Red Hot Obsessions (38 page)

Chapter 23
Unforeseen Casualty

Every bone in my body screams. I need to get to her. Now.

I almost want to run out naked, but Hunter holds me steady. “Put something on first,” he says.

“It’s Evie!” I yell.

“I know. I heard it too.” He turns off the shower, while I’m already grabbing the towels.

“I have to go to her!” I throw the towel to Hunter and start rubbing my own skin fairly hard, trying to get dry as fast as possible. “I’ve never heard her scream like that. Something’s wrong.”

I barely have my robe on before I run out the door looking for her. “Evie?” I shout her name, but she doesn’t respond. I look around the hallway and the notice the faint sound of her whimpers. She’s in the bathroom.

My breath hitches as I run down the hallway. Rushing to her, I pull open the door and call her name again. She stops crying for a second.

“Autumn?”

When I hear her voice, I let out a sigh of relief. At least I know she can still talk. “What happened?”

Squatting, I check each of the stalls until I find her feet, and then lean up against the door. She doesn’t say anything. She’s completely quiet, and it makes me scared.

“Evie? Open the door,” I say.

It’s silent for a few seconds, but then I hear her fiddle the door and I scramble back when she opens it. Tears are rolling down her cheeks. Toilet paper is crushed between her fingers, and her face is red all over. She looks miserable.

“What’s wrong?” I say, coming closer.

She blows her nose and throws the paper in the toilet. Something really, really bad has happened.

She almost never cries.

“C’mon, you can tell me,” I say softly.

Trembling, she lifts her head, her eyes watery and horrified. It looks like she’s seen a ghost. Or something worse.

I’m not even sure I still want to know.

But I have to be there for her. She looks terrible, and I know there’s something wrong. I have to brace myself for it.

I put my hands on her knees and caress the caps, trying to soothe her.

“I-It’s S-Scarlet …” she says, catching her breath. She’s having trouble breathing because of all the crying.

“S-she’s …. Oh God.” Her voice sounds croaky.

“What?” I say, grabbing her hands.

“I have to puke.”

She turns around, pulls the seat up and throws up right away. I turn to grab a few pieces of toilet paper so she can wipe her face. She sighs, barely able to keep breathing. I seriously start to wonder what happened.

“Please tell me what’s wrong, I’m worried about you,” I say, patting her back to calm her down.

“S-Scarlet. H-her room. D-dead.”

My heart stops. My breath is caught in my throat. All light disappears in front of my eyes. I can’t speak.

I just stammer. “W-what? What are you saying? Dead?”

Her eyes scream out in agony as she sinks to the floor, bawling her eyes out above the toilet she just puked in.

“G-go look,” she stutters.

I turn my head toward the door. Hunter’s standing there in his sweatpants. His eyes are big and his face is darkened. He heard it too.

I swallow back the bile rising up in my throat. It can’t be true.

No …

I run for the door, Hunter going in front of me. We both rush to Scarlet’s room. As we step inside, my blood turns frigid.

Scarlet’s lying in her bed. Her arms hang down over the bed. On the floor is a syringe. Empty. Below her face is a puddle of vomit mixed with foam still partially inside her mouth. Her eyes are dark, hollow. Life has left her long ago.

The true horror of what happened sinks in, and I collapse underneath my own weight. Sinking down to the floor, I hold onto the doorframe to feel grounded. It feels as though the world has been taken away from under my feet, and I’m falling into an endless pit.

“No …” Hunter mutters, walking closer.

He turns her body gently, inspecting her eyes, her face, her limbs. He’s careful, but I still can’t believe he actually has the courage to touch her.

Her. The body. The corpse.

She’s no longer Scarlet.

It’s just an empty shell. A nothingness.

I swallow away the rising bile, and try not to think about it, but seeing her body there, lifeless, is almost too much. It’s shocking. I can’t believe this is really happening. She’s dead.

And oh God, Evie found her.

I crawl back up.

“Where are you going?” Hunter asks me, raising his eyebrow like he’s still too busy with the examination.

“I need to be there for Evie,” I say, and I rush out the door, not realizing she’s already halfway across the hall. “What are you doing?” I say, confused, as I see her hold the wall as support while walking forward.

She doesn’t answer, but falls into my arms instead. Crying, she breaks apart. I shush her and caress her back. “It’s going to be okay.”

“No,” she whimpers.

She holds on so tight I can barely breathe. That, and I really feel like I need to throw up, too.

“Yes, it will. You have to keep it together.”

“She’s dead!” she screams. “I found her, dammit. I wasn’t sleeping here last night … I only came back this morning. I didn’t even know she was d …” Her breath gets caught in her throat. I pat her back to make her feel better, but of course I already know it won’t do any good.

I guess I’ll just ignore the fact that she just spilled that she slept at some other place last night. This is not the time and place to be asking about her relationships.

“I’m sorry …” I say, trying to concentrate on her sadness.

I don’t know what else to tell her. There’s nothing I can say that will make this all right. Scarlet’s dead. She’s never coming back.

I don’t know how I feel about it. I don’t feel like I need to cry. All I am is shocked and horrified. That’s it.

But seeing Evie like this reminds me that she had a much stronger bond with Scarlet than I previously thought. It seems as though she really lost a friend. And I feel sorry for not knowing, for not being there in her place to find out about this so she wouldn’t have had to witness it on her own.

God. How she must have felt seeing Scarlet in that state. By herself. With nobody to lean on.

“This isn’t good …” Hunter mumbles, picking up the syringe from the floor carefully so as not to touch the needle.

I’m still calming Evie down, so it’s hard to look at what he’s doing.

“Fuck …” he says.

“What?” I say.

“Drugs.” He holds up the syringe for me to see, but I’m too far away to see what it means. I don’t have to; I believe him if he says it’s so.

“She OD’ed?”

He lets out a huge breath. “Yes and no.”

“Which is it? It can’t be both,” I say.

His jaw tightens, and he purses his lips. Hunter just stares at me, then flicks his eyes at Evie, and then back at me. He doesn’t even need to speak to let me know what he’s thinking. He wants to tell me something, but he doesn’t want her to hear.

“Evie …” I mutter.

She looks up, her eyes swollen and red. I don’t want to hurt her. She shouldn’t have to watch this. She shouldn’t have been here at all. It’s all my fault. If I’d been a good friend, she would be sleeping in her own bed in our room, and she never would have witnessed this.

“You should go back to our room.”

“B-but …”

I squeeze her shoulder. “It’s better if you’re somewhere you feel safe. Make yourself a cup of tea and crawl under the blanket.”

She just gazes at me, her lips pouty. She sniffs.

I smile at her to make her feel at ease. “It’s okay. Hunter and I will take care of it.”

“W-we can’t leave her like t-this,” she stammers, and she briefly glances at Hunter.

“We’ve got it covered,” I say.

“You should rest,” Hunter says.

After a few seconds of staring her down, she gives in. Nodding, she turns around and walks to our room, still holding onto the wall. This has devastated her.

Dammit.

Hunter covers Scarlet’s body with a blanket, careful not to leave any traces of him touching the evidence, except the syringe, which he places on the cabinet beside her bed.

I check to see if Evie’s gone into the room before turning around. Holding my arms, I brace myself for the news he’s about to share.

“That wasn’t just an OD,” he says.

I just wait for the next blow to come.

“She couldn’t have gotten this drug from us. We never,
never
, sell this.”

“What is it?”

“Heroin.”

Holy shit. Heroin? That drug that turns people’s lives completely upside down, scarring them for life?

“Maybe one of your guys made a mistake,” I say.

“They’re not my guys and they didn’t make a mistake,” he hisses.

“But she wouldn’t do that, would she?”

“No. She only used the drugs as a means to escape. It was a one- or two-time thing. Nothing big. She wasn’t an addict, and trust me, I know it when I see one; she wasn’t one of them.”

My breath is getting more ragged by the second. “Was she experimenting or something?”

“I don’t know …” he says.

“Maybe it was an accident. Maybe she took too much,” I whisper.

“No, absolutely not. She’d never take too much. She told me she had too much to live for, I remember her telling me at the party when I asked her if everything was okay. I needed to check if she wasn’t taking them to … you know …”

Suicide. He doesn’t want to say the word, but I know exactly what he’s thinking.

“She knew the risks perfectly well,” he continues. “She wouldn’t do that.”

I sigh, leaning against the doorframe. I still can’t believe she’s really dead. It’s so unreal.

“Something’s wrong. This isn’t even our product.” He points at the syringe. “We only deal in powders and pills.”

He checks her body, probably to see if he can find anything else, a mark of the needle or something, I don’t know. I have no clue why he’s doing it. As if it’s going to change anything about the situation. Scarlet is dead. It was drugs. They’re dealers.

The cops will inevitably get involved. And Hunter might go to jail.

No, not might. The question is when.

“She has bruises all over her body,” he says, and I’m ripped away from my thoughts.

“I thought you said she OD’ed? Bruises don’t come with that, do they?”

“They can, but this isn’t drug related. Look at the marks,” he says, pointing at her neck.

“No thanks, I’d rather stay here if you don’t mind.”

“Nobody would shoot heroin straight into their neck. Plus, these are really weird marks. They go all the way around her neck, centering on her esophagus. And they’re on her wrists, too,” he says, holding up her arm like a doll.

God, I feel sick to my stomach.

“Stop messing with her, please,” I say, holding my hand in front of my mouth. “You’re making me want to throw up.”

“Sorry,” he says. “But that’s the least of my worries right now. This should be a concern to everyone.”

“Why?”

“Because this wasn’t accidental. She was drugged with a dose far beyond normal.”

“Are you saying …” I can’t speak. My vocal cords are clamped shut.

“Someone forced his hand on her. It killed her.”

I shake my head. No. I can’t believe this. This can’t be true.

Someone couldn’t have murdered her.

Chapter 24
With Bad Comes Good

I’m staring at the carpet, oblivious to the people passing me. My mind is astray, memories of that day repeating over and over in my head. Scarlet’s contorted face. Her limp body. The puddle of goo drizzling from her mouth. The syringe. It’s just too much to deal with.

And I feel bad for feeling only half as much as all the other people who are here. I don’t even know what to feel.

Her friends are consoling each other, crying on each other’s shoulders. One of them is staring at a photograph standing on a pretty decorated cabinet, uttering words I can’t hear from so far away. I don’t even want to hear them.

As if talking to her photograph is going to make her magically come alive. As if it makes up for what some bastard did to her.

Misery. That’s all this room is.

I never imagined the dorm lounge could turn into the perfect room for a funeral reception.

It’s morbid, really. Knowing what went on here. Parties, drugs, probably some fucking, too. This couch I’m sitting on disgusts me, but I have nowhere else to go. Evie’s not here. She couldn’t take it. She really got close to Scarlet, which I didn’t see before. All those times they were studying must’ve opened her eyes.

And now it’s too late.

Well, at least she liked the girl. I don’t really know what to do, and every second I wonder what I’m doing here. I feel guilty for not crying, but I just can’t. I don’t feel anything. Just emptiness, hollowness.

Terror.

It sucks the life out of me like a light bulb blowing up, darkening the room. Too many horrific things are happening all at once, and they’re all connected. It’s terrifying the shit out of me.

Suddenly, I feel the need to run out and never look back. But it would be silly to do that. I have to be here. Somehow it feels like an obligation, my duty.

But spending one more minute on this couch will kill me.

Where else can I go? I don’t want to stand alone, looking like a goofball. It’s too crowded, and I feel uncomfortable just looking for an empty spot.

And I certainly don’t want to stand next to Brody.

He’s been here forever. Attended the funeral and everything. Most students weren’t allowed on the premises, but he was her boyfriend, so they made an exception for him. I’m surprised they even knew.

Still, it irks me to look at him. The expression on his face has been completely blank the entire day. So bland, so emotionless. I haven’t seen him cry. Not even once. He’s just standing there in his corner, staring at the carpet just like me. It’s like he doesn’t feel anything.

Or he’s just too shocked to register it all.

When he looks at me, I turn my head, hoping he won’t come my way. I don’t want to talk to him right now. I’m still chicken-shit, sometimes. I wouldn’t know what to say to him anyway. I don’t want to be rude, but nothing I said would make her come back to life, so why bother? And it’s not like I can help him with his grief. No one can.

I look around, desperate to get out of here, but knowing I can’t. I could really use Hunter now to back me up and help me get through this day, but I haven’t seen him since yesterday. Not since it happened.

He stormed out yesterday, cursing under his breath, and told me he had to talk to Jaret. I figured it had something to do with the suspicion of murder, but to me it just sounded so far-fetched. I’m not sure I can trust his crime-investigation skills. I think we should wait for the real police investigation to be over before drawing conclusions, but Hunter just went ahead and started a whole operation himself, I think. I have no idea what he’s doing, but I know it’s nothing good. The fact alone that he immediately ran away after finding her bothers me the most.

I mean, where the hell is he? What is he doing? Why hasn’t he said anything? I’d expect at least a text message, but he couldn’t even be bothered to let me know everything was all right.

I’m getting pissed just thinking about it. What the fuck could be so important that he couldn’t wait one freaking day just to support his girlfriend during a freaking funeral reception?

I snort. Girlfriend. I let the word fly through my mind so often, and yet I’ve never even heard it come out of his mouth. Am I even his girlfriend? Everyone calls me that, except him, which is what matters the most.

God, what a time to think about these things.

I clear my throat and walk out of the room. I need to get out of here, fast.

*

Stepping into my room, I notice Evie sitting there on her bed, staring at the wall. She looks up at me before sighing and flicking her eyes back so she can continue gazing at the spot on the wall.

I place my purse on the cabinet and walk over to her. Biting my lip, I sit down next to her and reach for her hand. When I grab it, she twitches, but doesn’t pull back. She turns her head and looks at me with tears in her eyes. I smile, trying to console her.

She squeezes my hand. “Thanks.”

“I’m here for you if you need me,” I say.

“I’m okay,” she nods, wiping away the single tear rolling down her cheek. “I feel horrible.”

“Understandable, considering what happened.”

“No, not about that. I couldn’t go to the funeral. I just couldn’t, and it makes me a horrible person.”

“No, it doesn’t.” I put my other hand on top of hers too now. “Don’t say that about yourself. You guys were friends. Everyone understands.”

She snorts. “Yeah, well I sure as hell don’t. I mean, I was finally feeling better, having another friend, feeling happy about who I am, finding another girl.” She sniffs. “Not that the last part went anywhere.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ah … you know, not really into each other. It was fun, but that was it.”

“Oh …” I say. I don’t really know what else to say.

“Well anyway, don’t think you’re horrible. If anyone’s horrible around here, it’s me.”

She chuckles. “What did you do now?”

“Nothing! I just couldn’t stay at that damn funeral reception. All I could think of was what happened, Hunter and what he’s doing now, and then I saw Brody and I freaked out. Like big time.”

She laughs. “Nothing new to me. You’re always out of it.”

“Yeah, well, I’m glad I’m out of there. I’m really not good at those things.”

“Who is?” she says, and then she sighs.

It’s quiet for a few minutes, and we’re both just sighing, trying to make sense of it all.

“Thank you for helping me,” she says. “I really appreciate you sticking by me.”

She leans her head on my shoulder and puffs. “And Hunter, of course.”

I giggle. “Hunter?” I can’t believe she even mentioned him and a ‘thank you’ in the same sentence.

“Yeah, he’s a good guy.”

“Oh, is he now?” I chuckle a little.

She pokes me in the side. “Don’t laugh. I mean it. He isn’t half as bad as I thought. Especially when he defended us back at the party.”

“So are you telling me you actually like him now?”

“Maybe. I’m not saying ‘like.’ I mean, the whole drugs debacle is still irking me, but if you can deal with it, then I should be able to as well.” She looks up at me and smiles.

I smile back. I’m happy she can accept him for who he is. Or at least accept the fact that I like him and that I want to be with him. I don’t want to ruin the moment by telling her I haven’t seen him all day, and that it’s making me angry. I’d rather have this instead.

“I’m just glad he can make you happy,” she says, and she laces her fingers through mine. “I’m happy for you two.”

“Thank you,” I say, putting my arm around her and hugging her. “It means a lot that you say that.”

“I can’t breathe,” she whispers, while I squeeze her tight.

“Sorry,” I say, laughing a bit and releasing her from my grip.

“It just makes me feel so much better knowing you’re fine with Hunter and me being in a relationship.”

“Hmm, so you’re in a ‘relationship’ now?” She makes quotation marks with her fingers. At first my heart drops into my shoes. Her teasing makes me think she’s still not okay with it.

But then she bumps her shoulder against mine and says, “Good on you, girl.”

“I don’t know, I don’t even know what to call what we have. We just … After all those times we got together … it just happened.”

“Oh. My. God.” Her eyes grow big. “You had sex?”

I blush, feeling scrutinized. That, and I don’t want her to feel bad. I know how she feels about me.

“This is for real? You? Autumn Blakewood? You had sex?” she squeals. “How was it?”

Wow. I did not expect her to react the way she did. Maybe she really is over it.

“It was … nice.”

“Nice my ass. It must’ve been amazing!”

“I don’t know. I never did it before, so I have nothing to compare it with. But it was … good.” I turn red as a beet again, just thinking about what I did with Hunter. Or rather, what he did with me.

“God, I can’t believe it,” Evie says, slapping her own forehead. “I’m away for like one week, and you’ve already broken most of your nerd records.”

I gasp. “What? You’re making it sound like I’m some kind of virginal geeky holy Mary.”

“You are.”

She laughs and starts tickling me, making me squirm. She hasn’t been this perky in ages, and I’ll gladly let her make me beg for mercy while she tickles me to death. It takes us a few minutes to stop laughing and giggling.

“So … what do we do from here?” I say after a while.

“Well,” she says, stretching her arms. “You seem to have a spare bed in your room, and I don’t see anyone else’s stuff lying around, so … mind if I bunk with you again?”

“Yes! Of course you can sleep here. Actually, no, I demand you bunk here.”

She punches me in the shoulder, and I drop down onto the bed. She drops down with me, lying next to me, and puts her arm around me like she used to.

“I don’t want anything to change, though,” she says, and she lifts her head. “Is that okay? Can I still be the old me? Even after …”

“Shut up. You’re Evie. You’re always Evie. And you’re always my best friend, no matter what.”

She smiles, and I grab her hand to show her that I still care. I do. I don’t care about what happened between us. I want things to be okay. I want my best friend back.

And now I have her back. On a day that was supposed to be miserable, gloomy, and sad, I somehow managed to get Evie back on my side. I should feel bad about being happy on a day like this, but I’m not. Good things can come on bad days, and I don’t feel sorry for feeling happy.

I only wish things could stay like this forever. But I’ve learned from the past that bad things are always bound to happen, it’s only a matter of time.