan laughs, his bloody face maniacal. “I’m going to fuck your whore if it’s the last thing I do.”
I jump forward again, but the instructors have me tight.
I’m taken back to my room. “Dress,” the one on the left orders, throwing me in.
I hear Lacey’s voice past the doorway. “What’s going on?”
They don’t reply.
I sit on the bed and look at my hands, red and raw, the reality of what’s just transpired beginning to sink. It doesn’t matter who started it, who swung first, this is it. I’ve fucked it up. I’ve fucked it all up.
“Hurry up!” shouts one of the instructors. “Dress and get your ass down to the Dean’s office now.”
*
The Dean shakes his head. “What a mess.” He looks up to the Captain. “What do you make of this, Jerry?”
It’s strange hearing the Captain’s first name.
The Captain looks over me with cold eyes. “I think Pemberton Fire Academy is one of the finest training institutions in this here great country. I think Pemberton Fire Academy,” he repeats, “has a zero tolerance policy when it comes to violence, a policy that was made abundantly clear to all recruits when they signed on the dotted line, present company included.”
The Dean fixes on me from behind his desk. “The Captain’s right, Mr. Cox. We absolutely cannot tolerate violence here of any kind. I told Mr. Fielding that just now, and I’m telling you. At Pemberton, you work as a team, or you don’t work at all.”
The hot rage I felt earlier has mellowed into an odd resignation. “What are you saying?”
“Did the Dean say you could talk?” the Captain barks.
The Dean puts his hand up. “It’s okay, Jerry. I’m saying, son, that this is end of your time here at the Academy, both of you. As of this moment, you are expelled from Pemberton.”
Expelled—the word hangs there in my head.
It’s déjà vu, only this office looks different, with a different dean and some fucking ass bandit out there who’s going to get what’s coming to him.
The chair I’m sitting on is still warm. I can picture Ryan sitting here quietly, that smug expression on his face. Maybe he never wanted to be here at all, but I do. I wanted to prove to everyone I wasn’t going to fuck up again, and now the chance has been stripped away like it never was in the first place. I’m back to square one.
I look to the Captain. “Come on, Captain. You know this isn’t right.”
He remains stony-faced. “The Dean’s word is final, Cox. Pack up your things. You are to leave the campus immediately.”
I stand and slam my hand down on the Dean’s desk, my frustration getting the better of me. “This is bullshit!”
The Dean stands, hardening. “You watch your tone there, son. We took a chance on you, and you blew it.”
“But—”
“There are no ‘buts,’ no excuses. We need firefighters with restraint, not frat boys who are going to fly off the handle every time someone gets under their skin. Man up and face the consequences.”
I drag my hand across the Dean’s desk, pull all of its contents down onto the floor.
The Captain starts forward, but the Dean places his hand on his chest. “It’s fine, Jerry. It’s fine.”
“Fuck this place!” I shout, storming out the office.
I don’t look back. I don’t want to see the way they’re looking at me.
Lacey hears me come into my room. She appears in the doorway. “What the hell’s going on?”
I sit on the bed. “I was expelled is what’s going on. Fielding and me, zero tolerance and all that shit.”
“But… they can’t. I’ll go down there right now and tell them what he…”
She stops.
“Tell them what?” I push, sensing her reluctance. “Did he do something? Did he do something to you?”
I’m standing, shaking with fury. She backs up against the wall as I walk forward. “Tell me, Lacey. What is it?”
“It doesn’t make any difference now.”
I punch the brick wall beside her hard enough to bring fresh blood to my knuckles. “Tell me!”
She takes a step forward, forcing me back. “He tried to come onto me, force himself on me after class.”
The tension slips away to be replaced by horror. “Did he…?”
She shakes her head. “No. I kicked him in the balls, pretended you were in your room.”
“Jesus. Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“Because I knew something like this would happen, and it has. He’s gotten away with it.”
But I’m firm. “He’s not getting away with anything. Not on my fucking watch.”
Lacey goes to place her hands on my chest. “Don’t do anything stupid, Payton. I’m begging you.”
I throw my hands out. “I’m no longer a student here, Lacey. Once him and I walk through those front gates we’re two ordinary citizens again. The rules of Pemberton no longer apply.”
“This isn’t the end of the world,” she says, trying to comfort me, but I’m way beyond that now.
“For you, maybe,” I scoff, “but what do I have to go back to but my fucking father saying, ‘told you so’? I’m never going to live this down.”
“Since when do you care what your father thinks?” She presses herself against me. “Only I matter, remember? You said that yourself.”
I run my hand through my hair, my heart continuing to pump ahead of me. “It doesn’t matter. It’s done.”
“You’ll get through this. You’ll be okay.”
She lifts up onto her toes to kiss me. I let her, and with those lips on mine I begin to simmer. The tension falls away and I realize she’s right. It will be okay. I’ve got her. What the hell else do I need?
She holds the side of my face, pulling away. “Good?”
“Good,” I nod.
“You’ve got me, Payton. I’m not going anywhere.”
“I know.”
I shift away, looking down at my knuckles, the pain starting. “I’m going to go clean up. I’ll be right back.”
“I’ll be waiting,” she smiles. “We’ll figure it out, together.”
I head to the bathroom, passing the door to Ryan’s room around the corner. It’s closed. He might be inside; he might not.
Let it go, I tell myself. What would bashing his head in now achieve apart from much-needed satisfaction?
I’m in the bathroom, alone, thinking it over. I’m kind of hoping he shows his face one last time when I hear commotion outside.
It could be anything really—a drill, a training exercise.
I notice the door to Ryan’s room is wide open when I come out of the bathroom.
Don’t do it.
I can’t help myself. I walk in.
His room’s largely bare, packed away in haste, save for a lone sock on the floor and a stack of textbooks in the desk.
I pick one up, not really sure why, when I spot the edge of something under the corner of the mattress.
I reach down and pull it out.
It’s a photo.
In it Ryan’s standing with a group of guys in front of a frat house—Sigma Phi or some shit. I study Ryan’s smug fucking expression, the one he seems to wear twenty-four seven.
And then I notice it.
He’s wearing a cap. Not any cap. The cap. The one in the photo the Captain handed me.
My first thought is that it’s a coincidence, but then I realize it’s anything but.
It all locks together.
“Holy shit.” I say it aloud.
It wasn’t Jackson at all.
At that exact moment, a deafening alarm sounds across campus.
I rush to the window.
Nothing.
The hell?
I drop the textbook and pocket the photo, rushing back into the hall. Louis has his head out the door of him room. “Any idea what’s going on?” I ask him.
He shrugs. “Fire drill, maybe?”
This whole damn place is a fire drill.
Lacey.
I jog down the hall towards her room, breaking into a run, but when I burst in, she’s gone.
She’s not in my room either.
The alarm continues to bleat, maddeningly loud.
And there’s no sign of Ryan.
Fuck.
I sprint to the middle of campus, right out into the center of the quad, the alarm changing, a male voice squawking intermittently, “Evacuate. Fire. Evacuate.”
When I turn, I see why.
The Tower is on fire, long flames clawing up the sides of it.
Students rush past me in the opposite direction, instructors headed towards the blaze with lines and PPE gear.
Jackson pulls up beside me, puffing. “Jesus, Cox, what have you done?”
What have I done?
I watch the fire climb in disbelief. It’s spreading fast. “It was Fielding,” I state.
“What?” says Jackson.
I take hold of his shoulders and shake. “It was fucking Ryan. He set the fire in Dante’s.” I point to the tower. “I’ll bet my ass he’s behind this one, too.”
Confusion clouds Jackson’s face. “Why?”
“Because he’s a fucking pyromaniac!” I shout. “I don’t know.”
“Evacuate. Fire. Evacuate.”
Jackson’s looking down at his feet shaking his head. “I don’t get it.” Smoke drags across the sky in a large gash. “But why now? Why set the Tower on fire now. I mean, I get he’s pissed, but…” Jackson smiles. “It would make for a great decoy if you were trying to escape campus or something.”
Decoy. The word sinks in.
I thought it could be one last fuck-you to Pemberton, but then I recall his last words in the bathroom.
“Have you seen Lacey?” I ask Jackson.
“Yeah,” he says, pointing behind him back to the dorms. “She was with Fielding, actually. Looked wasted, like she was half-asleep or something. I thought he was helping her to the sick bay.”
No.
A shard of dread digs deep into my gut.
“Evacuate. Fire. Evacuate.”
I grab Jackson again and look at him dead-on. “Where were they going?”
He’s scared. “Hey, man. I don’t know.”
“Where?!” I scream, sirens beginning to wail over the alarm.
Jackson’s eyes are wide. “The parking lot, maybe?”
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. “Find the Captain,” I tell him, I handing Jackson the photo and pointing at Ryan. Show him this and do not fucking lose it.”
I start to run off.
“Where are you going?” Jackson shouts to my back.
There’s no time to reply.
I push through the crush of students heading for the campus gates. I cut across them, keeping my head above the crowd looking for any sign of Lacey or Ryan, but it’s chaos. People are moving in every direction.
I come out into the parking lot as an engine pulls in with its lights on. I look left and then right, spotting Ryan making his way down the line of parked student cars.
He’s carrying something, someone.
I look closer.
It’s Lacey.
What the fuck have you done?
He couldn’t have her, so now he’s taking her. And no one’s even noticed.
“Ryan!” I shout, cupping my hands around my mouth, but there’s too much noise.
He opens the door of a blue pickup and lifts a limp Lacey up into the passenger seat, slamming the door and running around to the driver’s side.
I take out my keys and double my pace to the Ram.
A girl screams when I shove past her. I mow down another guy, but there’s no time to turn back.
Ryan’s pickup is already pulling out of its space and moving through the crowd to the front gate, his horn honking.
I judge the distance to make it over, but it’s too far. Following him in my truck’s the only way.
I make it and swing the door of the Dodge open, turning the ignition and reversing hard, the tires chirping as I swing it around.
Ryan’s pickup is gone, already entering out the main road.
I honk at a group of students blocking the path, revving the engine in an attempt to get them to move.
“Fuck off!” I yell.
I slam my foot down on the accelerator and pull around them, knocking over a bollard in the process and cutting across the front lawn of the campus.
I come blind around the corner, over a garden bed, and onto the road, forced to turn sharply to avoid smashing into the side of another fire engine rushing to the campus.
In my rear-view I see the Tower completely ablaze, a plume of smoke painted across the sky.
I spot Ryan’s pickup up ahead.
He’s not going to get away with this.
I go to take out my cell before I remember it’s back on my desk.
I slam the dashboard. “Come on!”
A police cruiser blasts past, but it’s going too fast. By the time I turn around and catch up with it, Ryan will be long gone.
I hit the gas instead.