Totally Tormented (7 page)

You could tell it was a fraternity house because the Greek letters were plastered over the front door. Other than that, the yard was well kept and everything looked in order. It wasn’t exactly Animal House, at least not at first glance.

“Come on,” I said, my voice chipper, like we were going to my grandparents’

house for dinner. “We don’t want to keep them waiting.”

Lindsay grabbed my arm. “Are you sure, Justin? I don’t want them to do anything else to Rachel. She’s already gone through a lot.”

“Nobody’s going to hurt her. Believe me.” I looked into her eyes and she saw I meant it.

“Okay, okay.”

We started walking again. As we crossed the street and headed for the front walkway, I found myself experiencing a high very similar to getting into the cage. I was on pins and needles, alert, with tremendous energy.

I practically sprinted to the front door, but just barely restrained myself. I didn’t want to be too eager.

Finally, we got to the steps and I knocked loudly and rang the bell.

A few seconds later, the door was opened by a blond guy in a collared shirt. He looked the type. When he saw Rachel, his eyes widened momentarily. Then he fixed his gaze back on me. “Anything I can help you with?”

“Yeah, I need to come inside.” I started to move and he put his arm across the entranceway. Just past him, I could see a few other guys milling around, and they’d started to notice us.

“You can’t just walk into our house.” The blond guy’s cheeks were flushed.

“My friend Rachel told me she left some important pictures here. I need to get those back.”

“We don’t have any pictures of anybody here.”

Soon three other guys approached the doorway. They were all fairly well built, strong looking guys. They had attitudes. I was excited.

“Is there a problem here?” one of them said. He was the biggest one, with short brown hair, blue eyes, and he hadn’t bothered to put on a shirt. His torso was muscular and pale. He looked at me and then at Rachel. “Rach, what the hell is going on?”

“Don’t look at her, don’t talk to her,” I said nicely.

His blue eyes fixed back on me. “What the fuck are you even talking about?”

I smiled, my voice still friendly. “I told you not to talk to her. She’s with me, she’s under my protection.”

The dark haired guy laughed and looked at his friends, who shook their heads.

“Do you believe this fucking guy?” He looked at me once more. “Listen, buddy. I don’t know what you’ve been smoking, but we’re not interested in talking to you or either of these bitches. You’re all bruised and busted up already, so clearly you know how to get your ass kicked. I’d hate to have to do it to you again so soon.”

“I’m not going to get my ass kicked. But what I am going to do is walk inside right now and get those pictures you have.”

“Lenny, call the fucking cops right now,” the ringleader yelled over his shoulder, his eyes still trained on me. “We’ll just have them escort you off our private property.”

“Sure, go ahead,” I said.

Lindsay grabbed my arm. “Justin, come on. We should go.”

“Yeah Justin, listen to your broad and leave before we lose our fucking patience.”

I chuckled. “You’re not calling the police.”

“Really? Why not?”

“Because of all the illegal shit going on inside your house.” I stepped forward.

The dark haired ringleader cocked back to throw an obvious punch and I took the opportunity to leap forward and head-butt his face. He crumpled downwards and backwards with a shriek. Instantly, it was chaos.

But I was used to chaos when it came to fighting, and they weren’t.

Maybe they were used to playing basketball or football or baseball. Maybe they skied. All I’d been doing the last decade of my life was fighting. In streets, in bars, in school, and finally in the gym and then the cage.

Everything these idiots tried to do to hurt me was like nothing to me.

One of them tried to grab me and hold me, but I pivoted quickly aside and threw an elbow to his ribs as I went. He grunted in pain.

Another one threw a punch that I avoided with slight head movement. They were all sort of scrunched into the doorway, so they didn’t have much ability to spread out.

This allowed me to bulldoze forward. I began throwing combinations of hard punches meant to cause quick and total devastation. I didn’t care who I hit.

Each punch did maximum damage.

I got one of them in the nose and felt it crack. I hit another one in the mouth, and another in the stomach. I did a front kick that caught somebody’s knee.

Soon, there were four guys on the floor in front of me.

A thin blond haired kid, must have been a freshman, ran around the corner toward me wielding a baseball bat. “Get out of here,” he said, waving the bat menacingly.

“You threaten me again and I’ll break that bat off in your ass,” I told him.

“Get the fuck out!” he screamed. His voice cracked a little.

Nearby, a group of four or five guys stood watching silently.

I stepped into the house and calmly walked to the kid with the bat, keeping eye contact the whole way. He could have hit me at any point, but he just held it aloft, threatening to do it.

Finally I was within reach and I plucked the bat out of his hands.

He looked at me, terrified.

I slapped him, not terribly hard. “Don’t ever threaten someone with a goddamn baseball bat unless you mean to use it. Now show me where these fuck heads keep their computers and cameras and shit.”

“I don’t know where. I don’t know anything,” the blond kid said.

Lindsay and Rachel were still standing outside, horrified. Meanwhile, the four guys I’d beaten up were starting to gather themselves, slowly.

“Rachel, is this dude the one who messed with you?” I asked, pointing my bat at the dark haired shirtless dude.

She nodded. “That’s Henry.”

“Okay, Henry,” I said. “Get the fuck up right now.”

He looked at me fearfully. One eye had already swollen shut.

“Come on, big boy. Get up before I rip your good fucking eye out of your head.”

“Okay. Okay.”

I pushed him in his back with the baseball bat. “Come on, let’s be quick.”

He walked upstairs and took us into a large room with bunk beds. There were two desks, a television set, and empty beer cans and liquor bottles everywhere. And there was a laptop on one of the desks that was open and running. Next to it was a digital camera.

“Is that the stuff he used to take pictures of you, Rachel?” I asked.

She nodded. “Yeah. I think so.”

“Is it?” I asked Henry.

He nodded. “I’ll erase the pictures right in front of you,” he said. “We were just kidding around about showing them to people anyway.”

“Do you have backup files on your computer?” I asked.

“No. But I’ll prove it. I’ll go through the whole computer right in front of you.”

“Don’t fucking lie to me, Henry.”

“I’m not, man. I swear. The pics are only on the camera.”

I looked over my shoulder. A line of fraternity dicks were standing on the stairs and by the hallway. I smiled at them.

“You want me to show you what’s on the computer?”

“Nope.” I walked across the room and raised the bat above my head and then brought it down full force on the laptop. Pieces of it went flying everywhere.

“What the fuck?” Henry shouted.

I smashed the computer and the external hard drive next to it. I hit them again and again until there was nothing but pieces of plastic everywhere. Then I picked up the camera, hefted it in my hand. “Nice little digital camera you got here, Henry.”

“You destroyed all of my files, my school work, everything.” He stared at the carnage.

Then I threw the camera into the wall, where it broke into five or six pieces. I picked up the biggest chunk and put it on the ground. Then I hit that piece with the baseball bat and it shattered.

The room looked like it had been hit by a tornado.

“I think we’re done here,” I said. “Come on, ladies.” I turned around and leaned into Henry’s ear. “Oh, and if I hear one bad thing about you again from anyone…I’m going to come back with some friends who are even crazier than I am, and I will break your fucking kneecaps. Okay, Henry?”

“Yeah.” He didn’t look at me.

We walked along the hallway and down the stairs, brushing past the other fraternity brothers. I looked at each of them in turn as we passed, daring someone to take a shot at me or do anything.

Nobody did.

Finally, we were outside again and I tossed the bat on the lawn and kept going.

We made our way down the street.

“What if they call the cops and tell them what you did?” Lindsay said.

“They’re not going to. Because they’re guilty assholes.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.” I turned to Rachel. “Are you okay?” I asked her.

She nodded, a little uncertain. “I’ve just never seen anything like that. It was so…violent.”

“Sometimes that’s the only thing people understand. Now don’t you ever let some guy make you scared again, Rachel. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise.”

The three of us kept going until we were back at the residence hall. “Are you coming back inside?” Lindsay asked.

“I’m tired,” I said, and it was true. All the adrenaline was gone and I was back to being exhausted. The fact that I hadn’t been sleeping wasn’t helping matters.

“You can sleep here tonight,” Lindsay said. She looked at me and I looked back at her.

Of course I wanted to. But then I thought about everything that had gone on between us the last couple of days. I remembered the way she’d just kicked me out of her life and only called me because she needed something.

I didn’t blame her. I just knew that something had changed for me.

“I don’t think I should do that,” I told her. “I think I’m going to go home.”

“Okay.” She blinked a few times, looked away. “Well, thanks so much for helping us. I can’t ever repay you for that.”

“It’s fine. I enjoyed it. In fact, I’d have paid you to let me do it if I’d known how much fun it was going to be.” I put my hand out and stroked her hair, wanting to remember how it felt. “Take care of yourself, Lindsay,” I told her.

I told myself to take a mental snapshot of how she looked at just that moment, to keep it in my mind. Because I intended for this to be the last time I’d see her.

END OF BOOK 5

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