Freak (Hillcrest University #2) Read online

  Freak

  Hillcrest University: Book 2

  Candace Wondrak

  © 2019 Candace Wondrak

  All Rights Reserved.

  Book cover by Victoria Schaefer at Eve’s Garden of Eden – A Cover Group

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Books by Candace Wondrak are only available at Amazon. If you are reading elsewhere, please note it is an illegal, pirated copy, uploaded without my permission. I, the author, nor the distributor received payment for the copy, and if prosecuted violation comes with a fine of up to $250,000. Please do not pirate books.

  Chapter One – Ash

  Chapter Two – Ash

  Chapter Three – Travis

  Chapter Four – Ash

  Chapter Five – Declan

  Chapter Six – Ash

  Chapter Seven – Ash

  Chapter Eight – Sawyer

  Chapter Nine – Ash

  Chapter Ten – Travis

  Chapter Eleven – Ash

  Chapter Twelve – Will

  Chapter Thirteen – Ash

  Chapter Fourteen – Travis

  Chapter Fifteen – Ash

  Chapter Sixteen – Ash

  Chapter Seventeen – Sawyer

  Chapter Eighteen – Ash

  Chapter Nineteen – Declan

  Chapter Twenty – Ash

  Chapter Twenty-One – Ash

  Chapter Twenty-Two – Ash

  Chapter Twenty-Three – Will

  Chapter Twenty-Four – Ash

  Chapter Twenty-Five – Ash

  Chapter Twenty-Six – Ash

  Chapter One – Ash

  It wasn’t the first time I’d seen blood.

  I mean, being a girl, we kind of see blood on a monthly basis if you know what I mean—but I don’t mean that kind of blood. I mean the kind that came straight from veins. The kind that was so smooth and bright you couldn’t help but stare at it and wonder: is that inside me, too? The kind that was still warm, a certain type of blood loss I still blamed myself for.

  But it was the first time I’d seen Declan Briggs’s blood.

  Declan. My sweet, sometimes bipolar, caring roommate. Declan, the guy who lost his girlfriend to a hanging rope just under a year ago…or did he? Now that I had Sabrina Salvatore’s journal, now that I’d flipped through her diary at a ridiculously fast pace, I knew enough, and add that to everything I’d learned so far about the situation?

  Sabrina and Declan were broken up at the time, which no one knew but Sawyer and Travis.

  Travis.

  Everything came down to the sexy, tattooed, crazy Travis.

  I’d missed all the signs. I was too star struck at his presence. It was stupid, because I knew from the first moment he was my kind of trouble—I’d just thought I’d left that part of my past behind me. I didn’t want a repeat of high school. What happened then…it still gave me nightmares.

  Sabrina and Travis had a history, and Declan found out. From what the last journal entry said, he wanted her to figure it out, but he would wait for her. He loved her still, even after she’d been unfaithful.

  I would say I was jealous, that I wanted someone to love me like that, but I had someone like that already, and it didn’t turn out well.

  I sat on the floor in the bathroom, the sterile white light too bright over my head. I stared at Declan’s motionless body, his neck bent near the base of the toilet, his skin paler than usual. His brown hair looked greasy, small breaths escaping him every so often. Still alive, but he wouldn’t be for long. His right arm held a gash, my shirt tied tightly around his upper forearm, a makeshift tourniquet.

  The blood had stopped oozing freely, so I hoped I did it right.

  I was in nothing but my bra and shorts, holding Declan’s phone in my uninjured hand. My other hand should hurt—I knew it should, because it wasn’t every day I dislocated my thumb to escape from chains—but it didn’t, probably because I couldn’t stop staring at Declan. At his body.

  Would he survive until the ambulance got here? Would he make it to the hospital? The 911 operator had asked me to stay on the phone, but I’d hung up right after giving her the address, not knowing what else to say.

  What else was there? The only thing that mattered right now was getting Declan to the hospital, getting him help…saving his life.

  I was supposed to keep an eye on him. The dean of Hillcrest himself had come to me and asked me to look out for him, to watch him, and I’d been too lost in my own issues with Sawyer and Travis to do it.

  I failed him. If Declan died tonight, it would be my fault. I would spend the rest of my life blaming myself for what happened here.

  “I’ll be right back,” I told him, slowly getting up. Or trying to. I might’ve slipped a bit on the blood as I stumbled out of the bathroom, holding both his phone and my injured hand to my stomach. I needed a shirt. Any shirt. Just to cover up.

  I set his phone down on my desk as I went into my dresser, ignoring the agony deep inside me as I grabbed the first shirt I saw. A plain, holey shirt that had seen better days, but it was one of my favorites, a light grey color. As I closed the dresser drawer and returned to the bathroom, I couldn’t help but wonder about all of this.

  Was it connected? Was this my fault? Had Travis returned to his dorm room, found me gone, and decided to come after me, finding only Declan instead? I knew I couldn’t put anything past Travis; he was the type of crazy who didn’t believe they were crazy. The kind of insane you heard about on the news: cold, calculating, and charming.

  Shit.

  If this was my fault, really my fault, if this was all some plan to get me alone…what was I supposed to do? Tell the cops? Tell Dean Briggs? Would they believe me? After all, I might’ve been the only female student in Hillcrest, but I knew what money could do. I knew what wealth could cover up—turned out, a lot. Money could sweep so much under the rug, it was a miracle society was even functioning. The rich and privileged got off while the poor were thrown in jail for the smallest of offenses.

  Travis didn’t need to try to kidnap me again. He could use his family’s money. I could accuse him, and he could have a whole army of lawyers at his beck and call, ready to leap into action and protect his and his family’s name.

  In other words, I was fucked, and not in the good way.

  I moved back to the bathroom, sitting on the edge of the tub, needing to be near Declan. Both Declan and Travis had lost Sabrina, though with her last diary entry, I knew enough now to know Travis was hiding even more from everyone else.

  Sabrina had been scared of him. I couldn’t blame her, because now I was a bit scared, too.

  Another part of me wasn’t, though, which was downright stupid. The part that wasn’t scared of him was accepting. I thought I could run from my past? Life only laughed at me, throwing someone even worse at me to see how I could handle it.

  I would handle it the best I could, but tonight was about Declan and making sure he didn’t die. If he died…I would never forgive myself.

  I closed my eyes, willing this to be some kind of sick, twisted dream, but a hard knock on the dorm door alerted me to someone else’s presence. I didn’t think it was the ambulance, for it hadn’t been enough time. My stomach sank into my gut as I got up, cradling my sagging thumb to my chest as I peered out of the bathroom.

  Didn’t know why I did that, because the door was closed.

  I wanted to smack myself as I tiptoed over to the peephole, peering out to see who it was. I fumbled a
s I adjusted my shirt, making sure all the important bits were covered. If my stomach was in my gut before? When I saw who stood in the hallway, looking as fresh and as handsome as ever, it fucking dropped to the floor.

  Travis.

  His tattooed hands were stuck in his pockets, meaning he could have something in them. Something to hurt me with, some drug to try and force down my system, knock me out so he could take me again and chain me up better this time—or, hell, maybe I’d pissed him off so much he simply would try to kill me.

  As fucking if I’d let him into this room. Not with my one hand useless. Not with Declan passed out from blood loss in the bathroom. Not when I highly suspected him of Sabrina’s murder.

  Yes, murder.

  The last words in her diary had said: I think he might try to hurt me. Those were not words one used willy-nilly. Those were words one used when they were scared for their life. Sabrina had known something was off with Travis, but she’d figured it out too late. Me, on the other hand? I’d known it from the first moment we’d met…and yet I hadn’t run away. I talked to him, laughed with him, let him catch me in his web.

  Never again. Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, it was on me. Fool me three times? I must have some kind of death wish.

  I studied Travis’s clothes the best I could through the peephole. His black hair was almost blue in the hallway light, slicked to the side. He wore a short-sleeved shirt, so the dragon crawling up his left arm was visible. A thick, black tribal design sat on his other arm. His sapphire eyes were narrowed and focused, and his mouth was drawn into a line on his square jaw.

  My breath caught in the back of my throat. Even after what he did, my body still reacted to his. My heart still sped up like the traitor it was. Why did I have to find him so attractive? Why did I have to have those urges to touch him?

  Why the fuck did I want to unlock the door and let him in?

  “I know you’re in there, Ash,” Travis spoke, his low, rough voice sending a chill down my spine. He said nothing else as he moved closer to the door, resting a flat palm against it. His hand was clean, free of blood, as were his clothes, but I knew being blood-free did not take him off my suspect list.

  Declan might’ve been depressed, but I knew he didn’t do this to himself. Just like Sabrina, someone had tried to make it out like he’d cut himself, hurt himself on purpose. This night would not end in a ruled suicide. This, I knew without a doubt, was attempted murder.

  “It’s okay,” Travis whispered, a small crease forming between his dark brows. “We have all the time in the world. I’m not letting you go.”

  I closed my eyes at his words, a sense of deja vu creeping over me. They never, ever wanted to let me go. I drew the crazies like pigs drew the flies in the hot summer months.

  My uninjured hand curled into a fist, and I mustered up the courage to speak through the door, “If you don’t leave right now, I’m going to call the police.” A pause before I added, “I’ll tell them everything, Travis. Everything, including what happened with Sabrina.” I added that last part in, knowing he had to have some clue about what I took from his dorm.

  Travis was smart. He would’ve seen his messed-up drawers and double checked everything was still there. And everything was, except for Sabrina’s pink journal. He wouldn’t be getting that back.

  Killers didn’t deserve trophies.

  At the mention of Sabrina, Travis pushed himself away from the door, staring at the peephole. It was as if he could see me, as if there was no door between us. No barrier. It was like he could stare directly into my soul, and he wasn’t afraid of the blackness dwelling within.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Travis spoke evenly.

  I chose not to address what he said, instead asking, “Do you think I’m bluffing? I might have one fucked up hand, but the other is quite capable of calling 911.” Again. I didn’t tell him that part because I didn’t want him to know I’d made it here in time.

  If Travis came here while I was sitting at McDonald’s reading Sabrina’s journal…I’d hate myself for half a dozen more reasons than I already did.

  Travis only nodded, sticking his hand back in his pocket. “Alright,” he relented. “I’ll be seeing you around, Ash.” And then he walked away, as if nothing was wrong. As if he hadn’t just tried to kidnap me, chain me to the floor in his dorm room as some kind of messed-up punishment for my date with Sawyer.

  As if he didn’t try to kill Declan.

  But he had to have, because if it wasn’t Travis, who could’ve done this? Who could’ve killed Sabrina?

  Whatever. Tonight was not the night to spend worrying about what happened or what didn’t happen. Tonight was simply a try-to-survive kind of night. A 'make it out alive and live to tell the tale' kind of night.

  Once Travis was gone and I stared at nothing but the empty hallway through the peephole, I returned to the bathroom, checking Declan’s pulse, his breathing. His chest rose and fell with slow, soft breaths. He didn’t look good, but he was still alive. My tourniquet was doing all it could to staunch the blood flow and keep him alive.

  “It’s going to be okay,” I told him, knowing he couldn’t hear me. I wasn’t one of those believers that the unconscious and comatose could hear all we said. I wasn’t a fan of sappy. But here, now? I wanted him to hear me; I wanted Declan to know he wasn’t alone in this. I would stay by his side, even when the hospital staff tried to drag me away and into my own room because of my dislocated thumb. “You’re going to make it, and then we’re going to make Travis pay for what he did.”

  A promise to Declan. These guys thought they could get the whole campus to bully Declan? Fuck that. Together, Declan and I would turn the tables. If Travis thought he’d ever catch me off-guard again, he couldn’t have been more wrong.

  Next time, I’d be ready. Next time, I’d have my own trap set up.

  These rich boys had no idea who they were messing with. Ashley Bonds from the city, poor girl, charity case. What none of them knew was that I had seen a lot, done a lot, and even staring death itself in the face didn’t scare me anymore.

  If Declan didn’t make it out of tonight alive…then I’d make sure to make Travis pay.

  He wouldn’t get away with this. Karma was a bitch, and I would gladly put on her mask and be her instrument.

  Chapter Two – Ash

  Minutes passed, though the minutes felt more like hours. The ambulance took its sweet old time getting here, that’s for sure. There was another knock on the door, and I practically leaped off the tub’s edge to answer it, wholly expecting it was the medics, the team ready to sweep Declan off his feet and save his life.

  But it wasn’t.

  My heart nearly stopped when I opened the door to a stranger. Not Travis, at least, but another stranger entirely—and I’d had my fill of strangers for a while. Tonight wasn’t about meeting new people; it was about saving the one guy in my life who didn’t deserve to go out like this.

  The man standing in the hallway was a few years older than me, taller than me by maybe eight inches. Short brown hair, combed to the side. Muscles on a body that looked pretty tan and eyes that were a beautiful, clear hazel, the kind of eyes you could easily get lost in. An attractive guy, for sure, but I wasn’t in the mood for a boyfriend, or even any flirting at the moment.

  “Sorry,” I said, “we’re busy.” And then I sought to close the door, not wanting to say anything else to the man, but he pushed his way inside, walking right past me as if he owned the place.

  “Where is he?” the man asked. He spotted the open bathroom door, rushing to it. He let out a swearword when he saw Declan crumpled on the floor, and he knelt beside him in the blood.

  I had no idea who this guy was or why he was here, acting so concerned, but I’d never seen him before in my life. “What are you doing?” I asked in horror, watching as he picked Declan’s motionless body up, a bit awkward seeing as how they were both two guys and neither one was particularly sma
ll.

  The man answered me, barely tossing a look my way, “I saw an ambulance heading down the street. I assume it’s coming here?” He paused, half in the dorm room, half in the hall.

  I nodded dumbly, watching as he started to hurry down the hall, taking Declan with him. I trailed after him, locking our door before going, doing my best to hide my injury. I didn’t know who this guy was, but it was hard to say no to him, mostly because he barged in and did whatever the hell he wanted.

  Who was he?

  Since most of the students had gone home for the long weekend, ninety-nine percent of the doors we passed as we headed to the elevator were shut. Once we got on, I hit the ground floor button, and the doors slid closed silently.

  The man holding Declan glanced at me. The expression he wore…it was one I vaguely recognized, but I couldn’t place it. Almost like I’d seen him before, but not really. A face like his, I would recognize. A face like that, I’d definitely know. “You don’t have to come,” he said.

  “I’m coming,” I told him with a glare.

  We said nothing else as the elevator took us down to the ground level, and when we walked past the front desk, the student working at it froze, watching us walk out, all three of us bloody and one of us unconscious. By the time we made it to the turnaround, the ambulance was there, and the medics were in the back of it, unloading the stretcher.

  “He’s here,” the man carrying Declan said, and one of the medics, a middle-aged woman looking pretty tired, gestured for him to place Declan on the gurney.

  As the other medics went to strap Declan in and check his injury, the woman asked, “And you’re the one who called?”

  The man was about to answer, but I cut in, “No, I did. I’m his roommate.”

  “And you?” The medic pointed to the man.

  “I’m his brother,” he said. “I just got here.”

  I didn’t hear the next things either one of them said, mostly because I was stuck on the brother part. Declan never told me he had a brother; then again, it wasn’t like I ever asked. I just assumed he was an only child. But it would explain why the man’s face was both familiar and different, why his expression was like one I’d seen before. I’d seen it on Declan’s face, only his was a few years older, more weathered, more stubbly. Good looks obviously ran in the family.