Page 206 of The Pucking Coach's Daughter
“Mierda,” I breathe. “Where did you find this?”
Penn tears it from my hand and shoves it at Carter. “I found it in the bushes out front. Did you have something to do with this?”
Carter blinks at us, then laughs. “Yeah, right. I’m in love with her. If I wanted to keep her away from you, I wouldn’t have brought you here.”
Penn scowls.
“Carter doing this wouldn’t make sense,” I say. “I…”
The pitch I gave to Bear comes back to me. I don’t want to remember it. I was livid with Sydney for wearing Penn’s sweatshirt around school. I hated that he played with her hair any chance he got, that he was able to talk to her and touch her. That he was fooled by her innocent act.
At any moment, she could give up information to Carter. To SJU. I was not about to be fucked over again.
Think of it this way, man. Penn’s so delusional about her, he doesn’t see that she’s wearing a mask. So I say we grab her, we show her what a scary fucking mask is supposed to look like, and we prove to our teammate that she’s not worth the dirt stuck to our boots.
When I recall it, the hungry gleam in Bear’s gaze stands out. The way he seemed to light up when I laid out more of the plan. To buy masks, to grab her and toss her in the trunk, to generally terrify her with the threat of violence.
That plan obviously imploded when Penn found us and I left them alone.
I shudder.
Bear was someone I never should’ve involved. But he was my teammate, and I put misguided trust in him. He didn’t deserve any of it.
And now he has her.
“We need to do something,” I urge. “We need to find them.”
My mind is already going back to how I found them. The rope around her throat, her wrists. The way she was gasping for air, her leggings pulled down?—
I can only imagine what he’ll do to her when no one is there to stop him.
sixty-three
sydney
I don’t know when I lost consciousness, but I come back with a bolt of electricity. My body goes rigid, from sleep to pain. It arcs through me for another second, then stops.
I sag and slowly open my eyes. There’s nothing to see, though. When I drag in a sharp breath, the fabric of the bag presses against my open mouth. My body aches. It takes me a minute to figure out where my limbs are.
My wrists are over my head. I’m vertical—barely. Most of my weight rests on my shoulders. My fingers are numb. I reach for the floor with my toes and just scrape it. I struggle for a minute before I can take some of my weight there.
Immediately, my shoulders burn with the release.
That same chuckle comes back to me.
A second later, I’m doused with cold water. I thrash, losing my footing. Dull pain radiates from my shoulders across my back and up my arms, ending at my wrists. Everything above it may as well be gone.
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from crying out. Blood coats my tongue and grounds me to the present. Chains me here, really. I focus on the copper taste. Not my welling panic, which will overtake me at any moment. Not the bone-chilling cold now prickling at my skin.
Not the way my clothes are roughly stripped off my body.
I kick out. My bare foot connects with something soft, and a wheezing grunt reaches my ears.
Suddenly, the hood is whipped off my head, and the huge guy in the new clown mask looms in front of me.
Bear.
It’s Bear. Whatever his fucking real name is—it flees my mind as pure terror takes over. I try to gain purchase on the floor, to back away from him, but my now-bare feet get no traction on the wet concrete.