Psycho: A Dark College Romance (Hillcrest University Book 4) Read online

Me and the man behind me had a tumultuous history. We dated for years, broke up a bunch of times during it, until that last time, when he’d taken me to his murder cabin and tried to get me to join him. He…he might’ve succeeded, because I was too shocked to fight him before stabbing that girl. That girl wasn’t his kill; she was mine.

  I was a killer, just like Ray. Ray and Ash, together again, a match made in hell that even heaven itself feared.

  And to think, I only met him because I chose to tag along with Kelsey to some bar out of town. Someplace where they didn’t check IDs, a place where our parents would never find us. Kelsey dragged me into a lot of trouble, and I hated to think it, but it was her fault entirely that I met Ray.

  “When I first met you in that bar, did you plan on killing me?” Another question I probably shouldn’t ask, but why stop now? Let’s see what truths I could pry from Ray while I was sane enough to ask. I didn’t think I had much sanity left, frankly.

  Ray’s chest hummed behind me, and I knew that was my answer. Yes, he debated on it. Yes, he thought about making me a victim, but instead, somehow, we ended up pressed against the hood of his car, making out and dry humping each other until Kelsey found me and said it was time for us to go. It was after midnight, past our curfew. She was too drunk to drive, so I, being the fifteen-year-old friend, the youngest one of the pair, had to white-knuckle it back to her house.

  At the time, I thought that was that. I’d made out with a stranger, a real man, and I thought about him a lot the next few days. Kelsey asked if I got his number, to which I said no, because I hadn’t. I honestly thought, at the time, I’d never see him again.

  But I did. Because he found me. Turned out, he’d followed us to Kelsey’s house, and then the next morning followed me to the apartment Mom and I rented. He stalked me until he knew everything about me, what high school I went to, my routine, when I went to bed. One day after school I saw him waiting in the corner in the parking lot, and I knew, deep within my gut, that he was there for me.

  Sweet, I’d thought. It was sweet that he’d found me. Stupid me never saw the warning signs, the flashing red lights screaming danger, danger. Stupid, idiotic me was all too happy to see him again, to make plans with him…and to eventually date him.

  A fucking idiot. It’s what I was then, and still was now. That hadn’t changed, even though I pretended, with my pink-tipped hair and my tough-as-nails attitude. I thought the feud between Sawyer and Declan would be a nice distraction for a while, and then…then things got complicated. Then feelings became real and I lost myself in them, just as I lost myself in my feelings for Ray.

  Did I still love Ray? A part of me always would, because I’d been with him for years. He was my first love, my longest love, and even though it was full of death and blood, it was hard to hate our relationship, as illegal as it was.

  “I’m glad you didn’t kill me,” I muttered. I rather liked living, even though I was currently doing a bang-up job at it.

  “I could never hurt you, Ash,” Ray whispered, his lips near my ear. “You are everything to me. Thinking of you is what got me through all this time.” A lovely sentiment. A lovely sentiment that would mean more if he wasn’t a serial killer.

  But he was. He was a serial killer, my first love, and someone I’d just slept with.

  I really hated myself right about now.

  Ray’s body moved against mine, and I could feel his dick getting hard again. Being around me again made him horny like a teenager, I guess. His hands rolled me until I was on my stomach, and I felt him pull up the slip, baring my ass to him. I wore nothing underneath it, because there wasn’t a point.

  Then again, he was the one who changed me into this.

  I turned my head aside, feeling him spread my cheeks. Round two, here we come. More self-loathing, I was on my way. He pushed inside of me with a single thrust of his hips, filling me up to the brim, and I cried out, biting back the nausea I felt growing in my gut.

  This was how I imagined Travis to fuck. Hard and fast, his body pinning me down and stopping me from going anywhere, not like I would. The sexy, smoking, tattooed Travis was probably a danger to himself and others when he was fucking. It was something I’d never know, now.

  This time, as he fucked me, I stared at my hands, at the bandages on them. They probably hurt, but in all honesty, I couldn’t feel the pain. The only thing I felt was his cock balls-deep inside of me, and the hatred I felt towards myself for letting it get to this point. I was a shitty person, a terrible friend, and this…

  This was what I deserved. Being happy, finding a special type of love with any of the guys, it was never up for grabs. I was always out of the running. This was where I belonged, with fucking Ray, in the blood and the dirt and the horror.

  This was it for me.

  Chapter Four – Sawyer

  Holy fucking shit. My head hurt like a motherfucker, and my eyes practically burned when I opened them. For a moment—okay, for a long fucking while—I was disoriented, blinking up at a ceiling I knew but for the life of me couldn’t recognize. That ceiling…was it mine? Was it the one in my room? It looked…less white than I remembered.

  Or maybe that was just my head, playing tricks on me. Maybe I just needed another round.

  My vision was still hazy, and I flung my arm off the bed, feeling around on my nightstand, where I knew for a fact I had some. Oxy wasn’t the best high, but it was easy to get, and the higher dose you took, the better you felt. Or at least I did. I thought. It was nearly impossible for me to be sure of anything these days, because a month ago, I would’ve sworn I was past this.

  Past the drugs. Not so much past the alcohol. And definitely not so much past the cunt, but what did all of that matter? Hint: it didn’t. Nothing fucking mattered anymore, not when life literally wasn’t worth living.

  I lost Sabrina, wasn’t there for her when she needed me. I had a family who didn’t really give a shit about me, save for what I could do for them and the family business. Hiking the prices of pharmaceuticals? The Salvatores were your people. Maybe that was why it was always so easy for me to get pills.

  No, I didn’t have anyone, and I made damn sure to push the few people who stuck around away. I blamed Declan for it all, but that was just me projecting the blame. I didn’t really blame Declan, because I blamed myself. I was just too bullheaded to realize it.

  And Travis…I didn’t like the fact that Travis had gone behind my back to sabotage my revenge scheme. I didn’t like that he thought he knew it all. He was a self-centered, egotistical prick, and I hated him for it. I hated him for it almost as much as I hated myself, but in all honesty, I couldn’t hate anyone as much as I hated myself.

  Then there was her. The girl I really shouldn’t think about, ever. The girl whose face appeared fuzzy in my head, but at the same time, she was the only one I could picture with clarity. The rest of the world was a blur, but she wasn’t. Fucking Ash. I didn’t want to think about her, didn’t want to picture her face, but I did. I did, way too often.

  Ash was my downfall. She was the piece in everything I hadn’t expected, and she wormed her way inside of me in spite of my efforts to push her away. She met my antagonizing and bullying with challenges of her own, and I hated her for it.

  Hate.

  I did hate her.

  Or maybe I loved her. I didn’t fucking know. My thoughts were jumbled and I could hardly think straight, let alone know for a fact what I felt.

  My hand found nothing on my nightstand. Nothing at all. No bags, no pills, nothing but the flat surface of the wood, and I struggled to turn my head, feeling like my skull weighed a thousand pounds, as I brought my eyes to it.

  I felt nothing on it because there was nothing. My nightstand was clean. What the fuck?

  I sat up, nearly strangling myself because of some stupid cape I wore. The string tugged around my neck, and once I was able to, I pulled on it, undoing it and letting it fall back onto the bed. My head hurt like a bitch, and regardless o
f how much I tried to remember the events of last night, or even how I got back home, I couldn’t.

  Last I knew, I was invited to a party. A Stanton party. I must’ve gone, because throwing my own parties was something I was fucking done with, but then how did I get back here? Did I bring some girl home? Besides the aching head and stiff body, I felt alright. Clearly I hadn’t driven back here, so someone else must’ve.

  My clothes were still on, so either it wasn’t a girl or I was too out of it to fuck. Didn’t really seem like me, but maybe that was a good thing. Apparently fucking wasn’t always the answer, go figure. Took me twenty years to realize it—or, well, however many years it’d been since I’d started having sex. I didn’t remember.

  The answer to everything was actually drugs, not sex. Sex was only a temporary reliever, helping you only while you were in the act itself. Drugs, on the other hand, helped you even when you didn’t have a pill in your hand or a strap around your arm. Drugs helped you feel better, helped you forget things which would otherwise terrorize your mind. Without drugs, I’d be lost.

  Which was why I fucking needed to know where they were, why I didn’t have anything on my nightstand. I always made sure to keep myself well-stocked here and in the kitchen. They were the two rooms I spent most of my time in. Well, my bedroom and the living room. There just wasn’t much storage in the living room.

  I stumbled as I stood. Every limb of my body felt like it wanted to fall off, like a bunch of rocks had been shoved inside of me when I wasn’t looking. It just felt like a heavy skin suit, and I dragged my feet as I made my way to the door, and after that, the hall.

  I…I heard talking downstairs, which was odd. My mind sought to remember what happened last night, but it was a hazy blur. I slowly moved to the stairwell, needing to grip the railing hard in order to keep myself from falling down.

  Hmm.

  A thought entered my head just then, a terrible thought, but it was a lot more straightforward than killing myself slowly with pills. I could fall down the stairs, break my neck, and die. Seemed simple, and it would make everyone happy, wouldn’t it? Declan would be happy his tormentor was gone, Travis would be happy I would no longer be around to try to take Ash, and my parents could find some little orphan boy and teach him the ins and outs of our family, make him care about the Salvatore legacy.

  And Ash…she wouldn’t miss me anyway. I’d done nothing but use her, or try to anyway. I wasn’t good for her, for anyone. She was better off without me. I’d only drag her down, just like I tried dragging everyone else around me down too…

  I was about halfway down the stairs when I realized something. Those voices downstairs sounded kind of familiar. So familiar, like I’d spent my childhood with them—but that was ridiculous, because why the hell would Travis and Declan be here? And why the fuck would they be talking to each other?

  “And your brother, Markus, he hasn’t got back to you yet?” Declan asked, sounding quite frantic.

  “I told you, Markus is good, but he’s only good when he knows his target. Ray is an unknown, and if he’s worth his weight, he’ll know to stay off the radar. He could be nearby, near Stanton,” Travis spoke, theorizing about something I had no clue about, “or he could be out of state. He could’ve taken her so far away even my family could take forever tracking him down.”

  I was at the bottom of the stairs—quite an arduous, difficult journey for someone whose body felt like a thousand pounds of bricks—when Declan asked, “What does your family even do, Travis? Because from what it sounds like, it seems illegal.”

  “My family does what it has to,” Travis shot back. “They do what their sponsors ask them to, just as I will once I’m out of Hillcrest.” Travis stood with his back to me, and Declan was busy staring out of the nearest window. Neither of them saw me, and they were too busy talking to hear me come down the steps.

  “So you don’t plan on sticking around?” Declan questioned. “Even if Ash asked you to?”

  Travis was quiet for a while, and even though his back was to me, I knew what look he wore. His lips pursed, a frown on his face. Travis held in his emotions, wearing a mask in most cases. He was a hard one to peg down. “You don’t run from your family duties, and if you do, it’s only because the family lets you go.” There was a pause before he whispered, “I won’t run from my future, but I will stand by Ash’s side as long as she’ll have me—”

  Ugh, fuck. They both sounded way too lovey-dovey for me. I hated the turn of the conversation immediately, and I let out a grumble as I moved away from the stairs and to the kitchen, yanking open the drawers one by one. “Not that your conversation isn’t riveting,” I mocked them, tossing them both what I hoped were glares, “but I need help finding…”

  The drawer that I kept my stash in was empty, and the rest of the drawers yielded nothing but silverware and baking books, among other things. What the flying fuck?

  I slammed the drawer shut, causing my body to ache something fierce, but I didn’t care. The sound of it being harshly closed made my head hurt worse than it already did.

  “Where the fuck is my shit?” I asked, practically yelling even though my raised voice made me wince. Pure irritation coursed through me, and I couldn’t stop myself from wanting to lunge at them both.

  Did one of them clean me out? Why? I knew they weren’t using the pills themselves, so it was a fucking waste if they thought they could help me get clean or some stupid shit like that. Besides, I didn’t want help. Having either of them help me? Hah. I’d rather gouge out my own eyes with spoons.

  Travis sent me an unimpressed look. He’d seen me spiral before, so this was nothing new. What was new, however, was the fact that I hated both of the bitches standing in front of me. Travis and Declan could both go to hell.

  “You need to go back upstairs,” Travis said.

  “Fuck that,” I stated. “I’m only going upstairs once I know where my shit is.”

  “If you don’t go upstairs right now, I’m going to drag you up there myself.”

  I let out a laugh. I was the most ripped out of each of us, my body holding the most muscle. No one was going to take me anywhere, though they were welcome to try. I might feel like shit, but I could still take either one of them should they try.

  “Sawyer,” Declan spoke, sounding quite calm, given the circumstances. Given the fucking fact they were both in my house, even though I was pretty sure I remembered telling Travis off and saying he wasn’t ever welcome in my house again. And Declan, well, he not being allowed here should be obvious.

  They used to be my friends, but now? Now I didn’t have friends, which I should’ve known from the get-go. I was a Salvatore, and Salvatores didn’t have friends or girlfriends they were free to choose based on feelings and not social status. Oh, no. Us Salvatores had obligations.

  “Sawyer,” Declan said my name again, softer this time. He moved away from the window, moving through the living room towards me, stopping when he stood near Travis. “Please go back upstairs. You’re out of your mind.”

  My eyes dragged between Travis and Declan, and I let out an ugly chuckle. “What? You guys are friends now? Back together? Bestest buddies like no one else ever had? Fuck you,” I said, digging in my pants’ pocket. “I don’t need to find where you hid them. I can…” My hand couldn’t find my phone. Both pockets were empty.

  What the shit?

  “Looking for this?” Travis waved my phone in the air, giving me a frown.

  “Give that back,” I growled out, fighting off new waves of nausea. I lurched out of the kitchen, trying to grab my phone from him, but he was able to easily push me off. My strength was no good when I could barely stand on my own two feet, I guess. “Where do you guys get off, doing this to me? You’re not my friends. You’re—” I stopped, leaning against the counter behind me. I stood on the threshold between the kitchen and the living room, staring at my old friends, wondering just how we’d reached this point.

  Sabrina. I lost her. Th
at’s how we got here. One girl tore us apart. My baby sister, dating Declan, sleeping with Travis on the side. One girl who stepped in between us, made us each lose something, and literally tore our lives apart.

  “We’re not doing this for you,” Declan said, shaking his head in disgust.

  “We’re doing it for Ash,” Travis added. “All of this is for Ash, you fucktard. You need to go upstairs and sweat it out, because by God, if you end up hurting Ash again, Sawyer, I won’t hold back. I’ll hurt you ten times worse.”

  Even Declan had to look at Travis on that one, because the threat was spoken so seriously, so quietly, anyone would’ve believed it. Even me. Even me, as much as I felt like shit. I believed him, though I wasn’t sure what he meant about hurting Ash again.

  My head spun. “I haven’t seen Ash since…” God, I couldn’t even remember. I could picture that girl’s face, how her storm grey eyes peered into my very soul, how her pink-tipped hair swayed in the breeze, but I couldn’t recall when I’d seen her last. Was that normal? My head…my head felt like it just didn’t want to work.

  “You saw her last night,” Travis spoke matter-of-factly, sliding my phone into his pocket. The hand on the arm with the dragon tattoo curled into a fist, and it looked as though he was visibly struggling to hold himself back from me. “You saw her last night, while you were buried in her best friend. Or don’t you remember? I’m not surprised. You were fucking out of it.”

  Buried in her best friend? As in…sex? I didn’t even remember having sex, but it wasn’t the first time in my life I’d blacked out, and it probably wouldn’t be the last. Even if these assholes made me sober, my sobriety wouldn’t last. It never did. I was a Salvatore. I had my ways.

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “I was…” I thought I was at a Stanton party—and if I was, why the fuck was Ash’s best friend there? I didn’t even know who this chick was, didn’t know what she looked like.

  Ugh. Last night was a blurry haze, and fought as I try to remember it, I just couldn’t. The memories might come in time, or they might not. Literally only time would tell.