Embracing Trouble (Trouble Series) (12 page)

The car slowed down and I opened my eyes to see we were pulling into Noah’s driveway. I was about to angrily tell him that I wanted to go home, but then knew my place was empty. It was the last place I wanted to be.

“What’s going on, Ava?” he growled quietly beside me as he parked and turned the engine off.

I shook my head and then burst into fresh tears. He swore and got out of the car, opening my door for me. I climbed out by myself. I followed him up the steps in silence and walked through the door. The unit was in disarray as I walked in, with beer bottles everywhere and the place thick with cigarette smoke.

“Beautiful Ava,” greeted Will from the couch and then paused as his eyes zeroed in on me.

Noah turned and looked at me in surprise.

“What the fuck?”

Zac glared at them both and then led me over to the kitchen. I watched him get me a glass of water and then turned to see Will and Noah still staring at me. Hurt lodged in my throat, and it made me want to choke.

I took the glass from Zac, and then he suddenly grabbed me, making me spill the water.

“Who the fuck bruised you?” he gasped staring at my wrists.

“Don’t,” I said, turning away from him and putting the glass down on the bench.

“They’re around her neck, too,” said Noah, standing up.

“What the fuck?” said Will, getting up as well.

I wanted to leave before my legs collapsed and I became a screaming sobbing mess. I quickly moved away from three sets of piercing angry eyes and I ran to the door. Two arms grabbed me from behind and stopped me from reaching it. I tried to fight him off, struggling against him.

“Calm down, Ava,” said Zac soothingly into my ear. “Stop.”

I gave up the struggle. Then I went limp in his arms and cried my heart out.

Zac

I held on to her tightly as her head dropped and she gave up her struggle. She would have dropped to the floor if I hadn’t been holding on to her. I carefully turned her in my arms, just trying to calm her down. She hid her face into my chest and sobbed, big body racking sobs. I didn’t know what the fuck to do.

“Jesus,” I breathed, holding her tightly against me.

To see her like this sent chills through me. I didn’t know whether to soothe her first or punch somebody.

I picked her up in my arms and carried her over to the couch. I sat down with her on my lap as she sobbed into my shoulder. Noah and Will looked worried as shit and sat down, too. We waited for her to calm down, so we could go and kick someone’s ass.

“Was it Tyler?” asked Noah.

“No,” she muffled into my now wet T-shirt.

“Ava,” I said as calmly as I could, smoothing her hair from her face and neck. “I need to know what happened, so I know who to kill.”

“I can’t tell you,” she said with a shuddering breath. “If anyone finds out, he’s going to send a fake sex video of me to everyone.”

I took a sharp intake of breath and exchanged glances with Noah and Will.

“I can stop that from happening. Just tell me what happened.”

She covered her face, and through her sobs, she said, “He was so strong and I couldn’t escape.”

Anger snapped inside me and I clenched my fists, trying to calm the roaring fire in me.

“Who?” I growled.

She wiped at her tears, and said softly, “Antony.”

Noah swore and Will stood up angrily from the couch. I gritted my teeth together, needing to know everything before I went and truly killed him.

“He has been so angry with me over those weekend texts, and…he…has been…bothering me at school…but I didn’t think he would go to this length.”

“Fuck,” I growled, clenching my jaw.

My worst fucking nightmare had happened to the one perfect thing in my life. I had pushed her away and now this had happened.

“He threatened me at school,” she shuddered, “and then tonight, he locked me in the bathroom upstairs, and tried to…he tried to…”

She tried to swallow and hold back the tears, but then she shook her head, determined to tell me more.

“No one could hear me scream up there, and he hurt me,” she cried, covering her face.

Will paced the living room.

“Did he actually…?”

“No, he was about to, but he was interrupted by Tyler knocking on the door,” she said sniffing. “He had my jeans down and covered my mouth. I couldn’t breathe or scream, and he was so strong. After Tyler saw me, Antony made out to him that I willingly had…sex with him.”

I felt the anger flood through my veins, and the storm of rage in my gut and my vision blurred. Familiar pain hit me in the chest, and I had to do something right now, or I would explode.

I moved Ava onto the couch beside me and then got up, starting to pace. My fists were clenched. Pain cracked behind my eyes, like it was splitting my head in two. The fury made me shake.

“We’ll take care of him,” said Will, eyeing me.

“You can’t do anything to him, because he will send the video to everyone and make out that it was me,” she pleaded.

“Where’s the video?” asked Noah.

She passed her phone to him and he played the video.

“He’s titled it, ‘Ava – the pity fuck,’” muttered Noah.

“He said his original texts to me were just out of pity,” she said quietly. “And I’m a cock tease.”

She looked over to me, where I was now standing stock still. I was trying to figure out my plan of attack. My mind raced a million miles an hour. This was all my fault. Everything that had happened was because of what I had done. Fury at myself burned my eyes, and I closed them to get a handle on myself.

Noah leaned over in concern, inspecting her neck.

“So he held you by the neck?”

She nodded.

“And then the wrists. I tried so hard to fight back, but it wasn’t until we were interrupted, and I kneed him in the balls.”

“Good,” said Noah.

“This is my fault,” I snarled. “I need to go and kill him now.”

“I’m coming,” said Will.

“Wait,” said Noah. “Think about it first.”

“I need to punch something, Noah,” I grated out. “I need it to be Antony.”

“I know,” said Noah, calmly. “But think about it. His father is a lawyer. You’ve got a record. You’ll be in jail before you know it.”

“He tried to rape Ava,” I howled. “You think I’m going to let that slide? Look at the fucking bruises on her!”

“We can plan something. Something that will ruin him and hurt him more than you bashing the shit out of him tonight,” said Noah, standing up.

“I plan to do both,” I scowled.

Her phone beeped. It then beeped again. And again.

Noah grabbed it from the coffee table.

“What does it say?” she asked.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said looking at me..

I knew there would be messages and hurtful comments. If I didn’t do something soon, there would be a social media shit storm.

“Show me,” she pleaded, trying to take her phone from his hand.

She started to read them and gasped at the messages from supposed friends and a lot of unknown numbers.

Slut

Whore

Bitch

And the messages continued.

There was one from her friend, Sophie:
I can’t believe you would do this to me. I trusted you. He was mine. I hate you. Bitch.

I took the phone from her hand and put it in my pocket, flicking the mute button.

“He’s going to ruin my life,” she moaned.

I headed to my room.

“I’ll ruin his first,” I muttered darkly.

I grabbed my laptop and headed back over to the coffee table. I looked at the screen in steely determination. Then I looked at Ava who was watching me.

“I promise, I will fix this.”

She bit her trembling lip and gave a slight nod. I don’t think she believed me, but she didn’t know what I did for a living.

“I’ll make it all disappear.”

“How?” she whispered in despair.

“Trust me. I’ll ruin him, and then after I’ve done that, I’ll hurt him so badly, he will never breathe near you again.”

She swallowed.

“I need that photo of the fucker in his jocks,” I said starting to type.

I was getting my head right for the shit storm I was about to unleash.

“What are you going to do with that?” asked Noah.

“Set up a website with his phone number telling everyone to call him for anal,” I said

concentrating on the running scripts on the screen.

Will laughed, and said, “Love it!”

“Put him on the Sex Offender’s List,” said Noah.

“Empty the fucker’s bank accounts,” said Will.

“Immobilize the engine on his merc,” grinned Noah.

As my fingers flew over the keyboard, I glanced over and saw Ava curling up on the couch. She looked exhausted and pale. Her bruises looked worse against the paleness of her skin. I would take care of this shit, and I would take care of her. I would make it all right again.

I started with the website. Next up was hacking into Antony’s Facebook account. I deleted his photo albums, put messages all over his wall, and defaced his profile. I searched for any links to Ava. People were already talking about tonight’s party on Tyler’s party page. Some had put up photos of her. One had drawn devil horns on her. I deleted it all. Some girls had messaged Ava on her wall and were calling her names. I deleted them, too. No one would taunt her online ever again.

“She’s exhausted,” murmured Noah.

I looked at her and saw that she had fallen asleep. I stopped typing for a moment.

“He must have been pretty rough for it to bruise so quickly,” said Will, touching her bruised wrists.

“I’ll get her a blanket,” said Noah.

I stood up and gently lifted her in my arms.

“I’ll put her in my bed.”

I carried her into my room and put her down on the bed, pausing just to take her in. She stirred up every emotion I tried to suppress. There was something very comforting about seeing her asleep on my bed.

I looked at the bruises again and bristled. I wanted to kill him. I wanted to go right now, find him, and seriously hurt him. Now I would do whatever I needed to do, to make him pay.

I leaned over and pulled her shoes off. I tucked her legs in and pulled the comforter over her. I went back out to the living room to get my laptop. Will was by the front door with a knife.

“Where are you going?”

“Outside, to do a little twilight slashing to all four tires of his car.”

“Nice one,” I said. “Try and scratch it deeply on every panel while you’re at it.”

Will grinned and left the unit quietly.

I went back into my room and closed the door quietly behind me while I kicked off my shoes. I sat down next to a sleeping Ava and then leaned against the headboard, my laptop on my chest.

I blocked Antony from her Friend list. Then I hacked into her phone and deleted all the texts. I deleted everything that was still there, even though she might have thought she had deleted them. Everything was wiped clean.

The sun was just coming up as I started on the next task of hacking into Antony’s phone and then his hard drive. I was going to delete everything referencing Ava. I was determined to get rid of the video for good. Once I found the original video, I looked at it frame by frame. I zeroed in on the girl on the bed. It was her friend, Sophie. I contemplated if she had even known that he had been filming her at the time.

Interesting.

I looked through the other collections of videos that he had made. Not surprising, Antony had been a busy boy. This was just the beginning. I would eventually ruin him.

Chapter Seven: A Big Ball of Mess Inside

Ava

I awoke and took a moment to adjust to my surroundings—Zac’s room. Last night came flooding back to me and I sat up in bed looking for him. I had no idea of the time, but there was sun shining in through the window. So, I guessed I had slept through the morning. Zac’s laptop was on the bed with a program running on it with continuous code flickering on the screen. There were two Red Bull cans on the bedside table, and I considered whether he had even gone to sleep last night. I heard water running and realized he must be in the shower.

I curled back up in his bed and put his comforter over me, not wanting to leave the bed and face the day. It was the only place where I felt safe. I remembered Antony’s face last night, looming towards me with a determination that scared me. I speculated what would happen at school tomorrow, and if I’d be able to survive the gossip and hatred.

I looked at my wrist to see the redness replaced with bruising. Then I touched my sore, aching neck. I remembered the salty taste of his hand against my mouth, and it made me grimace. How dare he violate me like that? I hated him.

I thought of Sophie and our now non-existent friendship. A month ago, I never would have thought that someone like Antony could ever come between us. He blindsided her, and she automatically took his side. Unbelievable! Maybe he had done this to other girls and that’s what kept them quiet.

I put my face into the pillow and suddenly wanted my life to go back to the way it was before. I was in Zac’s bed, but for all the wrong reasons. I liked that he was helping me with this, but I couldn’t help worry that it would push him further away.

He didn’t need all my dramas. No one did. I was so alone that it hurt my chest to breathe. If Zac hadn’t found me last night, I would be at home right now, all alone.

I missed my mother, wherever the hell she was right now. I missed having a confidante like a mother should be, sharing my life and directing me in the right way. I missed her and resented her for leaving me.

The shower was turned off, and I listened for the door to open. I didn’t move, knowing I would look like hell. I wanted to take my clothes off and get rid of them. I wanted to get rid of the memory of Antony, and I needed to shower. I didn’t know how much longer I’d be welcome here, but going home was the last thing I wanted to do right now. I hated the thought of being alone there, knowing that Antony knew where I lived.