Misguided Truths: Part Two (Misjudged #4) (29 page)

“You should have listened and left it alone, Brandon. You should’ve left this the hell alone. But, no. You couldn’t, could you? You had to keep going. You had to try!” his voice is short and he sounds angry. He’s scowling right at me, but it doesn’t make any sense. What
should I have left alone? “Have you really no idea what this is? I always knew you were a little on the slow side, but come on! Have you not figured anything out yet?” I rest my head against the back wall, and see the other guy leave through the door. “It’s just you and me now. Everything’s going to become a lot clearer real soon.” He sneers, and I notice that his whole demeanor’s change.

“I don’t understand …” I shake my head
, but instantly regret it. It hurts.
Everything hurts.

He moves away
, and starts to pace the floor, just as my cell phone sounds out. That’ll be her.
Shit.
I’ve gotta get this. I clench my eyes closed from the pain as I try and shift over, but a foot to the ribs pushes me back down, “Allow me,” he grips a hold of my arm, and pulls me to the side before leaning over and snatching my cell from out of my pocket. “Sweet, sweet, Alex.” He whispers, still staring at the screen while resting back on his heels, shaking his head.

“Give me my fucking phone!” I snarl. If I wasn’t able to see him then I wouldn’t recognize the guy. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” I shout, and he slowly turns to face me again, a new expression crossing over his entire face.

“Why didn’t you stay away, Brandon? I thought my warning was clear!” He’s starting to look upset now. Sad even.

“Your warning?”

“I told you to leave, and I made it pretty fucking clear what would happen if you ever went near her again!” The tone of his voice is venomous, and he spits to the ground, right by my left foot.

“It was you?” I choke out when it finally hits me. “You wrote the note? But … but, why?” I’m struggling to make any sense out of this. “But I thought it was … no. The … the note … they said they’d hurt her in the same way that they …” I feel as though my entire air supply has just been ripped away from me. All this time? All this fucking time? “… You.”

“And finally he gets it,” he throws his arms in the air, letting out harsh laughter. “Finally he under-fucking-stands!”

“It was … it was you? You hurt her? You killed Holly?” I think I’m gonna hurl. All this time and it was him? But he’s one of my best friends. “B-B-But you’re my friend. You, no. I can’t—”

“I was your friend, but you let me down. You could’ve stopped all of this from happening. I haven’t been your friend since we were back in Olympia!” His words immobilize me, my gut twists, and my chest aches.

No amount of physical pain compares to the sheer harshness of my reality. The pain I’m feeling inside reaches depths so deep, I didn’t know it was even possible to feel this way. My gaze falls to the ground because I can’t even look at the person who I loved like a brother. I saw him as my family.
I trusted him.

He’s not gonna get away with this. No fucking way. If I have to die trying, he’s gonna pay for what he did. Fuck it
. Fuck everything!
I growl through the pain as I try to stand, and this time I’m able to get on my feet because of the adrenaline that’s now coursing through me.

He’s facing the other way now, punching some keys into his cell. I stumble to the side once and then charge right at him, but he turns around before I manage to get my first strike in. He places his hands on my chest and pushes me backward, almost making me lose my balance. I try again, but this time he laughs and grabs a hold of my arm. “Arghh!” I growl from the excruciating pain, and double over, falling backward and hitting the side of my head on the brick wall when he knees me straight in the face.

“Sit down and be quiet.” He sounds bored, and I clutch the side of my head with my good hand, trying to regulate my breathing.

I watch him as he holds my
cell phone to his ear, internally vowing that this isn’t the end, “You’re at the wrong lake, beautiful.”

“Alexis!” I shout out to her, and the harshness within his laughter as he drops the phone away from his ear is sickening. We’re at the lake? Our lake? I glance around
, realizing that we must be inside the small building. We’re not in some secluded place. We’re right outside the campus.
Shit. Please don’t come here, beautiful. Please stay the fuck away.

“Now we wait for the second half of the show,” he says with amusement, and takes a seat over in the corner of the room, crossing his arms up behind his head. “You haven’t heard the best of it yet.”

He hasn’t looked at me once since the last words he spoke to me. I’m having a hard time trying to figure all of this out, and it’s still not making any sense.

“Does Rye know about all of this? Is he on it too?” He ignores my question and keeps his eyes fully focused toward the door. “What did we do, huh? Why Holly? Why Alexis? Why me? How did we deserve any of this?” I hear the chair he was sitting on scrape across the floor as he stands, and in the next moment, the room becomes a little lighter. He sits back in his seat, holding an oil lamp in his lap, his eyes dark, and his mouth twisted at the sides.

“Not. Yet.” he grinds his jaw and abruptly stands. “Or maybe sooner than I thought.” He says as he takes a peek out of the small window, and then he walks over to me, placing the lamp on a ledge just ahead. He kneels down, and when he ruffles my hair, I wince from the pain. “It’s show time!” He whispers, and then slaps me hard around the face twice before heading over to the darkest part of the room.

“Brandon?”
She … she’s here
. I cough when I try to speak. I need to warn her about what’s going on. “Brandon!” She runs straight over when she sees me, but I can’t open my mouth to find the words. I clench my eyes closed, and summon the words to come out of my mouth, but, nothing. He’s gonna hurt her, and I’m not gonna be able to stop him.

I see him slowly approaching us, his smile is wider than I’ve ever seen it before, “No, go! Get the hell outta—” I close my eyes with defeat when I hear the door close, the light fade, and I see her tu
rn around.

“It’s nice of you to finally show your face, Alex!”

“What the hell did you do to him?” she shouts, and I see her stand before charging right at him. “What did you fucking do?”

The room gets brighter when he lights another lamp, and him doing this only shows just how sadistic he really is. His face shows nothing but the evilness that’s within him, “Don’t be turning all of this around on me, Alex,” he spits out with a harsh laugh, and I see him grabbing a hold of her arm. He’s dragging her right over toward me. I wanna yell at him to let go of her, to keep his hands off of her, but I can’t. Every time I try, a stronger pain cripples me, and I’m finding it increasingly hard to focus on anything. “Let’s start with … HIM!” My eyes snap open, and I see him pointing directly at me. Me? I shake my head. There’s no way
I’m gonna let him try and poison her against me. What did I do to him? What did I ever do than be a good friend? “Always getting the girl!”

“This … this is what all of this is about?” This is about a girl? What the hell is he talking about? What girl? I try and push myself forward, but the intense pain shoots through my skull, stopping me from being able to help her get away from him. I close my eyes and try to block the pain, the mind numbing pain that’s making it impossible for me to think straight.

“But there was one girl that you didn’t manage to get, and one that I did, isn’t that right, Alex?”

“What is he talking about?” I ask, glancing between the two of them now. I don’t like the way her face fell when he said what he just said.

“Oh, don’t worry, Brandon, it wasn’t this girl. I don’t class just a kiss as getting what I want.”

She kissed him? No. No, she wo
uldn’t. She knows how serious—“What is he talking about?” I spit through my teeth, clenching my jaw tight. I see him wink at her, his smile growing as her eyes widen. Neil and Alexis kissed?

“No! No, he kissed me and I pushed him away, that’s all, I promise. Ask Za
ch! Ask him. He was there … He—”

“When?” I growl out
, and focus all of my anger right over on Neil. Nobody kisses my fucking girlfriend. Nobody gets to experience those lips. They’re mine. My chest tightens knowing that he tried. He went after my girlfriend?

He laughs
, and I see him take a step closer, kneeling down beside her and reaching over to grab a hold of her arm. She pushes him away, but he snarls before gripping her tight, and pulling her back onto her feet.

“Let’s save that for another day,” he waves his hand around nonchalantly, like this isn’t important. As though what he’s doing is completely normal.
He’s not normal. He’s deranged.
“How about we talk about Holly?”

Alexis tries
to step out of the hold he has on her, and I see a deep frown forming over her lips while a pleading look crossing into her eyes, “You leave her out of this! Don’t you think you’ve done enough already?”

“I did her alright!” H
e smirks.
What did he just say?

“You’re sick!” Alexis hisses in his face
, but she’s just playing right into his hands. This is the reaction he’s been looking for. The one he’s been craving.

He said this was about a girl. He … he’s the one who … Holly slept with Neil? No, he’s delusional. Holly was mine. She was all mine
, and she would never have betrayed me. I knew her. She worried that I’d be the one to stray, but I proved to her that I wouldn’t. I showed her., She wouldn’t have been the way she was when we first started dating if she was ever gonna cheat on me herself. Holly had morals. No. He’s lying. “You’re lying. Holly would never …” I was sure he was, but now I’m seeing the look over Alexis’ face, and watch her as she lowers her head. Now? Well, I’m not so sure what to believe anymore.

“I have proof, don’t I, Alex? You’ve read it, you’ve seen it with your own eyes!” What is he talking about? Proof—
the diary.
He’s had it all along. That’s why he—
oh God, he’s good. He’s really fucking good.

“I hate you! You’re a—”

“Enough! Let’s play a little game of chicken, shall we?”

“Alex, I challenge you to break Brandon’s heart all over again, just like he did with mine when he not only took one girl away from me, but he took you away from me
, too.”
She wasn’t his. She was mine. Why doesn’t he understand this?

“No! No fucking way! Go to hell!”
Alexis spits at him. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her like this before.
Ever.

“Fine, have it your way,”
Neil says, raising his hands up in front of him, shrugging his shoulders. “You’re loss.” He comes right at me, and I squeeze my eyes closed when he stamps on my leg. I refuse to let him hear just how much that fucking hurt. But, you wanna know something? It doesn’t hurt as much as this. Finding out that one of my best friends was responsible for all of this is the worst pain imaginable. I didn’t see this. I didn’t see him for what he really is.

“Read it, or say goodnight to Brandon and watch him fade away, just like he wa
tched Holly,” he snarls, and sits down on the ground beside me, just out of reach. Does he really think that I’m gonna be able to do anything to him? I’m having a hard enough time keeping my eyes open. “I warned you, right at the start! Right at the beginning when you first met him, Alex. I warned you and guaranteed that you’d get hurt if you ever got involved with him. Do you remember that conversation? I tried warning you both again with the flowers that were delivered for your birthday, everyone knows they’re funeral flowers, and then there was the whole ordeal of poor Brandon being beaten so badly that he ended up in a coma, and that, that still wasn’t a good enough warning for you both to keep the fuck out of it!”
It was all him.

“
And my mom?”
No. No don’t give him the satisfaction, beautiful. Don’t let him see how much this is destroying you inside.

“You take after her in so many ways, Alex, it’s sickening!”

“I despise you!” She screams at him, and I lift my head up just enough to see her wiping her tears away. I shouldn’t have brought her into any of this. I should’ve listened to my instincts. I should never have let her get close to me. I’ve ruined her life, just like he’s ruined mine.

“Read the fucking diary or I’ll do it!” He’s scowling now, and I see him reach over to her. I try to move. I need to get him away from her, but I can’t. There’s nothing I can do to stop him;
to stop any of this
. He takes something from out of her pocket. I narrow my eyes and blink a couple of times, trying to focus.
The diary. It’s here.

I take a bre
ath, and then try and clear my throat, “Do what he says Alexis, please? I promised you forever, and I swore I would never break that promise. It’s okay. Just read it, please?” I’m trying my hardest to smile, but all I wanna do is cry. I can’t let her see what he’s doing to me. We need to stay strong. We need to show him that he’s not gonna get what he wants. She drops head and opens the pink book. I have a feeling that she already knows what’s on the inside. I can see it in her eyes. Whatever’s in there is gonna break me, I can sense that it is.