Page 41 of The Pucking Coach's Daughter
“She broke your nose, hmm?” I lean forward, until my lips are almost at her ear. I don’t want to touch her, but I’m practically flattened against her. The brim of my hat touches her temple. “She got the best of you for a moment, didn’t she? And now I do.”
I press harder on her throat. At the first cut, the girl breaks. She’s trembling so bad, I have to remove the knife or risk slitting her throat on accident. That would be a travesty. I like to do things with purpose. This girl bleeding out in the FSU parking garage would only create… sympathy for her.
When Sydney deserves the school’s sympathy more than anyone.
I grit my teeth and curl my fingers into her hair. I pull her head back a fraction and slam it back to the glass.
“Talk,” I order.
“It wasn’t my idea,” she cries. Tears spill down her cheeks. “I just wanted to fit in with Andi’s group. When she asked me, I couldn’t say no.”
“Ask her what?”
“T-to help her teach Sydney a lesson. We followed her into the bathroom during the game and?—”
“And?” I tug on her hair.
“And when it was empty, we taped her to the toilet. Took pictures?—”
My stomach flips. They fucking taped her—those bruises are from tape?
“How long?”
She licks her lips. Such an unattractive girl, blubbering in my hold.
“Come on,” I say, switching tactics. “You tell me this, I let you go. Yeah? You can go home like none of this happened. Or you clam up, and I give you a permanent reminder of tonight.”
Take that as she will.
The smell of urine rises between us.
I bite back my curse and shift back, out of the way as she loses control of her bladder.
“We closed the bathroom,” she finally whispers. “I think the janitor found her after the game…”
I release her. The knife folds, tucks back in my pocket. The phone comes out.
I snap a picture of my own.
“Andi Sharpe. She was the mastermind behind your little plan?”
The girl jumps away from me. Her gaze sticks to my shoes, my earlier threat apparently still fresh in her mind. The business of cutting out her eyes turns my stomach, but she doesn’t have to know that.
“Oliver texted her that Sydney was at the game,” she whispers. “But I don’t think he told her what to d0?—”
“Where can I find her?”
“I—”
“If you lie, this picture is going straight to your FSU gossip page.” I shove my phone, and the photo of her with soiled pants, under her face. “Where does she live?”
Andi Sharpe lives with one roommate. I wait until their lights go out, then wait a little more. When I’m convinced they’re most likely asleep, I break into their first-floor apartment. I don’t bother concealing the sounds. The cracking, falling glass is loud enough.
I climb in, my boots hitting the floor hard. I glance around the common area and grab a chair from their kitchen table. I drag it with me and shove it under the roommate’s door handle. It wouldn’t stop her if she tried to force it open, since it swings inward, but it’ll stop the handle from turning… and that should be enough for someone who might be too scared to even try.
Following the loose instructions the black-eyed girl gave me, I head down the hallway and shove open Andi’s bedroom door.
It cracks against the far wall, and the girl screams. She’s sitting upright in bed, her phone in her hand.