Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 107561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 430(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 430(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
I can barely keep my eyes open. “I don’t understand…”
“Yeah, that’s pretty obvious. But don’t worry. You’ll be out cold during our party, so we won’t disturb you.” He laughs when I try and fail to speak. “You were right about one thing, though. You made a pig of yourself. I didn’t think you’d eat the whole container, or I wouldn’t have put so much in your food.”
So much of what? I can’t ask, my tongue thick and useless. What did they give me? Why did I trust them?
Colt reappears, followed by a handful of guys I vaguely recognize from school. They were on the football team, weren’t they? And they’re carrying cases of beer and paper bags full of bottles that jangle together. “You’re not going to get in the way tonight,” Colt says as his friends spread out around the kitchen.
All I can do is close my eyes and give up, letting the darkness overtake me. It’s not like I have a choice.
CHAPTER 21
Oh my god.
I’m afraid to move. I don’t want to open my eyes. I don’t even want to turn my head from one side to the other on my pillow.
I’m pretty sure I got run over by a truck at some point. There’s no other explanation I can come up with for how absolutely awful I feel. I should go back to sleep—I must have picked up something, a bug, maybe. That would explain why it feels like I’m dying right now. Even trying to roll over in bed makes my stomach churn, and my head threatens to explode.
What the hell happened last night? I feel like something did, something I should remember, but I can’t come up with anything. Not that I’m trying too hard to think. Concentrating is too much work. Everything is too much work. Maybe I really am sick. Or maybe there was something wrong with my food.
Shit. My food.
Now I understand everything, and it doesn’t do much to make me feel better. No, I feel even worse because I realize now that I was unconscious during a party full of football players.
And my stepbrothers, who I highly doubt would stop anybody from doing anything awful to me.
With my eyes closed, I run a hand over myself under the blanket. I’m fully dressed, thank god. It doesn’t mean they couldn’t have put my clothes back on me, but it does seem like a lot of trouble. And besides, I’m starting to understand how these two think. They’d much rather I wake up naked, asking a hundred questions, ready to die of shame.
What was it they were saying to me before I passed out? How they wanted to keep me out of the way? I think that’s what Colt said—and maybe that’s all it was. They wanted me drugged, unconscious, unable to ruin their good time or to tell anybody else about it after the fact, which is probably more along the lines of what they were actually concerned about. I doubt they’re allowed to have parties here when their father is out of town. Maybe he told them not to. They probably figured I would rat them out. As if I get a flying fuck about what they do as long as it doens’t involve me.
Fuck. What if this did involve me?
Before I know it, my mind is conjuring up the worst possible scenario. Did Colt and Nix do something else to me? Or did they let their friends do something to me? Like I wasn’t already nauseous enough just from being conscious. Maybe they only like recording terrible things they do to people, not the things they let their friends do. I can hope, anyway. If there’s a video out there somewhere of me having stuff done to me while I’m unconscious, I don’t think I could live through it. I really don’t.
But everything feels okay down there, too. I’m not sore the way I was the day after Colt took advantage of me.
The rest of me seems to be in good shape. Aside from my head feeling like it will fall off and roll across the floor if I try to get up, plus my shaky stomach. But the rest of me seems fine. I should probably try to go back to sleep.
I might be able to if it wasn’t for the nagging sense that I’m forgetting something, overlooking something. I can’t imagine what it could be.
Whatever it is, it’s enough to keep me from settling back into sleep. Instead, I pry one eye open just far enough to find a bottle of ibuprofen and a glass of water on my nightstand. It looks like one of them felt guilty enough that they left me something to help me get through the worst of it. I reach out and struggle my way through opening the bottle with my eyes closed, then shake out a couple of tablets before washing them down with the tiniest bit of water. I don’t trust my stomach enough to drink more than that.